Dinner at the Petersons’

I think I’d pass. Following the lead of the daughter, Mikhaila Peterson, she and her father, Jordan, eat a diet that consists entirely of “beef, salt, and water”, and they never, ever cheat. Well, not exactly. Mikhaila admits I can also, strangely enough, tolerate vodka and bourbon, which is nice — one does wonder what else she can tolerate.

Jordan Peterson admits to also drinking club soda, which, after being told is just water, he feels compelled to clarify.

“Well, when you’re down to that level, no, it’s not, Joe. There’s club soda, which is really bubbly. There’s Perrier, which is sort of bubbly. There’s flat water, and there’s hot water. Those distinctions start to become important.”

Context! Speaking precisely! It’s all very important! What you eat, not so much.

The author of the article asked an expert about the consequences of an all-beef diet.

“Physiologically, it would just be an immensely bad idea,” Jack Gilbert, the faculty director at the University of Chicago’s Microbiome Center and a professor of surgery, told me during a recent visit to his lab. “A terribly, terribly bad idea.”

Gilbert has done extensive research on how the trillions of microbes in our guts digest food, and the look on his face when I told him about the all-beef diet was unamused. He began rattling off the expected ramifications: “Your body would start to have severe dysregulation, within six months, of the majority of the processes that deal with metabolism; you would have no short-chain fatty acids in your cells; most of the by-products of gastrointestinal polysaccharide fermentation would shut down, so you wouldn’t be able to regulate your hormone levels; you’d enter into cardiac issues due to alterations in cell receptors; your microbiota would just be devastated.”

While much of the internet has been following this story in a somewhat snide way, Gilbert appeared genuinely concerned and saddened: “If she does not die of colon cancer or some other severe cardiometabolic disease, the life—I can’t imagine.”

I’m also thinking of the consequences of a lack of fiber, and the strain on your kidneys, and of a 26 year old with severe gout. Beef and alcohol, that’s what you’re going to get. Unless, of course, you’re just like the Breatharians, who claim to live on air and sunlight, yet have regularly been caught cheating.

But he says he never ever cheats! Well, that’s exactly what a cheater would say, and isn’t it odd that he asserted that when no one had accused him of doing so?

I thought this was the meat of the article, the real conflict in what they’re promoting:

The popularity of Peterson’s narrative is explained by more than its timeless tropes; it has also been amplified by the fact that her father has occasionally cast his spotlight onto her story. Jordan Peterson’s recent book, Twelve Rules for Life, includes the story of his daughter’s health trials. The elder Peterson, a psychologist at the University of Toronto, could at first seem an unlikely face for acceptance of personal, subjective truth, as he regularly professes the importance of acting as purely as possible according to rigorous analysis of data. He argued in a recent video that American universities are the home to ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective, that all sex differences are socially constructed, and that Western imperialism is the sole source of all Third World problems. In his book, he writes that academic institutions are teaching children to be brainwashed victims, and that the rigorous critical theoretician is morally obligated to set them straight.

He demands adherence to an objective truth, but happily wanders off into the weeds on the basis of anecdotes. Actually, if you ever listen to his lectures, all he’s got are subjective opinions that spring out of the twisty morass of his brain, so it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s endorsing dietary quackery. What he says has an extraordinarily tenuous connection to what he does.

My daughter is roughly the same age as Mikhaila Peterson. I’m proud of how Skatje turned out sensible and reasonable and living a well-balanced life, although she’s probably not going to get as rich off bunkum with as little work as Mikhaila.

Also, my daughter is a vegetarian, which kind of makes her the anti-Mikhaila.

I thought physicists were required to know math?

I guess not. Although maybe it’s only a requirement if you’re not a creationist physicist, as Jeffrey Shallit describes.

But wait — Shallit is all cranky about the math, but I had to look at the original post, and there’s more. He’s complaining about species boundaries!

“Species” are not very well defined. Paleontologists work from bones, naturalists work with dead specimens, geneticists work with DNA, and ecologists work with living communities. Each group has its own definition, and very often they are in conflict with the others.

This one always gets me. So the creationist is saying, ‘species boundaries are fuzzy and ill-defined, therefore my claim that species are fixed and unchanging is validated, and evolution is false’. Yeah no.

Boy, I haven’t looked at Uncommon Descent in ages. It’s still a clueless loon factory.

How did this get published?

The Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology, despite the fancy name, must not have much in the way of standards because they published this article, Genome Size and Chromosome Number Relationship Contradicts the Principle of Darwinian Evolution from Common Ancestor. It’s bizarre. The authors have a deep misconception about evolution and they just run with it right into crazyland.

They seem to think there is some kind of progression in chromosome number — that life is supposed to go from some low chromosome number in primitive organisms, to a much larger number in ‘advanced’ organisms, and they have just discovered…chromosome numbers are scattered all over the place! Therefore evolution must be false, because humans are supposed to have the biggest number!

The human genome was located at 4/6 away from the controversial common ancestor genome and 2/6 away from the largest detected genome. Results of this study contradict the principle of Darwinian evolution from common ancestor and support the independent appearance of living organisms on earth. This will open the door for new explanations for the existence of living organisms on earth based on genome size.

Shocking, huh? It’s not as if you can find this fact in introductory genetics textbooks. Oh, wait, you can!

So these guys have some archaic notion of progressive evolution, and also have this strange idea that the number of chromosomes is indicative of complexity. I don’t know where they get that idea — you won’t find that in any of the genetics or evolutionary biology textbooks.

They’re very explicit about it, too. I don’t know how this could have gotten past a reviewer, unless they paper wasn’t reviewed at all (it wasn’t edited in any way, either — the typos and poor grammar are everywhere.)

It is certain that a genome controls the organism structure and development therefore; the genome is expected to evolve before the evolution of the organism. So, based on Darwinian evolution from common ancestor, we expect gradual change (increase) in genome size from the assumed common ancestor (smallest detected genome in this study, Buchnera sp.) to the largest detected genome (P. aethiopicus). Based on this assumption, human is expected to have the largest genome because it is the most recent and the most developed species on earth [30-32] and consequently is expected to lie at the end of genome size evolution curve. In addition, according to the Darwinian evolution from common ancestor, the gradual increase in genome size must be correlated with gradual increase or decrease in chromosome number (chromosome number evolution) as well as with organism evolution. The location of human genome among other genomes based on genome size and chromosome number (Figure 2) confirms that there is no correlation between genome size of species and their emergence on earth (genome evolution). This rolls out the idea that human genome evolved from smaller pre-existing genome. It is well documented that the genome size of an organism does not reflect its structural complexity which raised the question about what mechanisms led to these huge variations in genome size [33]. This was described as the ‘C-value enigma’ [6]. In addition, finding diploid plants with larger genome size than human genome raises a cloud of doubt about the sequence of appearance of living organisms on earth.

I had to look up citations #30, #31, and #32, to find out what fool made the argument that humans are the most recent and the most developed species on earth. More surprises!

30. Elhaik E, Tatarinova TV, Klyosov AA, Graur D (2014) The extremely ancient chromosome that isn’t: a forensic bioinformatic investigation of Albert Perry”s X-degenerate portion of the Y chromosome. EJHG 22: 1111-1116.

31. Elhaik E, Tatarinova TV, Klyosov AA, Graur D (2014) The extremely ancient chromosome that isn’t: a forensic bioinformatic investigation of Albert Perry”s X-degenerate portion of the Y chromosome. EJHG 22: 1111-1116.

32. Royer DL (2006) CO2-forced climate thresholds during the Phanerozoic. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 70: 5665-5675.

There are some lessons to share with my science writing students.

  • The fool in question is Dan Graur, author of the book Molecular and Genome Evolution. He’s going to be so surprised!
  • That’s a good trick to pad your citations, listing the exact same article twice. I guess that makes your point doubly powerful.
  • I’ve read those first two (one) paper(s). They make no such argument. I didn’t know you could just sprinkle your paper with irrelevant citations with no connection to your claims.
  • Speaking of which, the third (second) paper is about climate change, not human evolution.

I don’t think the Journal of Phylogenetics & Evolutionary Biology is going to be on my routine reading list.

Beware the trap of imagining that you are a logical, rational human being

This is my sabbatical year, so I’m not going to be getting those fawning adoring messages

from any students this year. I am so accustomed to being held in reverence, as a kind of saint, like this:

“I only now [received] your beautiful and exquisite message… I thank you for your infinite understanding and sensitivities which are always beyond measure.”

Those are the words of Nimrod Reitman, in an email to his Ph.D. advisor, Avital Ronell, a professor of German and Comparative Literature at New York University. As many now know, Ronell was found by NYU to have sexually harassed Reitman.

Oh, wait. I never get those. It could be that I’ve never written a “beautiful and exquisite message” — I tend to be brief in email — or it could be that Ronell built a cult-like relationship with her professional dependents. That’s an ugly outcome, and part of a deplorable pattern. Your students are not your acolytes, and that sort of behavior should be discouraged, a point the author of the article makes strongly. But then, unfortunately, he goes on to write this:

Many commentators on social media express have expressed familiarity with the kind of dynamic at play in the Ronell case. Yet I did notice that many of these commentators were not in academic philosophy.

I suspect that the culture of argument in academic philosophy helps counter tendencies towards sycophancy. We show respect to each other by posing the best challenges we can to each other’s ideas. Putting tough objections to philosophical heroes is something we are trained to (love to) do.

Well, gosh, good thing the mode of thinking in my discipline makes that behavior unlikely. We are above all that, so it’s unlikely to be a problem for us.

I’ve heard that kind of argument so many times before, and it’s a sign that someone in that discipline is about to fail spectacularly. “We’re skeptics, we rigorously criticize bad ideas so that’ll never happen to us” or “We’re scientists, science is objective and impartial so abusers can’t thrive in our ranks,” and then whoops, boom, pratfall.

I’ll go so far as to say that having the attitude that the culture in your little domain of thought makes you immune to the foibles of those other poor thinkers over there is exactly the kind of arrogance that makes you susceptible to failure. It’s a fallacy to think that rationalism makes one resistant to bad ideas — we’re all human here, which means we’re all going to fuck up. Rationalizing away your fuck-ups just means you’ll repeat them, and make them increasingly worse.

At least, that’s what I’ve learned from many decades of involvement in groups with a tendency to praise their own rationality. It’s not a promising development.

I may have found a mirror universe

In this essay by John Pavlovitz, a liberal Christian, he makes the argument that the path evangelical Christianity has taken is toxic — that the hatred of Muslims, the contempt for the LGBTQ community, and the rise of celebrity preachers and professional Christians is driving good people away. I have to agree with him, and I think most atheists would agree, that much of the institution of Christianity is purest poison to anyone with a social conscience.

In record numbers, the Conservative American Church is consistently and surely making Atheists—or at the very least it is making former Christians; people who no longer consider organized religion an option because the Jesus they recognize is absent. With its sky-is-falling hand-wringing, its political bed-making, and its constant venom toward diversity, it is giving people no alternative but to conclude, that based on the evidence of people professing to be Godly—that God is of little use. In fact, this God may be toxic.

And that’s the irony of it all; that the very Evangelicals who’ve spent that last 50 years in this country demonizing those who reject Jesus—are now the single most compelling reason for them to do so. They are giving people who suspect that all Christians are self-righteous, hateful hypocrites, all the evidence they need. The Church is confirming the outside world’s most dire suspicions about itself.

…

With every persecution of the LGBTQ community, with every unprovoked attack on Muslims, with every planet-wrecking decision, with every regressive civil rights move—the flight from Christianity continues. Meanwhile the celebrity preachers and professional Christians publicly beat their breasts about the multitudes walking away from God, oblivious to the fact that they are the impetus for the exodus.

I’m reading it and thinking that gosh, this sounds familiar. It was like looking in a mirror. I think that the path the atheist/skeptic movement has taken is toxic — that the hatred of Muslims, the contempt for the LGBTQ community (and women!), and the rise of celebrity atheists and professional skeptics is driving good people away.

So I have some reassuring news for Mr Pavlovitz, if his worry is simply about church membership. If the behavior of the church is making atheists, those shiny new atheists are arriving at the atheist/skeptic community and finding exactly the same behavior and will bounce right back. Or maybe wander about between, in the cynical “pox on both your houses” domain of the nones (which we atheists will eagerly, and unwarrantedly, claim as ours).

Of course, if we’re actually concerned about supporting good people with generous views about diversity and Nature and culture, rather than what building they spend their Sunday visiting and which public speaker they spend their money on, well, both sides are screwed. It’s almost as if we ought to care more about building broader communities with healthy, progressive ideas rather than which god they believe in, or don’t believe in.

Nah, that can’t be it.

Can organized skepticism do a more spectacular face-plant?

Jebus. Michael Shermer has just proudly announced that the next issue of Skeptic magazine will be dedicated to his fellow member of the Intellectual Dork Web, Jordan B. Peterson.

David Gorski has been scathing. I agree with him.

Whatever it is Shermer is peddling, it ain’t skepticism. It’s closer to cult-like dogma.

There was a time, in the ancient of days, when skeptical magazines would take a Cuisinart to the kind of incoherent babbling woo that Peterson spins. Now they dedicate whole issues to praising him.

Kent Hovind, the broccoli man

Remember when Ray Comfort went on and on about how the banana was clearly designed by a god, when the commercial banana is actually the product of human agricultural engineering? Now we’ve got another, similar example: Kent Hovind accusing people of being stupid for believing broccoli could have evolved.

You may know that Brassica was selected for a number of common agricultural products, but I guess Kent Hovind didn’t.

Go away, Jenny McCarthy

McCarthy is still around, and she has just issued a “call to action” — the anti-vaxxers are supposed to rush out and promote a book by JB Handley.

Yeah, JB Handley. Anti-vax, autism-obsessed crank. I think both of them can crawl back into the hole they crawled out of.

This JB Handley:

How did your life change when you discovered your son had autism?

Everything changed from the day it happened. It was an immediate nightmare. It was 30 days of six, seven, eight hours of nonstop crying by both me and my wife. It was the painful realization that my son may not have the kind of life that I expected for him. And once the grief had passed just enough to get up off the floor, it was a mandate to do whatever I could do with the rest of my life to give him the best possible life.

There’s a kind of annoying selfishness there. Guess what? Your children generally will not have the life you plan for them. Learn to appreciate them for who they are.

They just cried non-stop for a month? Over-react much? It’s like hearing that someone melted down when they discovered their child had a birthmark. Calm down. There are degrees of autism, and none of them are a death sentence.

Even more bizarre, he then declares that his son is now “recovering dramatically, getting all his words back, going to a normal school”. Maybe the diagnosis didn’t warrant a month of bawling? Autistic children are children — they grow and change. Freaking out over autism is just silly.

So this is the guy who has a new book. I don’t care, and am not interested. This is the guy who has Jenny McCarthy excited — I am unimpressed with the endorsement.

Will we really miss Alex Jones?

No.

Here’s a mind-blowing compilation of his conspiracy theories.

Unfortunately, what worries me most isn’t that this guy raves online all the time, and has some incredibly stupid ideas…but that there are people who believe him. They don’t disappear when Jones is banned from YouTube.

And you do realize there is now a large idiocy vacuum on YouTube that people will rush to fill?