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 whole world, it seems—and that includes many unbelievers—have worked themselves into a frenzy of adoration toward Pope Francis. He’s such a humble man, they say, and he wears regular shoes! He lives in a tiny apartment instead of the fancy Vatican digs of his predecessor.
Those people were always fooling themselves, for the Pope must uphold one of the world’s most autocratic (and harmful) faiths, and he wouldn’t be Pope if he were going to fundamentally change Church dogma.
Sure enough, as reported by the BBC today, Pope Francis is reacting to the UN’s report (which faults the Church strongly and urges immediate action to root out sexual deviants from the clergy), with anything but humility.
Pope Francis has strongly defended the Roman Catholic Church’s record on tackling sexual abuse by priests.
In a rare interview with an Italian newspaper, the Pope said “no-one else has done more” to root out paedophilia.
He said the Church had acted with transparency and responsibility, yet it was the only institution to have been attacked.
And who else was supposed to be attacked?
In his interview with Corriere della Sera published on Wednesday, Pope Francis said: “The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution to have acted with transparency and responsibility.
“No-one else has done more. Yet the Church is the only one to have been attacked.”
The Pope, who will celebrate his first anniversary of his election later this month, also praised his predecessor, Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI, for changing the Church’s attitude towards predatory priests, saying he had been “very courageous”.
He also questioned the focus of the debate, saying: “The statistics on the phenomenon of violence against children are shocking, but they also clearly show that the great majority of abuses are carried out in family or neighbourhood environments.”
What kind of statement is that? That Church had institutionalized pedophilia, knew of the problem, tried to sweep it under the rug, and was called out for it. And the Pope tells us: “It’s not that bad: after all, more child abuse occurs outside the church than within it.” Is that supposed to absolve his Church of responsibility? It’s the worst possible thing he could have said, and it’s dripping with arrogance and insouciance.
“The Pope may make this statement, but then the Vatican doesn’t reply to the UN or impose the obligation that bishops should denounce accused priests in the courts and not deal with the cases internally.”
The founder of the US-based website, BishopAccountability.org, Terence McKiernan, was more direct in his criticism, complaining that the Pope had not merely failed to apologise to the children who had been abused but had not even expressed sorrow.
“It is astonishing, at this late date, that Pope Francis would recycle such tired and defensive rhetoric,” he said.
This photo may have been staged to accentuate the mimicry of this buff-tip moth (Phalara bucephala), but there’s little doubt that it evolved to resemble a broken twig. It’s another remarkable case of the efficacy of natural selection. Note how its head (a feature that birds often look for) is appressed to the twig to make the moth even more inconspicuous.
The moth, by the way, is European, and the picture comes from a Russian website that I can’t translate, and is courtesy of reader Jim E.
The piece takes off from the much-discussed Oscar acceptance speech of Matthew McConaughey, who won the Best Actor award for his performance in Dallas Buyers Club. Here’s a low-quality clip, which is the best I can do. What caused all the “controversy” was his thanks to God and his claim that “it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates.”
Conservative talk-show hosts like Beck and Limbaiugh praised McConaughey for his piety, and claimed that it went against the grain of Hollywood’s pervasive atheism. To be sure, I didn’t see much negative reaction to what McConaughey said (and, truth be told, I didn’t find the speech so bad), and arguments like those of the Christian Post, that it showed Hollywood’s atheism because the applause was “tepid,” aren’t borne out (listen to the approbation in the clip above). Frankly, if McConaughey wants to parade his beliefs in a two-minute Oscar acceptance speech, who cares? He’s not imposing them on anyone else.
Krauss, however, takes the opposite view of Limbaugh and Beck, arguing, based on his experience (he was a producer for the film “The Unbelievers,” featuring him and Dawkins), that Hollywood is in fact biased in favor of religion. That’s because religion sells:
But Matthew McConaughey’s words of gratitude are far from the only sign that God is, in fact, alive and well in Hollywood. This month, major movie studios are doing more evangelizing than Pat Robertson, with the release of two Biblical blockbusters. Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah,” which arrives in theatres at the end of March, dramatizes the famously incredible story of a man and his ark, while the unambiguously titled “Son of God,” released last week, provides the umpteenth dramatization of the Biblical story of Jesus. For those that like their religion more saccharine, April will bring “Heaven is for Real,” the film adaptation of the best-seller about a young boy who, after nearly dying on the operating table, convinces his family that he actually visited heaven during surgery. The evidence? He describes his experience in terms that bear a remarkable resemblance to the visions of heaven he had likely been exposed to at home.
When a non-religious person—part of a growing minority in the United States and the rest of the developed world—points out that these stories are facile at best and demeaning at worst, they risk being condemned as “strident,” or at least disrespectful of religious sensibilities (as Adam Gopnik mentioned in his piece on atheism in a recent issue of the magazine, and as I have experienced first hand). But since piety is profitable, studio executives have carefully tended to their Christian audiences, especially after the success of Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ,” in 2004.
In fact, I look forward to “Heaven is for Real,” and its inevitable successor “Proof of Heaven,” based on the best-selling (and largely discredited) book of Eben Alexander. What a fine double bill that would make at an atheist meeting, complete with a bucket of popcorn and a gallon of Coke!
At any rate, it’s good to see some explicit atheism in The New Yorker, though Krauss’s piece does sound a bit self-pitying at times, citing the usual statistic that Americans distrust atheists more than anyone else, and stating that nonbelief is universally decried. (That’s about as useful as stating that broccoli is green.) But in the end, Hollywood is a business, and it will make movies designed to sell. There is no “freedom of speech” requirement in the movie industry, though Krauss implies that movies are marginalizing atheists:
No one can fault Hollywood for recognizing that religion, like violence, is often profitable at the box office. But this logic leads to a prevailing bias that reinforces a pervasive cultural tilt against unbelief and further embeds religious myths in the popular consciousness. It marginalizes those who would ridicule these myths in the same manner as we ridicule other aspects of our culture, from politics to sex.
It is not “logic” that religious movies make money: it’s a simple fact. Krauss’s victimhood stance seems a bit unseemly to me, but perhaps not to others. Further, listening to the speech above, I found Krauss’s reaction a bit over the top:
Similarly, McConaughey’s decision to open his acceptance speech with thanks to God—as in many similar statements, usually made by victorious athletes in post-game interviews—was widely regarded as a sign of humility: a mark of virtue, in other words. I would argue that it would be far more humble to suggest that his hard work, the incredible physical transformation he underwent, and the dedicated cast and crew who supported his acting experience all directly led to his winning the award, rather than his being specially “blessed” by a God who chose him for that privilege.
This reminds me of Dan Dennett’s well known and wonderful essay “Thank Goodness,” where, after a cardiac event that nearly killed him, he thanked the doctors, nurses, and researchers that were behind his eventual cure, and gave God no credit. Krauss continues:
And yet, to say this out loud—in a culture many believe to be hostile to religion—is often taken for rudeness. Whatever one might hear on the right about a war on religion, in this country we still care more about catering to religious sensibilities, even in liberal Hollywood, than we do about encouraging the open questioning of the claims of the faithful.
First of all, McConaughey did not open his acceptance speech with thanks to God: he started by thanking the Academy, the other nominees, his director, and another associate. Then, at 1:30 in the video, he talks about God “gracing his life with opportunities”, adduces the Argument from Gratitude (all to audience applause and cheers), and then thanks his father and mother for his upbringing, as well as his wife, his kids, and other people I don’t recognize.
After all that, it seems a bit churlish to reprove McConaughey for not deliberately dissing God and thanking the other cast and crew. For, I think, that’s what Krauss is suggesting McConaughey should have done: what else would have been construed as “rudeness”? After all, it’s not construed “rudeness” when other recipients ignore God and thank their associates, co-workers and family. What only would have been “rude” is to say that he had not been blessed by a God.
One other comment: Krauss suggests that the idea of a war between religion and secularism in America is wrong; but I just don’t get his argument:
It is an article of faith among the religious right in America that we are in the midst of a war on religion (in which “religion” usually means Christianity), even though considerable evidence suggests the opposite. This defensive misperception is what led, earlier this year, to a proposed law in Arizona that would have legalized discrimination against gay couples on the ground of “religious freedom,” when in fact there was no evidence to indicate that the religious beliefs of any business owners had been legally infringed upon in the state.
In the minds of those who believe themselves to be targets of this war, the pernicious influence of Hollywood often looms large. Sunday’s Oscars—hosted by an openly gay celebrity, with two winners from a film about AIDS patients in the nineteen-eighties—might seem to confirm the culture industry’s reputation for liberalism and libertinism.
Well, maybe Hollywood isn’t at war with religion, but the rest of us, including Krauss, are. Heathenism has been let out of the bottle, and it isn’t going back in. In fact, “The Unbelievers” is the very sign of this conflict. If there’s not a “war,” who are we opposing?
The mating call of the garish red-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)taken by Stephen Barnard. Males have the epaulets, which they display when looking for mates or defending territories, while females lack them. Stephen’s information:
700mm, ISO 2000, f/8, 1/3000, handheld. There are so many of these birds now—scores, after they’ve been absent all winter. They vibrate their wings when they call. That’s why the red-feathered display is blurry, even at 1/3000sec. Getting that sharp would require 1/8000 and better light.
Many of us have seen this New World bird, sitting perched atop twigs (or in this case cattails), displaying and singing its “trilling” song (listen to the variety of its songs here).
Its range, from the Cornell Ornithology site:
And fun blackbird facts:
Male Red-winged Blackbirds fiercely defend their territories during the breeding season, spending more than a quarter of daylight hours in territory defense. He chases other males out of the territory and attacks nest predators, sometimes going after much larger animals, including horses and people.
Red-winged Blackbirds roost in flocks in all months of the year. In summer small numbers roost in the wetlands where the birds breed. Winter flocks can be congregations of several million birds, including other blackbird species and starlings. Each morning the roosts spread out, traveling as far as 50 miles to feed, then re-forming at night.
The oldest recorded Red-winged Blackbird was 15 years 9 months old.
Hili: This mouse I just ate had an angelic taste.
A: How do you know? You’ve never eaten angels.
Hili: But I did once eat a sparrow, and sparrows have feathers, too.
In Polish:
Hili: Ta myszka, którą właśnie zjadłam miała anielski smak.
Ja: Skąd wiesz, przecież nigdy nie jadłaś aniołów?
Hili: Ale jadłam wróble, które też mają piórka.
Alert reader Su called my attention to this stunning photo of my town that appeared on the site Twisted Sifter. It was taken by Mark Hersch—with an iPhone! The details:
Taken from his window seat (with his iPhone) as he approached O’Hare, amateur photographer Mark Hersch captured this incredible photo that shows the famous Chicago skyline reflected in Lake Michigan below, just as the sun sets above. Talk about perfect timing!
And if you look really closely, you can see a second airplane in the center of the image, soaring above the clouds as well! Mark tells the Daily Mail:
“I was flying home to Chicago from a business trip recently. It was a cloudy day, late in the afternoon. We were flying eastbound, made a pass by O’Hare International Airport, then made a sweeping 180-degree left turn over Lake Michigan for our final westward approach into the airport. I looked down and through a narrow break in the clouds, I saw the shadow of the Chicago skyline projecting onto the lake. Oddly enough, I am a very frequent flyer and almost always sit in an aisle seat, but on this flight there were only window seats available.”
Can you find the other airplane? I did! (It’s harder than a nightjar.)
