Oy vey: UK schools replace secular philosophy courses with religious ones

January 31, 2014 • 7:24 am

I tend to hold Jews to a higher standard than Christians, probably because of my quasi-Jewish upbringing and the general impression that Jews are on average smarter than members of other faiths (I don’t know that for sure, but they are certainly overrepresented in academic and among Nobel Laureates). And thus I get especially upset when a religious Jew does something really stupid, which is not uncommon.

Likewise, I tend to hold Brits to a higher standard than Americans, perhaps because they’re not as religious and their accent makes them sound smart. But then that feeling is weakened when the Brits do something so boneheaded that you wouldn’t see it even in America. And they’ve just pulled such a stunt, as reported in new piece by Charlie Duncan Saffrey at the Guardian‘s “Comment is free” section:  “Philosophy is not religion. It must not be taught that way.” (The Guardian notes that Saffrey, a writer and teacher, “is also the founder and host of Stand-up Philosophy, a regular live philosophy show in London”.)

Saffrey reports some proposed changes in the A-level philosophy course beginning in 2015. (“A levels” represent courses of study taken in Wales and England during a student’s last two years of secondary school, before university. Students are about 17 and 18 years old, and have to take three A-level curricula.)

The revisions in the philosophy requirements are completely idiotic: they’re dumping many classical topics in philosophy in favor of—”wait for it,” as the Brits say—philosophy of religion. Note that philosophy of religion is not the history of religion, but apologetics and various arguments for God’s existence and nature.

Saffrey begins his piece with a bunch of acronyms that mystify non-Brits, but the meaning is clear:

For the last nine years, I have taught the AQA’s A-level philosophy course. It’s a good course, and the only one to represent the breadth of philosophy as a discipline in its own right. So I was somewhat surprised to learn that the AQA have this week, without warning or consultation, published a completely new draft syllabus, which is now just waiting to be rubber-stamped by Ofqual.

The new specification completely excludes the previous options to study aesthetics, free will, all European philosophy since Kant, and – most significantly – political philosophy. This will be all replaced with a compulsory philosophy of religion topic, which will make up 50% of the AS course.

The exam board will also reduce the marks given for students’ ability to critique and construct arguments, and more marks will be given for simply knowing the theories involved. Essentially, where young philosophers were previously rewarded for being able to think for themselves and question the role of government, the new course can only be passed by students who can regurgitate classic defences of the existence and perfection of God.

Well, maybe they had no choice to dump the “free will” part. And, to be sure, there are really two sections in the new curriculum: epistemology and philosophy of religion. I presume the latter is replacing all the things mentioned in Saffrey’s second paragraph.

You can download a pdf of the proposed philosophy specifications here; the relevant part is on page 7:

Picture 1Surveys have shown (I’m not sure if they’re limited to the U.S) that while philosophers in general are overwhelmingly nonbelievers, philosophers of religion are predominantly religious. That means, of course, that students are going to get exposed to a lot more religious belief, apologetics, and other useless stuff. Saffrey, correctly, finds this unconscionable:

Meanwhile, the areas that have been casually dropped are the very areas of philosophy that make it a dynamic, relevant and academically rigorous subject. Political philosophy helps us make sense of politics and consider the importance of freedom and justice; considering free will gives us an opportunity to consider our responsibility for our actions. Both of these are apparently no longer worthy of teaching – nor is the option of a detailed reading of philosophical texts like Plato’s Republic or Mill’s On Liberty. It is not merely that the course that has been dumbed down; philosophy itself is being misrepresented.

A representative of the exam board told me on the telephone that it was “too difficult” to comparatively assess students across the different topics which were options before, so they were changing it so that everyone had to do the “most popular” ones. This is a bit like a science examiner saying that it would be “too difficult” to assess both physics and biology, so it would be better to just drop physics altogether.

(The reason philosophy of religion questions appear “popular” with students is actually that many centres ill-advisedly get an RE teacher to teach the course. Not being philosophers, they tell their students to do the religious questions whether they like it or not.)

As Saffrey notes, this is going to make it harder for secular philosophy to disentangle itself from religious philosophy—a struggle that’s been going on for years.  And I think it will certainly devalue philosophy degrees in the UK.  Imagine having to study Alvin Plantinga or Richard Swinburne rather than Plato, Mill, Rawls, or Singer!  Instead of pondering what makes a good life, or how can one construct a good ethical system, students will be reading justifications of the nonexistent.

I bet Anthony Grayling is FURIOUS about this. In fact, I think I’ll ask him what he thinks; his reaction should be amusing.

h/t: Matthew Cobb

Readers’ wildlife photos: insects

January 31, 2014 • 5:40 am

Reader Pete Moulton, responding to my call for photos of animals without feathers, has given us some nice insect shots. His captions are indented; click photos to enlarge.

You can see more of Pete’s wonderful photos, including those of mammals and b*rds, at his ipernity site.

In answer to your plea for some nonavian wildlife photographs for your website, I’ll offer these. Photographing birds is my hobby; bugs (yes, I know) are serious business.

Hesperagrion heterodoxum is the Painted Damsel, a common enough damselfly in Arizona, but restricted in range to the desert Southwest. This one’s a male, photographed along the Hassayampa River near Wickenburg, Arizona. My favorite insect.

Hesperagrion heterodoxum

Erpetogomphus lampropeltis is a male Serpent Ringtail, a clubtail dragonfly (Gomphidae). Another southwesterner, but more widespread than the Painted Damsel. Coastal populations have gray thoraxes, while our inland version has green. This handsome guy was at a small stream northeast of Carefree, Arizona.

Erpetogomphus lampropeltis_Seven Springs 8-9-08_5779

Ammophila aberti is a female thread-waisted wasp at her burrow. Once the burrow is finished, she’ll stock it with a small caterpillar, lay her eggs on it, and seal up the entrance. The larval wasps will then subsist on the body of the paralyzed, but still living, caterpillar until they pupate and emerge as adults. This little girl is around 20mm long, but her life history is very similar to that of the better known Tarantula Hawks, just on a much smaller scale.

Ammophila aberti_Granite Reef 6-14-08_5055

Last, but not least, is a female Thistledown Velvet Ant Dasymutilla gloriosa, which is in the process of digging up the burrows dug by the thread-waisted and local sand wasps. Very fast and difficult to photograph, unless you can find them at this business, which localizes them enough that you might get some shots. A ferocious stinger, by all accounts, so I treat them with plenty of respect. This and the thread-waisted were both along the Rîo Salado northeast of Mesa, Arizona.

I remembered that “velvet ants” weren’t really ants, but couldn’t remember the group, and Pete gave me the answer:

A lot of Dasymutilla spp. do resemble ants, though D. gloriosa doesn’t look like anything so much as a windblown creosotebush seed. They’re wasps of the family Mutillidae. Only the males have wings and can fly; the females are wingless.

Dasymutilla gloriosa_5-30-11_Granite Reef_8112

I’ve since learned that velvet “ants”, comprising over 3,000 species of wasps in the family Mutillidae, are so called because of their combination of wingless females and their covering of bristles, often brightly colored). Those bright colors are “aposematic”—or “warning” coloration—telling predators to avoid these creatures. Velvet ants have painful stings and tough exoskeletons that make them hard to nom, and the coloration has presumably evolved to save the insect from being tasted by a predator who has already learned to avoid its pattern. (Presumably the bright coloration is easier for predators to learn. In some cases it may have evolved through “kin selection”—the first colorful mutant insect is actually more likely to be eaten, as it sticks out like a sore thumb; but a learning predator can then avoid its brothers and sisters who also carry the genes for that coloration. There are other scenarios for the evolution of aposematic coloration involving individual rather than kin selection.)

Wikipedia says this about velvet ants:

The exoskeleton of all velvet ants is unusually tough (to the point that some entomologists have reported difficulty piercing them with steel pins when attempting to mount them for display in cabinets). This characteristic allows them to successfully invade the nests of their prey and also helps them retain moisture. Like related families in the Vespoidea, males have wings but females uniformly are wingless. They exhibit extreme sexual dimorphism; the males and females are so different, it is almost impossible to associate the two sexes of a species unless they are captured while mating. In a few species, the male is so much larger than the female, he carries her aloft while mating, which is also seen in the related family Tiphiidae.

If you want to see a bunch of fearsome-looking velvet ants enrobed in red (and one in striking royal blue), click the Google image search here.

Biology lesson:  Learn what aposematic coloration is. Patterns can be aposematic, too, as in the prominent striping of wasps, coral snakes—and skunks. So can behavior: think of the mock “threat displays” of snakes and other animals who aren’t toxic or dangerous, but mimic the displays of species that are.

 

Friday: Hili dialogue

January 31, 2014 • 3:55 am

As if cats were moral!

A: What are you looking for?
Hili: Matt Ridley’s book, “The Origins of Virtue”
A: Why?
Hili: Darwin Day is coming. I have to tell people where feline morality came from.

(Photo: Sarah)

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In Polish:

Ja: Czego szukasz?
Hili: Książki Matta Ridley’a “O pochodzeniu cnoty”.
Ja: Dlaczego?
Hili: Zbliża się Dzień Darwina, muszę ludziom opowiedzieć skąd się wzięła kocia moralność.

The New Republic publishes my God-and-sports post

January 30, 2014 • 3:07 pm

My post from yesterday on the large number of Americans who believe that sports contests are influenced by supernatural forces has been published (in slightly revised form) by the New Republic, and retitled as “Does God decide the Super Bowl winner? That’s what most Americans believe.” I’ve added a new final sentence, which I quite like.

Two spectacular murmurations

January 30, 2014 • 1:49 pm

UPDATE: It’s been pointed out by a couple of readers, and gleefully by the Discovery Institute, that the first video below comes from a documentary on Intelligent Design called “Flight: The genius of birds”.  I didn’t know that when I posted it, and I didn’t look up the link at the end, for I was simply mesmerized by the display of murmuration.  Had I known this, I would certainly have called it to the readers’ attention, but I probably still would have posted the video, with a caveat, because the visuals are spectacular. Even a blind pig, or a herd of them, can find an acorn.

The phenomenon of murmuration, which scientists are trying to explain (and starting to succeed) gives not the slightest evidence for God, so those of you who are gloating that a pro-ID video appeared on this site, just stuff it! Nobody here is going to look at that video and say, “Geez, that’s strong evidence for God!” If you do, you’re at the wrong place.

There are many unexplained behaviors in the animal kingdom, and if you’re going to take them all as evidence for God, you’re on precarious ground.

__________

The Oxford English Dictionary has two definitions for “murmuration”:

a. The action of murmuring; the continuous utterance of low, barely audible sounds; complaining, grumbling; an instance of this. Now chiefly literary.

and

2. A flock (of starlings). One of many alleged group terms found in late Middle English glossarial sources, but not otherwise substantiated. Revived and popularized in the 20th cent.

So the origin of the term as a group of starlings is obscure, though I suspect it comes from of the murmuring sound such a group makes, which I’ve heard in person.

Regardless, I’ve previously posted videos of the amazing flocks of starlings that form before evening roosts, sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands. And the flocks form amazing and ever-changing patterns in the air—I think of them as an avian Aurora Borealis. Here’s one of many videos you can find on YouTube:

But why do they do this? Well, it’s almost certainly for protection from predators (thick, shifting groups keep avian predators from singling out one individual, which is the way they usually hunt, since charging into a flock of birds without a designated prey can injure you), as well as using your groupmates as a way to find secure roosting sites and to keep warm when you land. We don’t know the answer, but, as Wired Science reports, we have some idea of how they do this:

Scientists had to wait for the tools of high-powered video analysis and computational modeling. And when these were finally applied to starlings, they revealed patterns known less from biology than cutting-edge physics.

Starling flocks, it turns out, are best described with equations of “critical transitions” — systems that are poised to tip, to be almost instantly and completely transformed, like metals becoming magnetized or liquid turning to gas. Each starling in a flock is connected to every other. When a flock turns in unison, it’s a phase transition.

At the individual level, the rules guiding this are relatively simple. When a neighbor moves, so do you. Depending on the flock’s size and speed and its members’ flight physiologies, the large-scale pattern changes. What’s complicated, or at least unknown, is how criticality is created and maintained.

It’s easy for a starling to turn when its neighbor turns — but what physiological mechanisms allow it to happen almost simultaneously in two birds separated by hundreds of feet and hundreds of other birds? That remains to be discovered, and the implications extend beyond birds. Starlings may simply be the most visible and beautiful example of a biological criticality that also seems to operate in proteins and neurons, hinting at universal principles yet to be understood.

That is, scientists can mimic the murmuration behaviors with computers using relatively simple rules. But mimicking behaviors on a computer is not the same thing as understanding the rules that the animals use themselves. In this case they’re probably very similar, but we still don’t know why the birds turn and who initiates it, much less how they avoid banging into each other when they’re in groups of thousands of individuals separated only by a winglength.

This is clearly an evolved behavior, but the details—largely physiological and neuronal rather than evolutionary—are still obscure.  And when we finally understand them—if we come to understand them—it will only add extra beauty to one of nature’s most spectacular displays.

Have a look at another murmuration:

I hope that you’re lucky enough to see one of these.

h/t: Norm

Jeremy Paxman talks to the Jesus and Mo artist; BBC and Channel 4 censor cartoon; Nawaz explains his tw**t of death

January 30, 2014 • 12:06 pm

As you may know, Liberal Democrat Maajid Nawaz, a Muslim and candidate for M.P., tweeted a perfectly innocuous Jesus and Mo cartoon, which has of course aroused ire in not just the British Muslim community, but among left-wing Brits, who are scared to death of Muslim ire and cowed by thoughts of appearing “Islamophobic.”  Nawaz has received the usual death threats (it’s scary that by now we’re used to these!), and a petition is circulating to the head of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, to remove Nawaz as a candidate. The petition has over 20,000 signatures.

On last night’s Newsnight on the BBC, Jeremy Paxman interviewed the anonymous Jesus and Mo artist, whose figure and voice are masked.  The video below comes from YouTube, and seems to feature only part of the interview. Paxman seems puzzled about why anybody would make fun of religion, particularly if it would a) cause offense, and b) lead to violence.  Those are fair questions, but Paxman seems more confrontational than objective in his questions:

The most contemptible part is that the BBC itself, as well as Channel 4 (a publicly owned station independent of the BBC) have censored the offending Jesus and Mo cartoon, at least according to a post on Cranmer. It was in fact censored twice: on the Channel 4 news and on Newsnight. Here are the versions given by Cranmer. Note how innocuous the original cartoon (first image) was.  The absence of an image from the Newsnight show apparently means that they didn’t show the cartoon at all, though I’m not sure. At any rate, even not showing it is an act of cowardice.

Picture 1

This is contemptible, and shows that Channel 4 and the BBC are cowed by fear of offending Muslims. Would they censor, for example, Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” (an “artwork” with a crucifix immersed in a jar of Serrano’s urine) for fear of offending Christians? I don’t think so, for “Piss Christ” featured prominently in a 2009 BBC documentary  called “Why beauty matters” (video below). Here’s a screenshot from minute 42 of that show, and you can clearly see Jesus floating in the urine (this version, from Vimeo, has Spanish subtitles):

Picture 1

I’d like to ask the BBC why they don’t mind offending Christian sensibilities but bridle at offending Muslims. We already know the answer, of course.

***

This just in: Reader Chris called my attention to a Guardian piece by Maajid Nawaz defending and explaining his decision: “Why I’m speaking up for Islam against the loudmouths who have hijacked it.” It’s an excellent piece, and the kind of thinking we hear far too infrequently from Muslims. An excerpt:

My intention was not to speak for any Muslim but myself – rather, it was to defend my religion from those who have hijacked it just because they shout the loudest. My intention was to carve out a space to be heard without constantly fearing the blasphemy charge, on pain of death. I did it for Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab who was assassinated by his bodyguard for calling for a review of Pakistan’s colonial-era blasphemy laws; for Malala Yusafzai, the schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban for wanting an education; and for Muhammad Asghar, a mentally ill British man sentenced to death for “blasphemy” last week in Pakistan.

My intention was to demonstrate that Muslims are able to see things we don’t like, yet remain calm and pluralist, and to demonstrate that there are Muslims who care more about the thousands of deaths in Iraq, Pakistan and Syria than we do about what a student is wearing. My intention was to highlight that Muslims can engage in politics without insisting that our own religious values must trump all others’ concerns, and to stand before the mob so that other liberal Muslim voices that are seldom heard, women’s and men’s, could come to the fore. And many such Muslim voices have been heard this last week.

However, in the final analysis, my intentions are irrelevant. What matters is this simple truth: I am free not to be offended by a cartoon I did not draw. If my prospective constituents do not like me not being offended, they are free not to vote for me. Other Muslims are free to be offended, and the rest of the country is free to ignore them. I will choose my policies based on my conscience. As such, I will continue to defend my prophet from those on the far right and Muslim extremes who present only a rigid, angry and irrational interpretation of my faith. I will stand for fairness, as Amnesty International once stood for me when I was a prisoner in Hosni Mubarak‘s Egypt. Because I believe that the difference between fairness and tribalism is the difference between choosing principles and choosing sides.

Of course I’m not wild about Islam, but if there were more people like Nawaz, at least its malevolence could be weakened. Sadly, I think he’s put a target on his back, and this piece just makes it more visible.

The bad news about evolution: every Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas supports teaching creationism in public schools. Of course.

January 30, 2014 • 9:13 am

Professing belief in creationism (or rejection of evolution) is becoming a litmus test for Republican candidates for office. Do you remember the 2007 Republican presidential debates, when the candidates were asked to raise their hands if they didn’t accept evolution? Here’s the clip showing the three out of eleven who raise their hands, effectively swearing that they’re either idiots or lying panderers. At least John McCain had the guts to affirm that he accepted evolution.

But it’s getting worse. From the Houston Chronicle we get this bit of depressing—but unsurprising—news about evolution. All four Republican candidates for Lieutenant Governor have come out in favor of teaching creationism in the public schools.  And this after Texas has just rejected any incursion of creationism into public-school textbooks! I’m told that in Texas, unlike other states, the lieutenant governor has extraordinary power, but I haven’t checked this out.

You can see the debate here, which includes other issues, but the Chronicle has handily summarized the candidates’ answers to the question posed by Texas Public Radio:

Does creationism belong in schools? Would you like to see creationism in textbooks?

The answers. Prepare to weep (my emphases):

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson: Creationism, intelligent design, evolution should be taught in school. Our students should be armed with knowledge about creationism, intelligent design, evolution. Let the parents and ministers decide what should prevail in child’s life. … Comparative religion – kids ought to learn about other religions. So they feel more comfortable with their own. … Should be tolerant.

Agricultural Commissioner Todd Staples: Don’t need to apologize for being a Christian. Creationism can be taught in our schools. It is something most Texans believe in. … Pay good teachers more. Lt. Gov Dewhurst is the first lieutenant governor to have a personal security detail. … We should expose kids to creationism. … We have many needs in our schools. We should end culture of teaching to the test. … Shouldn’t just throw money at education. To Dewhurst, he said: Your loss to Ted Cruz says you’re out of touch.

State Sen. Dan Patrick: We teach kids in church on Sunday about Jesus. On school, on Monday, they can’t talk about Jesus. They must be confused. We have yielded to secular left. I believe we’ve been blessed by God as a nation. When it comes to creationism, not only should it be taught, it should be triumphed, it should be heralded. Brought Christmas back into school; tired of “winter holidays.” … We have a crisis in our inner-city with dropout rates. We must have school choice. It is the hub of the wheel. We have no future in Texas if we don’t have an educated workforce. School choice would improve inner-city education.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst: I believe in creationism but I understand it alone cannot be taught. And I am fine with teaching creationism, intelligent design, evolution. Let students, with advice and counsel, decide for themselves which one they believe in. All three should be taught. As far as public education system, I am proud of improving public education over the years. Proud of passing a landmark school finance bill in 2006 – we put a record amount of new funds in. … I want to see merit pay. … Intelligent design, creationism and evolution should all be taught. We reduced teaching to the test.

In other words, since teaching creationism—whether Biblical or in the form of intelligent design—is illegal everywhere it has been contested in the U.S., all four candidates are advocating that their state violate our Constitution. Come on, Texas, why do you breed people like this?

The proper answer, even if you are a creationist, is “Well, I personally believe in creationism, but I also believe in good science, and the courts have declared that teaching religious theories of origins in the public schools is illegal. I believe in enforcing the law, not my personal religious beliefs.” But you won’t see these panderers saying that.

The Four Stooges:

Picture 1
Republican Texas lieutenant governor candidates, from left, Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, Sen. Dan Patrick, Agricultural Commissioner Todd Staples and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst. (AP)

h/t: Michael