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Many of Florida’s Sea Turtle Nests Were Destroyed by Hurricane Irma

By Karen Weintraub

In addition to wiping out homes and businesses, Hurricane Irma swept away a large number of sea turtle nests as it tore across Florida last month.

The state is a center of sea turtle nesting, and this year was developing into a very encouraging year for the endangered leatherback turtles, the threatened loggerheads and green turtles, said Kate Mansfield, a marine scientist and sea turtle biologist at the University of Central Florida. The hurricane suddenly dashed those hopes.

An official statewide picture of the damage to sea turtles won’t be available until Nov. 30, because the nesting season runs through at least the end of this month, said Simona Ceriani, a research scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But it’s clear that nests in many areas of the state were destroyed by Irma, she said.

The northwest Atlantic region is one of the world’s two largest loggerhead nesting areas, and 89 percent of those animals are hatched in Florida, Dr. Ceriani said, citing a 2015 assessment.

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Question of the Week 10/11/2017

In our previous newsletter, we talked about how UC Irvine will be squandering $200,000 on pseudoscience. Let’s pretend you have $200,000 to donate to a university. First of all, congratulations. And second, what would you want them to use that money for and why?

The person with our favorite answer will receive a copy of Brief Candle in the Dark by Richard Dawkins.

Want to suggest a Question of the Week? E-mail submissions to us at qotw@richarddawkins.net. (Questions only, please. All answers to bimonthly questions are made only in the comments section of the Question of the Week.)

The Necessity of Secularism, pgs 29-30

“(John) Locke was a Christian and his arguments reflected the temper of his times: expressions of piety and references to the importance of salvation abound. But if one removes these elements, his arguments for toleration and keeping the state out of religious affairs could be made just as easily today. His key insight is recognizing that governments have no theological competence; they need to concern themselves with this-worldly matters.

In assessing Locke’s arguments for toleration, it is important to note the connections between these arguments and his social contract theory, including his claim that there are certain natural rights. The strength of his arguments for toleration depend, to a large extent, on acceptance of both his contention that the natural state for humans is one of freedom and equality and his contention that the consent of the governed is the only legitimate way in which governments can acquire power. If one rejects these contentions, the first two arguments for toleration lose much of their force. For example, someone committed to the view that a government’s legitimacy is based on the grace of God may dismiss the importance of the consent of the governed. Who cares what the people want? It is what God wants that counts. Moreover, Locke’s second argument implicitly relies on his claim that individuals have a right to freedom of conscience. It is true that coercion of an individual cannot compel genuine belief by that individual. However, one must remember that the justification offered for religious persecutions was not so much that they helped to save the individual heretic- the person with erroneous beliefs- but rather that they helped those who might otherwise be contaminated with false religious beliefs. Thus, a thoroughgoing theocrat would be unmoved by Locke’s arguments for toleration. The salvation of the many takes precedence over any purported right of the individual. ”

–Ron Lindsey, The Necessity of Secularism, pgs 29-30

Discuss!

A Stick Insect. A Tree Lobster. Whatever You Call It, It’s Not Extinct.

By Joanna Klein

The tree lobster, one of the rarest insects on Earth, has lived a rather twisted life story.

Scientifically known as Dryococelus australis, this six-inch-long stick bug with a lobster-esque exoskeleton once occupied Lord Howe Island in the Tasman Sea, between Australia and New Zealand.

In 1918, rats escaping a capsized steamship swam ashore. The tree lobsters became rat chow. Two years later, all tree lobsters seemed to have vanished, and by 1960 they were declared extinct.

But in the latest chapter for what has also been called the Lord Howe stick insect, scientists compared the genomes of living stick bugs from a small island nearby to those of museum specimens, revealing that they are indeed the same species. The resulting paper, published Thursday in Current Biology, resolves an identity question that has impeded conservation efforts for years, and sets the scale to effectively resurrect the insect.

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Evangelicals Shouldn’t Praise Mike Pence for Walking Out on Kneeling NFL Players

By Hemant Mehta

This afternoon, after nearly two dozen players on the San Francisco 49ers knelt during the National Anthem before a game against the hometown Indianapolis Colts, Vice President Mike Pence walked out in his own counter-protest, saying on Twitter “I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.”

Donald Trump, as usual, put even that narrative into doubt with his own tweet saying that he told Pence to walk out in the case of any anthem kneeling. (Since that protest was virtually inevitable, it means Pence used taxpayer money to travel to a football game in his home state despite pre-planning his exit before the opening kickoff.)

But the Religious Right is convinced Pence did the right thing. Among those cheering Pence’s decision was Christian evangelist Franklin Graham, who offered “Three cheers for Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen for walking out!”

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Michigan mother jailed for refusing to vaccinate her son

–BBC

A mother in the US state of Michigan has been sentenced to seven days in jail after she refused a judge’s order to have her son vaccinated.

Rebecca Bredow would not let her nine-year-old be immunised after initially agreeing with the father to do so.

Her ex-husband has now been awarded temporary primary custody in order to get the boy the jab.

Michigan parents are legally allowed to skip or delay their children’s vaccinations due to personal beliefs.

But Bredow fell foul of the law because she reneged on agreements with her former spouse dating back to November 2016 to have the boy immunised.

The mother-of-two was sentenced on Wednesday for contempt of court after flouting a court order last week to have her son vaccinated.

She and her ex-husband decided at the time of their child’s birth that they would space out and delay jabs for their son.

The couple separated in 2008, according to ABC News, but they shared parental custody and the father still wanted the boy vaccinated.

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Seal pups get separated from their mums by icebreaker ships

By Joshua Rapp Learn

Icebreaker ships may be splitting endangered seal mothers from their pups at a critical point in their development.

“The route the icebreakers have to take crosses through the area where the seals are breeding,” says Simon Goodman at the University of Leeds, UK. Any disturbance that leads to the mothers separating from the pups is “bad news” for the baby seals.

Goodman and his colleagues gathered data from observers who travelled on 39 icebreaker trips from 2006 to 2013 in the northern Caspian Sea. This sea is a major oil and gas drilling site.

It is also the only home of the Caspian seals, which are found nowhere else. Caspian seal mothers give birth late in January on the open ice, and suckle their pups for about five weeks. The pups are born with white coats similar to ring seals, and are vulnerable while still dependent on their mothers for nutrition. The mothers often choose thick, solid ice, with features like ice folds to protect the pups from wind.

Goodman identified 81 occasions on which icebreakers came within 10 metres of a mother and pup. The mother typically fled and tried to take her pup with her, but sometimes left it behind. In one case, a mother temporarily abandoned a newborn pup. Because the icebreakers were moving, it was not always possible to tell what eventually happened. However, in at least two cases mother and pup ended up a long way apart, and may have lost each other.

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Plague Spreads in Madagascar: What’s Causing This Deadly Outbreak?

By Sara G. Miller

More than 30 people in Madagascar have died from an outbreak of the plague, and nearly 200 have fallen ill since August, according to news reports.

Experts say these numbers represent the deadliest outbreak of the disease on the African island-nation in years, according to The Washington Post. Last year, for example, 63 people died out of 275 cases.

The plague is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which lives in fleas and rats. In Madagascar, the plague is considered a seasonal worry: At the end of the harvesting season, rat populations drop because they don’t have enough to eat. As a result, fleas start looking for new hosts to bite, and so begin targeting humans, according to NPR.

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Mississippi’s Draconian Anti-LGBT Law, the Worst in the Nation, Is Set to Take Effect

By Jay Michaelson

For several years, liberals have been accused of using scare tactics against the “religious liberty” bills that have been proposed across the country, particularly in the wake of same-sex marriage.

This week, the nightmare scenario comes to life as Mississippi may at last implement the most expansive attack on LGBT equality in a generation—if the Supreme Court does not step in first.

That’s because the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the demand (PDF) to rehear the challenge to Mississippi’s HB 1523 as a full court (“en banc” in legal parlance), thus leaving in place a three-judge panel’s decision from last June, which held that plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the law.

While that is technically a ruling on procedure, not the merits of the bill, it also means that the case is dismissed.

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Trump officials roll back birth control mandate

By Jessie Hellmann

The Trump administration on Friday rolled back an ObamaCare requirement that employers include birth control coverage in their health insurance plans.

Under highly anticipated rules published Friday, any employer or insurer can stop following the birth control mandate on moral and religious grounds. The rules take effect immediately.

ObamaCare mandated that employers, with a few exceptions, offer health insurance that covers birth control without a co-pay.

The rules approved Friday allow any employer, including colleges, universities and health insurance companies, to stop following the mandate. Previously, only houses of worship and some companies could be exempt.

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