Tom Holland is censored

Channel 4 in the UK made a program called “Islam: The Untold Story”, and got so many complaints and threats that they have cancelled the screening of the show. This is a disgrace: the program is a serious, historical look at Islam, and the protesters are complaining because it takes an objective look at the evidence. We must be able to scrutinize Islam. If they’re going to hide their origins in obscurity, lies, and threats, then their beliefs should be dismissed.

I haven’t seen the program (and at this rate, I never will!), but I can make an informed guess at the content. It’s presented by Tom Holland, author of In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, an excellent and entirely sympathetic review of the history of Islam. He discusses the deep roots of Islam, formed in a culture that was shaped by its proximity to the frontier between the two great empires of the ancient world, Rome and Persia. He traces the origins of the Islamic holy book, and discovers that no, it didn’t simply appear in 7th century Arabia (although he does think there was a singular original text), but that Islamic thought coalesced long after the time of Mohammed…and he points out that there is no contemporary evidence at all of this person Mohammed — which sounds awfully familiar to those of us who are more exposed to the Jesus myth — and that there is a long history of self-deluding Islamic ‘scholarship’ that has a lot of similarity to the self-serving confabulations of Christians.

It doesn’t make negative judgments about Islam at all, unless, of course, you find reality offensive. I thought it was an excellent book to explain the complexities of Islamic history, and it made Islam more human and more interesting. It’s well worth reading.

It would also be worth watching, if Channel 4 would grow a spine. And if Channel 4 can’t manage it, I don’t know how we can ever hope to see it in the US.

Those of you living in the UK can watch it here. They block us Americans, I’m afraid.

O brave new world that has such penises in’t

I am getting quite impressed with the progress being made in organ reconstruction. New techniques have allowed amazing improvements in bioengineering that allow whole complex organs to be grown in a dish and then surgically reimplanted — and much of this research is being driven by our military ventures, which provide a steady supply of scarred, damaged, and mutilated veterans who need new body parts. There I read that scientists are developing procedures to regrow penises…how could I not look up that paper? So I did, and now I have the current recipe for building new penises — or at least, corpora cavernosa — in a lab.

It’s got limitations. First, you have to start with an intact penis, preferably from a dead body. Then it has to be delicately decellularized, leaving behind a fragile, ghostly collagen matrix, the connective tissue ‘skeleton’ of the organ. This framework is completely acellular, with no remnants of the donor’s cells, and consisting of just the collagen matrix, so that it will not provoke an immune response.

Then smooth muscle and endothelial cells are harvested by biopsies from the prospective host. This is to be an autologous transplant, a regrown organ built from the host’s own cells, again so immune system rejection will not be an issue. These cells are seeded in multiple steps onto the collagen scaffold, where they proliferate and infiltrate the matrix and reassemble (you hope!) the fully functional organ.

Note the limitations, though: you have to start with a penis. There are relatively few of those to spare, although since histocompatibility matching isn’t an issue, it ought to be doable as part of an organ donor program — we’ll just grab the penis as well as the corneas and kidneys. This procedure does not regrow the entire penis, but just the spongy erectile tissue in the core; this is implanted into the sheath of skin of the normal penis. I know all you body modification fans are dreaming of the day you can have multiple penises, but this isn’t quite there yet, and sorry, I should hope injured people who need the procedure get priority over cosmetic uses.

But here’s the astonishing thing: it works. The procedure has only been tested in rabbits so far, but with amazing success. I know what you are saying. You are saying, “Really? Then show me the bunny penises, with erections.” And I will.

At the top left is an unaltered, unoperated rabbit penis; top right is the case we’re interested in, a rabbit with an implanted, bioengineered penis (say, isn’t it a little larger than the unaltered penis?). At the bottom are negative controls, penises with just the unseeded collagen matrix implanted and with nothing at all to replace the surgical deletion.


Cavernosometry and cavernosography. (A) Cavernosometry shows that all rabbits implanted with the bioengineered corpora after complete pendular penile corporal excision had sufficient intracorporal pressure (ICP) to attain erection (n = 12). The levels of ICP were comparable to native corpora (n = 12). (B) Cavernosography shows a homogenous appearance of corpora in the bioengineered group (n = 12), similar to the native corpora (n = 16), numerous filling defects in the unseeded control group (n = 12), and major filling gaps in the negative control group (n = 3).

The researchers have done experiments in rabbits in which they compare a positive control group (no removal of the corpora) to a negative control group (rabbits with their penises hollowed out and the corpora removed — sad bunnies) to an experimental group (rabbits with their penises surgically cored out, and then replaced with bioengineered neocorpora), and look what happened.

The experimental and control animals were each placed with a female rabbit and mating activities were assessed at 1, 3, and 6 months after implantation. All rabbits with bioengineered neocorpora attempted copulation within 1 min of introduction to their female partners, and this occurred as early as 1 month after implantation. Most control rabbits did not attempt copulation after introduction to their female partners.

The rabbits were ready and eager to try out their new penises! Yay science!

The intravaginal ejaculation rate was determined using vaginal swabs to detect the presence of sperm after copulation and/or impregnation. In the experimental group, vaginal swabs contained sperm in eight of 12 instances, and four of the 12 females were impregnated, resulting in an intravaginal ejaculation rate of 83% (10/12). In the control group without cell seeding, all 12 vaginal swabs were negative.

And it wasn’t all just for fun, those penises worked, they successfully inseminated the females, and, typical bunnies, a third of the females were impregnated! Yay science again!

A difference between experimental and control group without cells in the intravaginal ejaculation rates of 75% was noted, with a 95% confidence interval of 36% to 89%. For the negative control group (excision only), all vaginal swabs were negative, and none of the females were impregnated (0%).

I feel sad for those bunnies with their flaccid, hollowed out penises, but I guess that is the expected result — it would have been far more surprising if the negative controls had inseminated their partners.

The bottom line is that we need more stem cell research and more bioengineering. There are wonders to be accomplished! And don’t let religious nonsense interfere with this kind of work.

Although, to be fair, both Islam and Christianity would be perfectly fine with reconstruction of the holy penis — it’s only when it steps into the task of reconstructing scarred and damaged vulvas that it treads over the line into abomination.

Chen KL, Eberli D, Yoo JJ, Atala A (2010) Bioengineered corporal tissue for structural and functional restoration of the penis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(8):3346-50.

Why I am an atheist – Helen Nicholls

As a young child I used to wonder why I existed at all. The thought made me dizzy. I considered the only answer I knew, that God had created it but it was not satisfactory. I also thought about death. I remember the moment I realised that one day I would die and that when that happened my consciousness would ceased and I simply would not be. The thought overwhelmed me and made me feel sick. I clutched at the easy answer; that I would go to Heaven. In order to believe that I had to believe in God as well and so I did. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It is only with hindsight that I realise that it was the fear of death that made me push away all my doubts.

[Read more…]

Atheists, secularists, freethinkers: vote for these secular charities

Chase Community Giving is handing out almost half a million dollars in a great big blatant popularity contest — it seems like a very poor way to distribute funds, and you know what I think of online polls. But hey, it’s their money, and they’ve come up with this scheme to distribute, so who are we but poor peons to play the game. Greta Christina has the details. The bottom line, though, is that you each have TWO votes through your Facebook account (if you don’t have a Facebook account, get one just so you can vote!). Pick two of the three secular organizations below and vote for ’em.

It’s a bit weird: when you vote, you get a link that you can share via email, facebook, google+, whatever, and if other people vote using it, you get credited for another vote. So spread the word and share the links.

There are various tiers of success, so we don’t have to get first place to get some money for our favorite groups — but we’re in competition with others, so we do have to push to get into the best tier we can.

Vote, vote, vote. I know these polls are usually utterly pointless, but at least this one has a chance of getting a good group a substantial reward.

Such a fine line between stupid and clever

Kitty! Jaguar Macho B in 2009.

I’m honestly not sure how I feel about this article: it’s either one of the silliest pieces of writing I’ve ever seen on endangered species issues, or a fiendishly clever way of roping ecologically apathetic adolescent d00dz into getting behind a conservation issue:

Usually, endangered species stories are lame. It’s some stupid owl or lizard or some other animal that nobody actually cares about.

Not this time. This time an animal actually worth caring about it [sic] getting some protected habitat. And if we’re really lucky it’s going to maul a few hikers.

The writer’s referring to a proposal last month by the US Fish and Wildlife Service that 838,000 acres of rough terrain on the US-Mexican border be designated Critical Habitat for the jaguar, the result of a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) in Tucson. The designation covers mountain ranges stretching from the Tohono O’odham Reservation eastward to the southwesternmost corner of New Mexico. Jaguars were pretty much extirpated from the US  early in the 20th Century, but there have been sightings of male jaguars over the years in parts of the proposed critical habitat, including one sighting and capture in 2009 that ended sadly.

Not mentioned in the d00dz-targeted article linked above: the largest impact of the critical habitat designation, if it’s approved, will likely be to cause problems for the proposed Rosemont copper mine in the Santa Rita mountains. CBD says the mine is its main concern with regard to protecting Arizona jaguar habitat. In response, in a statement likely to provoke wry smiles around these parts, a Rosemont Vice President accused CBD of bullying.

In any event, despite the enthusiasm of the Uproxx writer linked up top, the designation doesn’t mean we’re getting more jaguars: it just makes it somewhat harder to damage jaguar habitat with the federal government’s help.

So: stupid or clever? Uproxx writer Dan Seitz at least makes an effort to drop a little science, and he doesn’t get it completely wrong:

One theory maintains that peripheral populations are key to maintaining a species’ biodiversity. Species that live on the very edge of the range tend to develop new traits and evolve in different ways, then interbreed with other populations and pass on those useful mutations.

“Key” is an overstatement: some people do in fact suggest that peripheral populations may well be important for maintaining diversity in some species, but that certainly isn’t the only factor involved. Still, I wonder if I shouldn’t credit Seitz for slipping a little bit of science into a publication that features stories like this one, which is probably not safe for work even though it doesn’t involve stupid owls or lizards or some other animal that nobody actually cares about.

What can you do about a rebellious woman who will not submit to her husband’s authority?

Pat Robertson was asked that question. His answer was simple: you’ve got to stand up to her, and oh, how he wishes he could announce on television that you should beat her.

Well, you could become a Muslim and you could beat her. … This man’s got to stand up to her and he can’t let her get away with this stuff. I don’t think we condone wife-beating these days but something has got to be done.

How clever! To simultaneously advocate domestic violence while distancing oneself from it, and at the same time get in a little Muslim bashing! Who says Pat Robertson is senile? He’s not — he’s just evil.

But he’s wrong. You don’t need to be a Muslim to beat your spouse; we’ve got relatively few Muslims here in mostly lily-white Minnesota, and we’ve still got a tremendous number of domestic violence cases.

  • One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. 1 One in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape.

  • An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year.

  • The majority (73%) of family violence victims are female. Females were 84% of spousal abuse victims and 86% of abuse victims at the hands of a boyfriend.

And then there’s this juicy statistic: in Minnesota alone in 2006,

5,295 battered women and 5,131 children used
Minnesota emergency shelter services.

Were they all Muslim? Hey, Pat, maybe you can crack a joke about how those 5,000 women and children have learned a little something about submission and respect.

Around FtB

I scan the main page of Freethoughtblogs every day, and here are a few of the stories that caught my eye this time around.