Atheist bus signs in Austria

I await the day when someone proposes to put a sign advocating godlessness on a bus, and the Christians and Muslims are so accustomed to it that they regard it with complete nonchalance. That day isn’t here yet, as we can see by all the ongoing perturbation at very simple, innocuous statements. Now Vienna is joining in, and of course we get a poll. We can see that even in secular Europe there are people who are disturbed by mere signage. Go say hello from America (and Australia and Europe and all the other places you’re from) and give some worldwide input to this silly poll.

Was ist Ihre Meinung zu der Atheismus-Kampagne? (What do you think of the atheist bus campaign?)

39,76 % Ich finde sie sehr gut. (very good!)
47,1 % Sie stört mich. (it bothers me)
13,14 % Sie ist mir egal. (I don’t care)

Mary’s Monday Metazoan: in our backyard

This is not a very good picture, but it’s because the subject is very, very shy. We have a, shall we say, rather untamed yard, very weedy, and we keep finding new little pals moving in. We’ve got rabbits everywhere, and lately, to our annoyance, pocket gophers are burrowing in our front yard, and we’ve been reluctant to murder them despite the gopher mounds. And this week, this guy moved in to a nice spot under our deck. He or she is good sized, almost knee-high as he stands like that, and he’s out rummaging around in the yard fairly often, although he scurries back to his nest as soon as he spots us.

i-92f69fb3ac5318f80c87fe0f1608c240-yuri.jpeg

I have named our woodchuck Yuri.

I half-expect to wake up some morning and find a herd of bison has taken residence, which will be very nice…but when the wolf pack moves in, we may have to move.

That inhuman monolith

Several months ago, we witnessed a tragic spectacle in the news: a nine-year old Brazilian girl was raped, became pregnant, and got an abortion…and the Brazilian Catholic church responded by excommunicating all the participants. One cleric in Rome, Monsignor Rino Fisichella, said the church had been insensitive, but no one in the hierarchy stepped forward to outright condemn the heartlessness of the church’s stance and the unfairness of the policy.

We now have an official document from the Catholic church clearly stating their position. Anyone involved in an abortion for any reason is to be automatically excommunicated, no exceptions. They’ve actually hardened their position.

That includes nine-year old children raped by their stepfather. It includes any doctors who act on sympathy for a maltreated child. Of course, all the rapist has to do is demand that his victim bear his child, and he will be welcomed in the bosom of the holy church. The church is standing firm on principle.

…there is a more important principle at stake. “We have laws, we have a discipline, we have a doctrine of the faith,” the official says. “This is not just theory. And you can’t start backpedaling just because the real-life situation carries a certain human weight.” Benedict makes it ever more clear that his strict approach to doctrine will remain a central pillar to his papacy, bad publicity be damned.

I see. Dogma is more important than reality, and most surprisingly for representatives of a religion that claims the moral high ground, it is more important than human needs.

Everyone should simply leave that evil institution — tell them they can keep their bricks and their real estate, their gold chalices and their gilt robes, their layered assemblage of celibate perverts, meddling old men, and fearful brides of Christ, and let that human element walk away, free of their superstitions. The church doesn’t want that human weight, anyway.

So, what is lunacy compatible with? Everything?

An Oxford research fellow, Andrew Parker, has written a bizarre little book claiming that the book of Genesis is entirely compatible with science and evolution…by simply redefining most of the terms in the Bible after the fact to fit. You know the sort of thing I’m talking about: “Let there be light” is a perfect description of the big bang, by “grass” god really meant “cyanobacteria”, the appearance of lights in the sky refers to the evolution of animal vision, etc., etc., etc., yadda yadda yadda. It’s ridiculous, of course, mere post hoc retrofitting of valid interpretations to a pile of bronze age bogosity. This is what happens when scientists try to combine old superstitions with real science.

I know of Parker from another connection, too: he’s the author of the Light-Switch Hypothesis, described in his book, In the Blink of an Eye. That was the idea that the trigger for the Cambrian explosion was the evolution of vision, which I’d thought might have been an interesting component, but was burdened with far too heavy a load of speculation and a suspicious reliance on single causes. This does explain some of the pseudo-biblical rhapsodies in that book, though.

Brian Goodwin, 1931-2009

It’s sad to see that we’ve lost Brian Goodwin, one of the genuinely original (but not always right!) thinkers of our time. There aren’t many left of the old structuralist tradition in biology, the kind of non-genetic purists who tried to analyze development in terms of the fundamental physical and chemical properties of the organism—they’ve been swallowed up and lost in a triumphal molecular biology research program.

Edge has a nice interview with and essay by Goodwin — they’re good places to start. If that whets your appetite, you should also read his book, How the Leopard Changed Its Spots : The Evolution of Complexity(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), which is aimed at general audiences and is a good overview of why we should look at more than just genes to explain form.

He was an advocate for one view of nature, and I think he missed the mark by neglecting genes as much as he did; we know now that a lot of details of morphology are directly affected in subtle and not-so-subtle ways by the genetics of the organism. But I think we can also make a case that the modern molecular biological approach is also missing a significant element. Every biologist ought to read a little Goodwin, just to leaven their picture of how biology works with his special perspective.

The gloves are off!

All right, I’ve got a Horde: a vicious mob of savages slavering over the prospect of conquest and booty. I’ve got to start using you more. Here are some people who have been asking for it:

Fly, my pretties, fly! Invade their blogs and leave comments and jack up their traffic and…and…stuff. That will teach them! Yarrrr!

I have another army arising, too. Remember, the SSA and I are going to the Creation “Museum” on 7 August. It’s going to be huge: last I heard, we’ve got 70 people signed up to descend on the place. I hope we have enough horses and lances to go around.

It’s got me thinking, though. With that many people, we want to stand out a little bit, and be able to recognize each other, so I have a request: all you godless heathens at the “museum” should wear an armband. Any color will do, and in fact a diversity of colors would be best to represent the diversity of our views, anyway — just tie a handkerchief or something around one arm when you go. Let everyone know what side you are on and what you represent: maybe a few of the other attendees will ask you who all those people with the armbands are, and you can politely explain to them what’s going on, and encourage them to ask us questions.

You should also tell them that all the people with armbands are laughing at them.