ريتشارد دوكنز's Blog, page 493
May 6, 2016
What We’re Reading
Reading + mosquito netting + ancient Japan: booyah!
A hallmark of science, of course, is that new data may always emerge that challenge accepted conclusions (why, just last week, we discussed such “unknown unknowns”). However, the more robust the conclusion, the more likely that new and unexpected data will serve to reinforce, not discredit it. And we find that here, with the longest known citizen-scientist record to date being found to be entirely consistent with all the other evidence for anthropogenic climate change. Also some nostalgia, and a few examples of the crazy coolness (and potential power for good) of evolutionary thinking.
Japanese Monks Recorded the Climate for 700 Years, National Geographic, April 26, 2016 — Most human-recorded documents of interest to climate scientists are fairly young, dating back only to the mid-1800s. The sources described here go back much further—as far as 700 years—providing a dramatic illustration of how much our climate has changed in recorded human memory.
The Kids’ Show That Taught Me to Ask “Why?”, The Atlantic, April 30, 2016 — This celebration of the classic kids science show 3-2-1 Contact goes beyond (justified) Gen-Xer nostalgia to consider what it takes to make a great science show, and how they make a difference. Watching the opening credits and hearing the theme song brought back plenty of fond nerd-child memories, but I’m better prepared now to understand the producers’ bold choices that made science into an enticing adventure. LaFrance notes, “I didn’t grow up to become a scientist,” but deems the show a success since “I did shape my life around asking ‘why.’ And my expansive views of science and technology today mirror the far-reaching views of science and technology that were at the heart of 3-2-1 Contact.”
Exodus 2100: Due to Climate Change, Science 2.0, May 2, 2016 — Conflict in the Middle East is likely to be worsened by climate change in the upcoming decades. Over three times more very hot days per year are forecast with a global temperature rise of 2 degrees C, and more frequent and severe dust storms are likely to dramatically decrease air quality in the region.
Why is Simpler Better?, Aeon, May 3, 2016 — Discussing themes from his recent book, Ockham's Razors: A User's Manual , philosopher of science (and member of NCSE's Advisory Council) Elliott Sober asks why and when is the more parsimonious theory to be preferred.
Humans Paid for Bigger Brains With Gas-Guzzling Bodies, The Atlantic, May 4, 2016 — "A new study shows that we burn many more daily calories than other apes," Ed Yong reports. Be sure to read to the end for Herman Pontzer's admirable attitude toward the temptation to sensationalize research on human evolution.
Bacteria Infected Mosquitos Could Slow Spread of Zika Virus, The New York Times, May 4, 2016 — How do you fight one microbe? With another, natch. Mosquitos that carry certain strains of the bacterium Wolbachia don’t live as long, and are resistant to infection with certain viruses such as dengue—facts that have been used to block dengue transmission in Australia. The Zika virus is closely related to dengue and is carried by the same mosquito, so the strategy that worked for dengue may work for Zika as well. Be on the look-out for an upcoming post on why this approach is so much more evolutionarily satisfying than strategies based on eradicating mosquitos.
Thousands Of People Have Been Evacuated In Canada After City-Sized Wildfires Spread Out Of Control
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Smoke from the wildfire billows into the sky as a small plane flies over Fort McMurray. Kitty Cochrane / The Canadian Press/PA Images
Right now, a wildfire is tearing its way across the Canadian province of Alberta. It’s currently about 850 square kilometers (about 328 square miles) in size, which is roughly the size of Rome. Although it has recently begun to slow down, the conflagration is currently surrounding the city of Fort McMurray, and firefighters are desperate to kill it before it advances any further.
Thanks To Climate Change, The Middle East And North Africa Are Basically Screwed
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Even with the Paris agreement enforced, the regions will become hard to live in. karinkamon/Shutterstock
Man-made climate change is a problem that simply won't go away. It will increase the likelihood of conflict in water-scarce regions for one thing, and there’s already some evidence that it played a vital role in sparking the initial uprising in Syria back in 2011.
The Best Defense of Religious Liberty
A few weeks ago, we got an unusual query. A company—RapidWristbands.com—that manufactures the sorts of wristbands made famous by Lance Armstrong, wanted to donate the profits from a recent order to NCSE. The order by a creationist group that I won’t bother to identify had been for over 100,000 bands instructing the wearer to “DEBUNK EVOLUTION.”
As our press release explains, the company’s CEO disagrees with that message. On the other hand, the company’s role isn’t to police the messages of its customers, and turning down business would hurt him and his employees. Refusing the order would be the wrong solution, but he didn't want to silently endorse a message he found problematic. Manufacturing the wristbands but donating the profits to NCSE balances those needs in a pretty awesome way.
In the letter offering the donation, we were asked to issue a press release about it. But even before I heard that, I was already composing this post in my head, because I saw a broader point here. The RapidWristbands.com donation doesn’t just represent a thumb in the eye to creationism and valuable assistance to NCSE; it also offers guidance for other business owners who feel a conflict between their values and their business.
Which brings us to Mississippi, North Carolina, and the widespread twisting of the term “religious liberty” to justify discrimination and segregation. Instead of understanding the concept as a way to prevent the government from imposing religion or religious practices, bigots are using the term to impose their religious doctrines on others.
The current iteration of that theme emerged in the battle over marriage equality, with various religious groups, business owners, and public officials claiming that being obliged to bake a cake, arrange flowers, or issue marriage licenses for same-sex weddings, would violate their religious liberty by involving them in what they regard as immoral. These claims gained legal force thanks to the weird Hobby Lobby Supreme Court decision on contraception coverage in employer-backed health insurance. Mississippi just adopted a law which purports to enshrine the religious liberty of business owners to refuse to play any role in same sex weddings (thus, as one commenter observes, allowing a hotel to refuse to rent a room to gay honeymooners but not to same sex couples writ large). A similar law was vetoed in Georgia. North Carolina recently adopted a related law, also under the banner of “religious liberty,” overturning local nondiscrimination laws and restricting which restrooms transgender people can use. A similar bill was vetoed in South Dakota, but one is under consideration in Kansas which would provide a bounty to students who turn in others for using the restroom matching their identity rather than their birth certificate. Kim Davis, an elected county clerk in Kentucky, cited her religious liberty as justification for refusing to allow her office to issue same-sex marriage licenses, just as public school teachers sometimes (wrongly) assert that religious liberty excuses them from teaching evolution. None of these claims to religious liberty makes any sense.
When a state grants bakers the power to refuse to make a gay couple a cake, that doesn’t protect the baker’s liberty; it just grants the state’s sanction to the baker’s infringement of other people’s liberty. This isn’t a new discovery: racial segregation was once justified by claims of religious liberty), but the Civil Rights Act made clear that one’s personal beliefs can’t justify discrimination in service or hiring.
Requiring Woolworth’s to serve black customers or Barronelle Stutzman to arrange flowers for her gay neighbors’ wedding doesn’t take away anyone’s right to be a bigot. They are welcome to take their customers’ money and donate it to advancing their preferred causes, even if doing so runs counter to their customers’ values or interests. That’s just what RapidWristbands.com did here, and in the end, I think its solution is far superior to the oppressive alternative being advanced by the radical religious right. And it’s proof of the ancient dictum that, when confronted with speech one finds harmful, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.
Boaty McBoatface Will NOT Be The Name Of This New Polar Research Ship
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Is democracy dead? NERC
It’s all over. The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has announced the winner of their massively anticipated online vote to name their $290 million polar research ship. And the winner is... RRS Sir David Attenborough.
Free Speech and Islam — The Left Betrays the Most Vulnerable
When surveying the ill-informed, shoddy work that at times passes as in-depth journalism regarding Islam these days, a rationalist may well be tempted to slip into a secular simulacrum of John Bunyan’s Slough of Despond. In reputable press outlets, articles regularly appear in which the author proceeds from an erroneous premise through a fallacious argument to a fatuous conclusion. Compound all this — especially in the main case I’m about to discuss, that of the British former Islamist turned reformer, Maajid Nawaz — with the apparent intent to defame or cast aspersions, and you get worthless artifacts of journalistic malfeasance that should be dismissed out of hand, but that, given the seriousness of the subject, nevertheless merit attention.
For starters, a few words about premises and some necessary background. Those who deploy the “stupid term” (see Christopher Hitchens) “Islamophobia” to silence critics of the faith hold, in essence, that Muslims deserve to be approached as a race apart, and not as equals, not as individual adults capable of rational choice, but as lifelong members of an immutable, sacrosanct community, whose (often highly illiberal) views must not be questioned, whose traditions (including the veiling of women) must not be challenged, whosescripturally inspired violencemust be explained away as the inevitable outcome of Western interventionism in the Middle East or racism and “marginalization” in Western countries.
Fail to exhibit due respect for Islam — not Muslims as people,Islam — and you risk being excoriated, by certain progressives, as an “Islamophobe,” as a fomenter of hatred for an underprivileged minority, as an abettor of Donald Trump and his bigoted policy proposals, and, most illogically, as a racist.
Islam, however, is not a race, but a religion — that is, a man-made ideological construct of assertions (deriving authority not from evidence, but from “revelation,” just as Christianity and Judaism do) about the origins and future of the cosmos and mankind, accompanied by instructions to mankind about how to behave. Those who believe in Islam today may — and some do — reject ittomorrow. (Atheism has, in fact, been spreading in the Muslim world.)
Calling the noun Islamophobia “sinister,” Ali A. Rizvi, a Canadian Pakistani-born physician and prominent figure among former Muslims in North America, told me via Skype recently that the word “actually takes the pain of genuine victims of anti-Muslim bigotry and uses that pain, it exploits it for the political purpose of stifling criticism of Islam.” In fact, denying Islam’s role in, for instance, misogynist violence in the Muslim world, said Rizvi, is itself racist and “incredibly bigoted, because you’re saying that it’s not these ideas and beliefs and this indoctrination [in Islam] that cause” the “disproportionately high numbers of violent, misogynistic people in Muslim majority countries, it’s just in their DNA.”
Also, remember that Islam claims jurisdiction not just over its followers, but over us all, with a message directed to humanity as a whole. Which means Islam should be susceptible to critique by all. People, whatever their faith (or lack thereof) deserve respect; their ideologies? Not necessarily. In fact, the cornerstone of any free society is freedom of expression – a freedom impeded by labeling as “phobic” those who would object to an ideology.
The misguided progressives who denounce “Islamophobia” and turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of, say, women, gays, and adherents of other religions in Muslim communities or in Islamic countries constitute what Maajid Nawaz has dubbed the “regressive left.” Regressive leftists are not genuine progressives at all, of course, but deeply confused de facto apologists for the most illiberal notion conceivable: namely, that one group of humans has, on account of its religion, an inalienable right to dominate and abuse other humans — and to do so unmolested by criticism.
No better evidence of this strain of illogical, muddled intolerance of free expression exists than the suspicion and ire regressive leftists reserve for former Muslims and Muslim reformers working to modernize their religion. In her moving, 2015 must-watch address, Sarah Haider, who is of Pakistani origin, recounts being called everything from Jim Crow to House Arab to native informant by American liberals for having abandoned Islam — by, that is, the very folk who should support women, regardless of their skin color, in their struggle for equality and freedom from sexist violence and chauvinism.
The brave, Somali-born ex-Muslim (and advocate of reforming Islam) Ayaan Hirsi Ali has received even harsher treatment, and to this day, for her outspokenness about her former faith and for making a film in 2004 portraying misogyny in Islamic societies, has to live under armed protection. (The director, Theo van Gogh, was assassinated that year by an Islamist on the streets of Amsterdam.) There are many other examples, but the point is this: those who criticize or abandon Islam may well be taking their life into their hands. Quisling regressive leftists add insult to the injury (or worse) suffered by these people, who, by any progressive standards, should be celebrated.
The latest cases of regressive leftist skullduggery target Maajid Nawaz himself. With the neuroscientist and groundbreaking “New Atheist” Sam Harris, Nawaz (who, again, is Muslim) recently co-authored Islam and the Future of Tolerance — a book of dialogues between the two men covering the prospects for reforming the faith that is the leading cause of terrorism the world over. For engaging in this much-needed conversation — probably the most-needed conversation imaginable these days — Nawaz has suffered a hail of abuse from regressive leftists.
“Well-coiffed talking monkey,” “porch monkey,” “House Negro” and “House Muslim” are just some of the insults he has had hurled at him. He also finds himself the object of an insidious attempt at discreditation — an essay in The New Republic entitled “What Does Maajid Nawaz Really Believe?” written by Nathan Lean.
Lean’s screed is wordy and rambling, and leaves the gullible among its readers bewildered, thrashing about in thickets of innuendo, and inclined to conclude Nawaz is a disreputable character, if not demonstrably guilty of anything outright reprehensible. The bio note at the foot of the page describes Lean as the author of a book about Islamophobia (so, yes, the spirit of Hitchens’ “stupid term” will permeate his piece), but it makes no mention of his employment at the Saudi-funded Prince Alaweed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, where he directs research at the “Pluralism, Diversity and” — yes — “Islamophobia project.” This is something readers should at least be aware of.
Anyway, so, according to Lean, what does Maajid Nawaz really believe? Lean cannot tell us, since he nowhere offers Nawaz’s own words on the subject, which are a matter of public record and are (for example) available here. Nawaz “didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment” — which is understandable, given Lean’s long record of issuing “Islamophobia” alerts. Nawaz has stated that, “There is no such thing as ‘Islamophobia.’ No idea should be immune from scrutiny.” Coming from a Muslim who slogged through five years in an Egyptian prison for Islamism (specifically, for association with the radical Hizb ut-Tahrir organization), such a declaration carries weight.
Lacking any correspondence with Nawaz himself, Lean relies on interviews with those (including Islamists) who at least at one time knew Nawaz. But even before he gets to them, Lean, in the very first graph, presents Nawaz as a turncoat dandy, as “ambling” about an Oxford debating hall “sporting a slick black tuxedo and a gelled coiffure,” urging his audience to “accept the motion that the American Dream is a noble ethos to which all people should aspire.” Hardly what one should expect, as Lean has it, from a “self-described former ‘radical.’”
We then learn that Nawaz has been “ingratiating himself in [sic] the growing union of neoconservatives and hawkish liberals who believe in Western exceptionalism and the efficacy of power, especially military power, to expand its influence and protect its interests” against the “alleged threat” posed by Islamism. (Alleged?)
Nawaz, Lean reports, has been all over the airwaves hyping this “alleged threat,” even “stroll[ing] through the streets of the French capital with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, explaining the need to confront the religious species in the genus terrorism,” and worse —horribile dictu! – even speaking to Fox News about it. Furthermore, Nawaz has been “jet-setting” about, “mingling with thought leaders and politicians who believe that his journey from fundamentalism to freedom gives him the authority to opine on a broad range of topics related to religion and violence.”
Lean sarcastically refers to Nawaz’s renunciation of radicalism — again, arrived at after years in an Egyptian prison — as coming via a “Damascene conversion,” and then tells us that those in the know around Nawaz find his “dramatic tale of redemption isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” A man identified only as “a friend from Nawaz’s college days” believes him to be “neither an Islamist nor a liberal . . . . Maajid is whatever he thinks he needs to be.” A current affiliate of Hizb ut-Tahrir and former cell-mate “remembers Nawaz as a guy who wasn’t particularly religious, but [who] labored to appear committed to Islamism in an effort to win popularity and promotion.”
Ponder the last statement. Given the attendant risks, why would anyone just pretend to be a radical Islamist, and not only join Hizb ut-Tahrir, but strive to attain “popularity and promotion” within it?
Lean spills much more ink trying to convince us that Nawaz may not have really been an Islamist, but only posed as one, and may not have renounced the Islamism in which he may never have actually believed because he actually turned against it. (You should be confused after reading that.) What could have motivated Nawaz to give up those Islamist views he possibly never held? “State dough,” and oodles of it, doled out to the Quilliam Foundation (a think tank Nawaz established in London to counter Islamist extremism). “Last year,” writes Lean, “Nawaz drew a salaryof more than $140,000.” But how on Earth can receiving remuneration for working to end Islamist violence be held against Nawaz — or anyone else?
Two thousand words into his piece, Lean declares his failure to reach a conclusion about Nawaz’s probity, which he appears to have been impugning throughout: “Whether a genuine conversion or an opportunistic about-face, it’s impossible to know with certainty what compelled Nawaz to leave Hizb ut-Tahrir and espouse his current agenda.” (His “agenda?” Again, countering Islamist extremism.) Not having decided what Nawaz really believes doesn’t stop Lean from backhandedly maligning him with a characterization he attributes to his onetime Islamist buddies. They “see him as an Islamic Judas Iscariot, a Muslim who turned his back on his fellow believers when state coffers flung open.”
Lean plods on for another thousand words, but I’ll spare you further exegesis, with one exception. Nawaz’s collaboration with Sam Harris “who . . . has advocated racial profiling and torture,” (false: see here and here, in addition to here), Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher (whom Lean accuses of spreading “extreme ideas” — false again, butdecide for yourself), as well as Ayaan Hirsi Ali only serves to confirm his disreputableness. (If in fact Nawaz is disreputable. Remember, Lean cannot say for sure.) Their shared “extreme idea:” pointing out that something in Islam needs to change – a statement with which no unbiased follower of world affairs would argue.
Continue reading by clicking the name of the article below.
SpaceX Successfully Lands Second Rocket On Barge
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The Falcon 9 landing on the autonomous spaceport drone ship. SpaceX via Twittter
Another month, another breakthrough for SpaceX. The American company has managed to launch and land a second Falcon 9 rocket on an autonomous barge, following the first historic barge landing last month and the first ground landing in December 2015.
Fossil Friday
From the Cambrian it came, Brain. (Is there an echo in here, Pinky?) Do the same thing you do every night, er, week, and leave your best guess about the identity of this fossil in the comments section below. The first person to do so correctly will have NCSE’s best wishes for his or her attempt to try to take over the world.
Pregnancy: Cooperative Paradise Or Conflict-Driven Battle Between Mother And Child?
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There’s a battle for resources going on in there. Christian Glatz, CC BY-NC-ND
Pregnancy sounds like the ultimate form of animal cooperation – mothers share their own bodies to grow and support their children’s prenatal development. But in reality, embryos use every trick in the book to take more than their fair share. Mothers, in turn, marshal their best defensive tactics.
Ultimately, it’s an evolutionary arms race. Offspring continually evolve strategies to steal resources, while mothers evolve strategies to defend their resources. Natural selection will favor embryos that are able to steal resources, but this will impose costs on the mother.
Should Florida ‘Frack’ Its Limestone For Oil And Gas? Two Geophysicists Weigh In
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Florida’s unique geology means alternative fracking methods would be used, but can aquifers be safely separated from injection wells? jsjgeology/flickr, CC BY-SA
Florida is on the front lines of a debate over the spread of the controversial drilling technique hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which raises a crucial question: are the state’s unique geology and hydrology safe for expanded oil and gas drilling?
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