I shall not even try to list all the things science has failed to anticipate

Help me wrap my brain around this tweet. I can’t grok it.



Philosophers’ historic failure to anticipate Darwin is a severe indictment of philosophy. Happy Darwin Day!

John Wilkins isn’t helping.


Likewise, scientists’ failure to anticipate The Beatles is a severe indictment on science.

Don’t you mean Pink Floyd, John?

Also, since Charles Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus was a philosopher and poet, and since his work did anticipate (incompletely) evolution, couldn’t we say that a philosopher actually did anticipate Darwin, and he was a Darwin too? We could also declare that the poets got there first.

And since Darwin considered himself a natural philosopher, couldn’t we also say that a philosopher did more than anticipate, but actually came up with Darwin’s theory of evolution?

Darwin appreciated philosophy, but also thought it essential to include experiment and observation. In his Autobiography he actually praised his education in philosophy.

Again in my last year I worked with some earnestness for my final degree of B.A., and brushed up my Classics together with a little Algebra and Euclid, which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did whilst at school. In order to pass the B.A. examination, it was, also, necessary to get up Paley’s Evidences of Christianity, and his Moral Philosophy. This was done in a thorough manner, and I am convinced that I could have written out the whole of the Evidences with perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley. The logic of this book and as I may add of his Natural Theology gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the Academical Course which, as I then felt and as I still believe, was of the least use to me in the education of my mind.

He also respected William Whewell, a philosopher (and a theologian. Christ, we’re screwed here!).

Dr. Whewell was one of the older and distinguished men who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several occasions I walked home with him at night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh he was the best converser on grave subjects to whom I ever listened.

Whewell is also the guy who invented the term “scientist” to describe practitioners of a specific branch of…philosophy. I guess it was a philosopher who anticipated scientists.

And, apparently, Darwin’s shipmates on the Beagle called him “philosopher”!

The first Lieutenant, however, said to me: “Confound you, philosopher, I wish you would not quarrel with the skipper; the day you left the ship I was dead-tired (the ship was refitting) and he kept me walking the deck till midnight abusing you all the time.

So I am confused. How can anyone use Darwin Day as an excuse to indict philosophy? It’s as if I used my birthday as an opportunity to cuss out my dad.

Happy Darwin Day!

Charles_and_Catherine_Darwin,_1816,_by_Sharples

I thought I’d include a picture of the young Charles Darwin, since we are celebrating his birthday today. That’s him in 1816, when he was 6 or 7 years old, with his younger sister, Emily Catherine Darwin. And then I started wondering about that other person in the picture. Darwin’s sisters were an extremely important influence on his life, and I don’t know a heck of a lot about her; Darwin had four sisters and one brother, Erasmus, and most of the biographies say quite a bit about the older brother who preceded him to university, but the sisters seem to be background noise. It seems Catherine’s life was mainly about caring for her father’s household, and she married late in life, at age 53, only to die a few years later. You can read some of Catherine’s correspondence, and she seems to have been a lively and intelligent person.

According to Darwin’s autobiography, she was also the smart one.

I have been told that I was much slower in learning than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I was in many ways a naughty boy. Caroline was extremely kind, clever and zealous; but she was too zealous in trying to improve me; for I clearly remember after this long interval of years, saying to myself when about to enter a room where she was-“What will she blame me for now?” and I made myself dogged so as not to care what she might say.

Roughly the same age, roughly the same intelligence, but Catherine Darwin didn’t have the opportunity to go to college or to sail on the Beagle. It makes the picture even more interesting: foreground and background, different fates, different choices, different chances. We know what will happen to those two children — Darwin will die in 1882, Catherine in 1866 — history does this odd thing of telescoping complex lives into just a few events, and I don’t know, but it makes me sad.

I am now resisting the temptation to pull out the old photos of my kids from that box in the closet.

My wife has enslaved me! She wants sex without babies!

The best part of this interview with James Taranto is watching the expressions of the women doing the interviewing. You can tell they’re struggling to maintain a professional attitude while dealing with this lunatic hunk of slime.

The social purpose of marriage is to control men.

I’m actually quite fond of women. You can call me Tarantosaurus sex.

Women can have sex without the fear of pregnancy, just like men can. And this is a bad thing?

Excuse me. I have to go drink a quart of epicac right now. I could just go read the Wall Street Journal, I suppose, but guzzling a potent emetic would have the same effect, and be less painful to my brain.

(via TBogg.)

Funny story

There was an accident at a suicide bomber training camp: an instructor set off a vest loaded with explosives, killing himself and 21 other terrorists-in-training, wounding 15 more, and 8 were arrested in the aftermath. Laugh, everyone! Bad guys are dead! And ironically so!

Of course, imbedded in the story are details we might otherwise try to forget.

Iraq is facing its worst violence in more than five years, with nearly 9,000 people killed last year and almost 1,000 people killed last month. On Monday, a roadside bomb in Mosul, in northern Iraq, targeted the speaker of Parliament, Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, security officials said. Six of his guards were wounded, but Mr. Nujaifi was unharmed, they said.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria evolved from its previous incarnation as Al Qaeda in Iraq, but recently Al Qaeda’s central leadership disavowed the group, which has taken on an increasingly important role in the fighting in Syria, as well as in Iraq.

Along with the increase in attacks on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad and elsewhere, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other Sunni extremist groups have captured territory in western Anbar Province, and for weeks they have controlled the city of Falluja and parts of Ramadi, the provincial capital. Other areas of the country have also become strongholds of the Islamic State and of Al Qaeda.

Terrorist training camps have been set up in the mountainous areas of Diyala Province. Northern Nineveh Province has become a gateway for jihadis traveling from Iraq to Syria. Mosul, Nineveh’s capital, has become a center of financing for militant groups estimated by one Iraqi official at millions of dollars a month, generated by extortion and other schemes.

Democracy! Whisky! Sexy!?

Mission Accomplished!?

Man, we fucked that place up. Are you still laughing?

An Australian survey

It’s terrible. It’s nothing but loaded question after loaded question, with no opportunity for nuance. The Australian Christian Lobby is begging for you to tell them to kick Christianity out of the curriculum. These are the kinds of questions they ask:

Faith-based school communities and families who homeschool should have the flexibility to teach creation alongside evolution and the big bang theory.

Let us teach nonsense in the classroom!

While sustainability, Indigenous and Asian themes may be interesting and important, the current curriculum emphasises these issues at the expense of other important themes that should also be addressed by the Curriculum.

We’re teaching too much crap about non-white people!

You know, there should be some instruction in general religion in schools — I consider it to be along the lines of telling kids not to eat poison. But this survey is all about teaching only a biased, emphatically fundamentalist position to them as good. How about giving them a secular education instead? Is that too much to ask?

Hmmm. I know some people who might provide a counterbalancing perspective.

Fixes in the works

I am getting many complaints about recent changes. In response to the DDOS attack (Jason has all the details), there have been some new problems caused by the repairs: RSS is down, and there are apparently some slightly annoying javascript additions. We have Top Men working behind the scenes, it looks like we might be getting a security company to tighten us up, and also, coming down the track is a complete redesign of the site. Patience.

Years ago when I was running this place off my own server, one of the reasons I happily leapt aboard the Scienceblogs ship was that they’d take care of all the techy fol-de-rol needed to keep it running. Now that I’m on a different network, I’m constantly grateful that we have people like Ed to handle management, and Jason to futz with the guts, and another person lurking in the black bowels of the machine who I will not name, all juggling all the balls all at once.

First they came for the Mormons…

And then, we hope, they go after the rest. A British court is accusing the Mormons of fraud.

A British magistrate has issued an extraordinary summons to the worldwide leader of the Mormon church alleging that its teachings about mankind amount to fraud.

Thomas S. Monson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been ordered to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London next month to defend the church’s doctrines including beliefs about Adam and Eve and Native Americans.

A formal summons signed by District Judge Elizabeth Roscoe warns Mr Monson, who is recognised by Mormons as God’s prophet on Earth, that a warrant for his arrest could be issued if he fails to make the journey from Salt Lake City, Utah, for a hearing on March 14.

The judge cites the belief that Native Americans are the lost tribe of Israel, that the Book of Mormon was ever written on gold plates, yadda yadda yadda. Sure. I’ll be more impressed when a British court summons the head of the Anglican church to answer for their lies.

The Mormons, by the way, call the totally true allegations “bizarre” and Monson apparently has no plans to travel to London. The court order is kind of a futile gesture, so that seems reasonable — I’m more interested in the fact that “God’s prophet on Earth” has admitted that common Mormon beliefs are bizarre.

We must protect the students!

Administrators at London South Bank University have taken steps to protect the religious sensibilities of their student body, banning blasphemous portrayals of deities and important religious figures. Followers of those beliefs can’t possibly be expected to deal with ridicule, so the offensive portrayals must be taken down.

You might be wondering whose image is being redacted. Mohammed? Jesus? Buddha? L. Ron Hubbard?

Nope. A flyer that committed sacrilege by using the holy figure of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been prohibited.

I can understand how Pastafarians might be up in arms over any portrayal of a tangle of noodles and a pair of meatballs — we have an Italian restaurant in Morris, and sometimes I too am shocked when I see a plate that has spontaneously ordered itself into a perfect simulacrum of the one true god. It’s why I’m always careful to segregate the pasta from the meatballs, to make sure no untoward activity takes place on the plate. Also, because as we all know, while meatballs are particularly blessed, pasta must always know its place as inferior and subservient (it’s so pliant, and always so seductive).

I am pleased to report, however, that London South Bank University did exactly the right thing in silencing those heretics emphasizing the silliness of the divine. It’s just as well, too, or Pastafarians around the world might have been motivated to riot. Or set sail to live a pirate’s life, with a yo-ho-ho.

Oh, wait. I have just been informed that the Pastafarians weren’t complaining, it was other religious groups trying to suppress the expression of other beliefs.

Never mind.