Canyonero time

This past week has been Stevens County Fair week, and you know what that means: we strolled around looking at cute bunnies and ducks!

Also, unfortunately, all the trucks. This is a red county, with so many people who think the mega- (or MAGA-) truck is a status symbol. A dealership was selling trucks at the fair — $91,000!!?! Who spends that much on a basic vehicle? I think back to my aunt and uncle who had a working truck on their ranch. It was a battered near-wreck that they got used and cheap, and used to roll about the ranch, dropping off bales of hay or salt blocks. It was dented and dirty, and looked like a vehicle that saw daily hard use.

The ones I saw at the fair and parked around town on my daily walk are shiny and well-washed. They’re used by their owners to drive into town, where they can pick up a dollar cup of coffee at McDonald’s. I get to be a typical Liberal and walk, not drive, to the coffee shop for a two dollar French Roast, sneering at all the red-staters in their obviously pampered big pickup trucks.

Also, though, I’ve had the distinct impression that the trucks have been growing over the years. While I’m sneering, I’m also kind of appalled at the size of these monsters…and it’s true! The trucks have been expanding and becoming more lethal!

Trucks have gotten bigger, taller, gotten larger blind spots, and become much more powerful, luxurious, and expensive. Almost nobody even makes small pickups anymore, like the 1986 Toyota Hilux that I drove in college. The Toyota Tacoma, which used to be in that segment, is now almost as big as my old F-150.

This behemoth design trend — particularly the very tall, square front end seen in so many SUVs and trucks today — is both pointless and dangerous. Manufacturers have known for years that this style of vehicle is much more dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists, yet they keep making them bigger, taller, and heavier. Trucks and SUVs now make up fully 70 percent of all new cars sold in the U.S. Their bloated design is killing people, especially pedestrians.

When I made this observation on Twitter (in somewhat hyperbolic fashion), conservatives got steamed. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) accused me of being “afraid” of pickups. For the rest of the day, I got to enjoy good old conservative facts and reasoned debate: sexist and homophobic slurs, lurid fantasies about vehicular homicide, and repeated assertions that I drive a Prius — which appears to be the automotive equivalent of soy in the conservative mind palace. (I do not currently own a car of any kind, for the record.)

Rousing Cruz’s ire is a point in the author’s favor, but that 70% of the vehicles sold in the US are gross, heavy, oversized trucks and SUVs is a great American shame. And it’s killing people!

It does seem rather far-fetched to think that automakers are consciously building their biggest trucks to be more dangerous to pedestrians, but that is actually the case. To see why, let’s start with some data. According to the Governors Highway Safety Association, there were 6,283 pedestrian fatalities in 2018, an increase of 53 percent compared to 2009 and the highest figure since 1990. That gives the U.S. a figure of 19 pedestrian deaths per 1 million population. By contrast, France and Denmark had rates of 7.0 and 5.2 that year — especially remarkable because walking around in Paris and Copenhagen is far more common than it is in most American cities. Indeed, not long ago the European Union had a considerably greater rate of pedestrian fatalities than America, probably because walking is so much more common there. But the E.U. has cut pedestrian deaths by about 40 percent between 2007 and 2018 (from over 8,000 to about 4,900), while the U.S. has gone the opposite direction. Oslo and Helsinki did not have a single pedestrian death in all of 2019.

That’s nuts. We’ve owned, I think, 3 cars in the 40 years we’ve been driving, and the trend has been getting smaller and smaller cars each time. That probably means that at some point our matchbox is going to be crushed on the road by a massive Canyonero.

Thin-skinned creationists don’t like their lies dissected

Aww, Saturday’s video about the Ark Park got a copyright claim, from something called “Matter Entertainment” (maybe they’re a company hired to edit AiG’s videos? I have no idea). They objected to a random short segment where Chaffee was babbling about how they didn’t have to bring insects on the ark — I think they just arbitrarily typed in a time code.

I have disputed this, just on the general principle that we’re making critical commentary. All that’s happened is the video has been demonetized, but since I only make a tiny pittance off these videos, I’m not worried about it. It’s still silly that these people are worried about criticism of this nature.

New schedule begins…now

Classes start next week, so so I need to start getting my schedule back on track, which means I’m going to be in the lab every day at 9am. Summer’s over. Sorry, everyone.

So I walk into my office…after taking care of the spiders, of course…and what do I find in my u email? Another indigestible lump of text from one of the offices on campus that I’m supposed to add to my syllabus. It’s out of control. It’s ridiculous.

Can I volunteer for a committee that collects and collates all this absurd, ever-accumulating pile of what are basically inter-office memos that we are expected to append to all of our teaching materials? Here’s what I’d do: every summer, compile them to a linkable master file on a university website, and provide one line, a link, that everyone can add to their syllabus. Done and dusted. Two other things I’d do:

  • Provide a link so the people who create these things could submit revisions, which would be reviewed the following summer.
  • Set a deadline: the file is locked and unchangeable after, say, 1 August. You want to add more? You can’t do it the week before classes, and you have to submit it the Commissar of Syllabus Bloat, not to the campus wide listserv, who will put it in a queue to be dealt with 9 or 10 months later.

I think it’s safe to volunteer for this committee, since it doesn’t exist, and no way would the bureaucrats consent to submit to a policy that would constrain their advertising. Also, administrators don’t read my blog, it’s far too scary for them.

The pandering platitudes of Yuval Noah Harari

A lot of people suggested that I read Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. I got a copy — it’s moldering in a pile somewhere in my office somewhere — and read a couple of pages before the klaxon blaring in my head made me put it down. I did not trust the author in the slightest bit, and his stories all seemed either off or clearly weird opinions. I see my initial presentiments were valid, if you accept this review of Sapiens.

Unfortunately, Harari is tainting the reputation of science popularizers. At least the article labels him as a “science populist”, which is a whole different ball of wax. I think the difference is that a populist tries to ingratiate themselves with an audience by telling stories that reassure them that their biases about themselves are right.

We have been seduced by Harari because of the power not of his truth or scholarship but of his storytelling. As a scientist, I know how difficult it is to spin complex issues into appealing and accurate storytelling. I also know when science is being sacrificed to sensationalism. Yuval Harari is what I call a “science populist.” (Canadian clinical psychologist and YouTube guru Jordan Peterson is another example.) Science populists are gifted storytellers who weave sensationalist yarns around scientific “facts” in simple, emotionally persuasive language. Their narratives are largely scrubbed clean of nuance or doubt, giving them a false air of authority—and making their message even more convincing. Like their political counterparts, science populists are sources of misinformation. They promote false crises, while presenting themselves as having the answers. They understand the seduction of a story well told—relentlessly seeking to expand their audience—never mind that the underlying science is warped in the pursuit of fame and influence.

Since I didn’t read his book, I didn’t discover one of his core messages was something that drives me into a rage: he’s one of those genetic reductionists. All we need to do is figure out what genes you have, and we’ll understand everything. We won’t.

Harari’s speculations are consistently based on a poor understanding of science. His predictions of our biological future, for instance, are based on a gene-centric view of evolution—a way of thinking that has (unfortunately) dominated public discourse due to public figures like him. Such reductionism advances a simplistic view of reality, and worse yet, veers dangerously into eugenics territory.

Our genes are not our puppet masters, pulling the right strings at the right time to control the events that create us. When Harari writes about altering our physiology, or “engineering” humans to be faithful or clever, he is skipping over the many non-genetic mechanisms that form us.

For example, even something as seemingly hardwired as our physiology—cells dividing, moving, deciding their fates, and organizing into tissues and organs—is not engineered by genes alone. In the 1980s, scientist J.L. Marx conducted a series of experiments in Xenopus (an aquatic frog native to sub-Saharan Africa) and found that “mundane” biophysical events (like chemical reactions in the cells, mechanical pressures inside and on the cells, and gravity) can switch genes on and off, determining cell fate. Animal bodies, he concluded, result from an intricate dance between genes, and changing physical and environmental events.

Yeah, that’s pretty much the consensus among informed biologists. It’s hard to argue against it, unless you’re the kind of racist who ignores the science. Yet somehow, Harari gets all these recommendations from big name people like Obama and Zuckerberg and Gates. Why?

Harari’s motives remain mysterious; but his descriptions of biology (and predictions about the future) are guided by an ideology prevalent among Silicon Valley technologists like Larry Page, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and others. They may have differing opinions on whether the algorithms will save or destroy us. But they believe, all the same, in the transcendent power of digital computation. “We’re headed toward a situation where A.I. is vastly smarter than humans and I think that time frame is less than five years from now,” Musk said in a 2020 New York Times interview. Musk is wrong. The algorithms will not take all our jobs, or rule the world, or put an end to humanity anytime soon (if at all). As A.I. specialist François Chollet says about the possibility of algorithms attaining cognitive autonomy, “Today and for the foreseeable future, this is stuff of science fiction.” By echoing the narratives of Silicon Valley, science populist Harari is promoting—yet again—a false crisis. Worse, he is diverting our attention from the real harms of algorithms and the unchecked power of the tech industry.

Yeah, one path to fame and fortune is to pander to the biases of Silicon Valley tech bros. You know that “Larry Page, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and others” are people lacking in any biological expertise at all, but they do love uplifting stories of human nature and evolution, especially when the message is that the artificial hierarchy that has made them rich is intrinsic and natural. Yuck.

(To those of you who recommended the book to me: I appreciate it! It sounds like the kind of book I would like, it’s just that you can’t know until you dig into the content. Harari relies on superficial impressions to fuel the Harari industry.)

You mean professors aren’t kings?

What exactly does it mean to be “cancelled”? That seems to be an infinitely flexible word when used by its “victims”. Popehat straightforwardly recounts a recent event of some interest to me — students walked out on an academic lecture. Horrors!

Mr. Silvergate is a Harvard graduate and professor, crusading attorney and defender of rights, repeatedly published author of important books, founder of the Foundation for Individual Rights In Education, and a sought-after gripping speaker. He has not been fired, expelled from any organization, depublished, or even (so far as I know) shunned on Martha’s Vineyard. Here’s what happened: he was invited to speak to private high-school students on the subject of free expression, he used the racial epithet commonly known as the n-word in the course of accurately quoting the title of Prof. Kennedy’s book, he did so several times, some of the students walked out, he continued to speak with the rest of the students, later the school sent its community an apology for the epithet being used in the classroom and said it was inappropriate, and the school wouldn’t print Mr. Silvergate’s response. In other words, some people (rightly or wrongly, rationally or irrationally) didn’t like some of his free expression and responded with their own free expression. If there have been other consequences, he hasn’t mentioned them.

That was it. Students left in disgust, and the school apologize to the students and refused to engage the speakers again. This was being “cancelled”. Now you might say “Popehat is a lawyer!” and that therefore he cannot be trusted, so I stooped to looking at the source, an essay on…ugh…Quillette. It turns out Popehat was right on. The cancelee speaks:

The lessons taught by this sad tale are sobering. One is that it is apparently acceptable for students to signal their disagreement with a speaker by walking out of an assembly [Yes, it is. Students are not a captive audience] rather than subjecting his or her ideas to the testing that vigorous dialogue allows [Dialogue is not a test. It is especially not a test when one side is a seasoned professor or lawyer and the other is a high school student. You do not have a right to beat up kids.]. We know that practices from higher education have permeated the K-12 world, and that today a third of college students believe that it is sometimes or always acceptable to shout down speakers [Irrelevant. He wasn’t shut down.], or to try to prevent them from speaking on campus[Irrelevant. He was allowed to speak; they just decided they would rather not bring him back.]. Another 13 percent believe that is it sometimes or always acceptable to block other students from attending a campus speech [Irrelevant. This did not happen here.].

Another lesson is that the educational authorities at a storied academic institution are so afraid of offending the sensibilities of censors that they would rather discourteously [Discourteous? Here’s what the school said to students: “As members of the Milton community, we know not to use the ‘n-word’ due to its repugnant history and connotation. Thus, it was shocking and uncomfortable to hear the word voiced multiple times by Mr. Silverglate.” Rather mild.] ignore a guest speaker’s request to respond to a mistaken charge than permit the airing of a full debate [“DEBATE ME BRO!” No institution has an obligation to give you a platform.]. What happened at Milton is hardly an attractive display of diversity, inclusion, or equity. [I think respecting the student perspective is a fine example of DEI.]

This is juicy stuff for the yahoos at Quillette. A few people point out that he wasn’t “cancelled”, but a majority seemed to welcome the opportunity to rant about the “n-word”, and for some reason, go on and on about “trannies”. It’s always about hating someone.

Can Ted Cruz get any creepier?

Yes he can! And he hasn’t hit bottom yet!

The Texas senator made the remarks at a rally in Nevada on Saturday. Activist Lauren Windsor flagged the speech on Twitter.

“We need courage responding to crazy town,” Cruz told supporters. “Elizabeth Warren told reporters that a guy came up to her and said, ‘I would have voted for you if only you had a penis.'”

Cruz argued that Warren’s “story is a lie.”

“In today’s Democrat [sic] Party, how do we know she doesn’t?” Cruz said to laughter. “How could you possibly know? ‘My name is Elizabeth. Call me Bob.'”

Cruz went on to insist that transgender swimmer Lia Thomas is a “dude.”

“He looks like Michael Phelps,” the senator remarked.

Listen to his audience laugh.

Growed some more

Time for my weekly spider measuring event. The young’uns molted again, and once again, they’ve grown some more.

It’s a fairly steady pattern, as I might have expected. They eat, they get bigger. There’s a fair amount of variability there, and I’ll post a couple of photos of the spider on Patreon to illustrate that.

I’ve got another egg sac close to hatching, but as usual, Steatoda triangulosa is taking its sweet time. The data so far is a rough outline with data taken at weekly intervals — it’s clear that I need to do more frequent sampling to get a better picture of how pigment patterns develop, but these guys are not in any hurry to get under my microscope. It won’t hurt, I promise!

Canada, must you do everything better than the USA?

Once upon a time, I would have said nobody could out-crazy an American — we’ve got the looniest, most deranged, most unbelievable wackaloons of any country. I could take some pride in that. But no more: Canada has a new queen, Queen Romana Didulo. I can almost envy the certifiability of this claim:

Who knew that crossing the Y-DNA of white rappers and Filipinos could be so potent? The only thing that salvages US pride to a small degree is that most of her followers seem to be American, and she’s drawing on the intellectual brain power of the US QAnon movement.

Her fraudulent claims are patently obvious except, it seems, to her mostly American followers. Many have links to QAnon, according to investigative reporters Peter Smith of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, Mack Lamoureux of Vice World News, and a trio of academics. All have been tracking this story for months.

QAnon embraces wide-ranging, wild conspiracy theories centred upon the falsehood of Donald Trump’s secret fight against an international cabal of elitist pedophiles who kidnap children, traffic them, harvest their organs and drink their blood. They call the latter adrenochrome, which QAnon claims provides a psychedelic high and holds the promise of immortality.

Didulo promotes these lies in her videos, and has attracted leading QAnon figures. The result, as Lamoureux writes, is that they “sent a swarm of followers her way.”

Unfortunately, she’s not harmlessly batty. She’s an anti-vax nutcase who has called on her mob to literally kill health care workers who are vaccinating the public. She calls health care workers “ducks” in her missives.

Didulo then posted a chilling message on Telegram to “the Kingdom of Canada’s Military” ordering them to “shoot to kill anyone who tries in inject any children under 19 years old (with COVID vaccines),” and to intercept, seize and destroy all “coronavirus vaccines/bioweapons or any other vaccines.”

Noting that nearly a third of American have guns and 19 million are trained soldiers and veterans, Didulo said duck-hunting season started the next day and “by mid-morning Canada would be ‘thoroughly cleaned’.”

Her lackeys tried to ‘arrest’ some police and instead were arrested themselves. What’s astonishing is that she is still on the loose, using Telegram to send out dangerous directives…and there are people who actually believe her.

While Didulo’s ideas are ridiculous, they’ve already had a real-world effect on Canada. When Didulo told her fans that she had abolished Canada’s income tax, some stopped paying taxes to the Canadian government. Because Didulo issued a “decree” announcing that her supporters could now pay their utility bills with “IOUs” backed by her bogus government, her supporters have started losing electricity and water in their homes.

I guess we’re all just < waiting for her to get even more dangerous.

What I heard in 14 of Didulo’s many YouTube videos is deeply irrational and patently false.

She rants about everything from aliens arriving on Earth 300,000 years ago, her delusion that she has direct access to American, global and the “Earth defence commander in chief,” to her contention that she does not exist in the 3D world.

Yet, her followers are devoted. They have already been distributing her cease-and-desist notices by mail and in person.

It suggests that, at some point, they might also show up with guns.

Reminder: Wanna hear some bad defenses of Noah’s Ark?

At noon my time Dan Phelps and I will be grading Answers in Genesis’s answers on the topic of Noah’s Ark. Spoiler: they fail. But you can tune in later to see how they fail.

If you want to help out, here is the AiG video (only 20 minutes long), and you can chime in in the chat. I’ll keep my eyes open for better rebuttals than ours. We sure won’t get it from the comments on their video, because they’re mainly about sucking up.