These things come in waves

I wonder what’s behind the somewhat cyclic nature of internet phenomena? I’m getting a lot of messages from people telling me about this discovery that cephalopods have venom—I covered that a few weeks ago. I’m also being told that I’m in an amusing rap video…that one I mentioned over a year ago. I’m not about to discourage anyone from sending me links, I’m simply curious about the strange way I’ll suddenly got lots of links to the same thing all at once.

Make Fort Wayne look like a much more rational place

Fort Wayne, Indiana wants to know about your religion, and they have chosen the highly scientific method of … an internet poll. And you know what those are worth!

Question: Do you identify with some form of the Christian religion?

Yes, and my faith is important to me. 62%
No. I’m religious but in a personal way. 10%
No. I’m of another faith. 1%
No. I’m an atheist or agnostic. 27%

Well, they asked. Let ’em know what the answer is.

Basics: Imprinting

I’ve been busy — I’m teaching genetics this term, and usually the first two thirds of the course is trivial to prepare for — we’re covering Mendelian genetics, and the early stuff is material the students have seen before and are at least generally familiar with the concepts, and all I have to do is cover them a little deeper and with a stronger quantitative component. That’s relatively easy.

The last part of the course, though, is where we start moving into uncharted waters for them, and every year I have to rethink how I’m going to cover the non-Mendelian concepts, and sometimes my ideas work well, and sometimes they don’t. If I teach it for another 20 years, I’ll eventually reach the point where every lecture has been honed into a comprehensible ideal. At least that’s my dream.

Anyway, one of the subjects we’re covering in the next lecture or two is imprinting, and I know from past experience that this can cause mental meltdowns in my students. This makes no sense if you’re used to thinking in Punnett squares! So I’ve been reworking this little corner of the class, and as long as I’m putting together a ground-up tutorial on the subject, I thought I might as well put it on the web. So here you are, a basic introduction to imprinting.

[Read more…]

What’s John Holbo doing now?

Those squishy softies on the non-science side of campus…they can do anything, apparently. Holbo is playing with the creation of an illustrated children’s book for adults, called Squid & Owl. Obviously, it’s got owls and squid in it, and compares them frequently, with an interesting graphic style.

I had a moment’s worry when I saw this page, though.

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I thought the answer was obvious — developmental and molecular biology — and was worried that he was about to horn into my turf, but fortunately he takes another tack altogether.

Mr B and Miz B savor their success

Mr B and Miz B sat upon their porch, watching the New Atheist parade go by.

It was quite a large parade, chaotic, disorganized, and enthusiastic, more Mardi Gras than Macy’s. There were clowns and jugglers, serious men with bullhorns making serious speeches, small groups chanting anti-clerical slogans, people just out dancing in the streets, and the occasional well-designed float flaunting an anti-religion or pro-science message. They even had a big red steam-powered Noise Machine. Scarlet A’s were waved on banners and flags and t-shirts. Some participants looked angry, most were just happy to be free and participating, but they were all turning out in large numbers. Huge crowds line the streets as well, watching — many were amused, some were confused, and a few looked aghast, shutting their eyes with their hands over their ears, and some waved their Bibles and roared their disapproval of the spectacle. And often, scattered individuals would leave the crowd of spectators and happily join in the parade.

Mr B and Miz B just sat in their rocking chairs, scowling.

“Well, I never,” said Miz B. “So disrespectful! So loud! What ever do they hope to accomplish with this kind of rude display?”

“I don’t know for sure, since I haven’t read any of this New Atheist nonsense myself,” said Mr B, “but I do know this: they’ve got atheism all wrong, and they’ve got religion all wrong. I’m an atheist, too, you know.”

“Oh, I know that, Mr B. But you’re a good atheist, the kind that respects religion, and would never raise this kind of ruckus.”

“Exactly! These rowdy hooligans and their uppity airs, thinking their ideas are all better than thousands of years of serious theological reasoning…they’re just cocky. Mark my words, atheism will never get anywhere with this kind of attitude.”

“Yes, Mr B. Think how much better this parade would be if Christians and atheists were marching arm in arm, affirming their respect for each other, and if only the atheists would stop crowing about how wrong religion is. It’s offensive, that’s what it is. Why do they have to keep picking on people’s beliefs?”

“I quite agree, Miz B. I’ve long espoused a positive atheism that simply ignores religion, and concentrates on its own private values. Why, in my day, atheists would just sit quietly at home, not making a fuss, living in a solitary state of quiet virtue. And it was good. None of this outrageously flamboyant “coming out” foofaraw. And we got things done! We were so much more atheist than these parvenus! We were thoughtful, and we respected theology!”

“How can they hope to discuss faith seriously if they don’t think it is a good thing, Mr B? How can they possibly win over people if they refuse to accept the ground rules set by religion?”

Miz B rocked in her chair a little more rapidly to demonstrate her willingness to work for the cause. In the distance, a cheer rises up from the crowd as four horsemen trot into view.

Mr B shook his fist. “Look at that! I’m an atheist, too, and I have wisdom to dispense! Why are all those people lining the street, when they could come up to our porch and have a quiet conversation with us? We won’t be rude! We won’t mock Christianity or Islam, we won’t challenge dogma at all! We’ll all get along!”

“I know, Mr B. There is no justice in the world. How about if I invite the vicar over for tea? He’s always so pleasant.”

“Fine idea, Miz B. We always get on so well with the vicars. Quite unlike these nasty little New Atheists.”

The parade, of course, keeps on moving along, and seems to be growing — no end is in sight.

I have been reading the latest sorrowful cluckings from Madeline Bunting and Julian Baggini, I’m afraid, and the image that keeps coming to mind is of two old prunes reassuring each other that their wizened ways are the only path to reason, all the while they sit alone, ignored. It would be amusing if it weren’t also a bit sad and pathetic.

Bunting, as usual, is shrilly defensive — she’s the kind who will, on one hand, claim to be defending Darwin by shielding him from ungodly atheists, while also quoting creationists approvingly. She’s no friend of reason or science, but only pretends to be so as a rhetorical tool to defend her real sacred cow: faith. She’s a bit deranged in that regard.

Baggini, though, is a more interesting case. He really is a serious atheist philosopher, and I think some of his ideas have merit, which makes it a particular shame that he has gone down this crazy road of finding common cause with a cuckoo like Bunting. In particular, my estimation of the fellow plummeted on reading his blanket dismissal of the New Atheism as “destructive”, in which the first thing he admits is that he has read none of the popular works of the movement!

The way he justifies this is to argue that he can judge on the basis of the New Atheism’s effects, which he claims bring atheists like him into disrepute. That is a remarkably insular sort of claim: does he truly believe that before Harris and Dawkins and Dennett and Hitchens wrote their books, we lived in a magical world where atheists were beloved scholars, respected by all, and that serious theologians were dealing only in reason and logic?

He’s entirely wrong. What the New Atheism has brought is more openness, and a surprising amount of atheist pride. Yes, it means we’re louder (Bunting talks of “foghorn voices” as if it were a bad thing), that we have a more diverse body of infidels that has to include many with whom we as individuals may disagree, and it gets more media attention and more popular enthusiasm. Rather than making me feel like I’ve drawn the enmity of the people, I think it’s great, and gives me real hope for the future—we are building a lively community of the godless that’s a bit less bloodless and doesn’t always smell of mothballs.

And guess what? Nothing in the New Atheist movement will prevent Julian Baggini from inviting the vicar over for afternoon tea in his quiet little house. Go ahead, Mr B. Nothing is stopping you from pursuing your goals.

Love in Afghanistan

Spring is in the air! Young hearts turn to thoughts of love, and romance flowers everywhere, even in the darkness of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. A young couple there, their union frowned upon by their families, eloped to marry anyway, a gesture I find wonderfully romantic and sweet. I’m a little biased — my own parents were discouraged from marrying by their families, and they too ran off to marry without permission (in liberal Idaho, in their case). I wouldn’t be here without youthful affection and passion!

Alas, no such happy result comes from a region poisoned by fanatical Islam. Mullahs seized the rebellious couple, issued a religious decree, and had them shot on the street in front of a mosque, symbol of their religion of peace.

I think the true symbol of their religion should be a pair of bloody corpses, dreams dead, hopes destroyed, all joy crushed.

Spring will still come and the poppies will blossom, and the air will warm and the sun will shine—but where is the meaning of it all when minds are shackled and love is shunned, when happiness is replaced with regimented dogmatism? A season of rebirth should be accompanied by an expansion of ideas and feelings and human connections, not repression. There can be no springtime for the Taliban, except as a series of dates on a calendar.