Why Evolution is True Feed

UPDATE: See the review of this movie that reader Dan links to in comment #5.

I’ve recently heard a lot about UFOs, mainly because I have a friend who seems to think they’re real. I’ve watched the videos taken from planes supposedly showing alien craft, and I’ve read various explanations for them, both involving and not involving aliens. I’ve seen people swearing that actual UFO craft are in the possession of the U.S. government, which is “reverse engineering” them to see how they work, and I’ve heard people who are considered “reputable” espouse belief in UFOs.

But in the end I remain deeply skeptical. Where did these aliens come from: a star light years away? Most of all, I think that if there’s credible evidence for UFOs—evidence including remains of alien vessels themselves—then why is the press ignoring such a big story? It would be the biggest news story of our lifetime, by far. Yet the press doesn’t seem that eager to sniff out the hard evidence for UFOs—the supposedly extant captured flying saucers.   The people who spread these stories seem to me to be conspiracy theorists, like the Q-Anon people.

Still, the story won’t go away—its persistence being yet another reason why people find UFOs credible. Well, creationism hasn’t gone away, either, but that doesn’t mean it’s right. Like creationism, UFOs just appeal to people with certain points of view: in the case of creationism, religious views. In that sense the UFO-believers are like religionists, for a lot of their beliefs in aliens rests on our failure to yet understand those high-velocity specks photographed by some aircraft.  It’s the Argument from Ignorance. Goddies like Ross Douthat think that if we can’t explain phenomena like the “fine-tuning” of the Universe,or human consciousness, it points to God. Likewise, if the UFOers can’t explain those high-velocity specks, well, it points to aliens.

Now the NYT has an article about a new documentary showing “credible” government officials espousing belief in UFO. Click below to read the article, or see it archived here.

Excepts (indented):

The long government shutdown had left a secret screening in limbo. But Monday on Capitol Hill, a handful of House members filed into a committee room to watch a new documentary featuring nearly three dozen government officials and others discussing what they can disclose about unidentified aerial phenomena, long known as U.F.O.s.

The unusual bipartisan mix of Republicans and Democrats had gathered to watch “The Age of Disclosure,” which had its high-profile debut at South by Southwest earlier this year. In the film, 34 former and current senior members of government, military and intelligence groups claim that they have knowledge of advanced nonhuman intelligence and contend, among other things, that there’s been an 80-year cover-up of the reverse engineering of technology retrieved from crashes.

Perhaps the biggest name in “The Age of Disclosure” (in theaters Friday and on Amazon Prime), is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the former senator whose participation helped open the door for other top officials to go on record when he served as the vice chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. In the film, he cites “repeated instances of something operating in the airspace over restricted nuclear facilities, and it’s not ours. And we don’t know whose it is.”

. . .Representative André Carson of Indiana, a Democrat from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, praised the documentary, saying it “pieces everything together that we’ve seen on television, on film and on social media.” Carson, a host of the screening who also appears in the film, added, “There is a section in here that will bring context to all the fuzzy photos that we’ve seen.”

One attendee, Representative Eric Burlison, Republican of Missouri, said he hoped “The Age of Disclosure” would help make the U.A.P. issue a priority for the Trump administration.

“I think we’ve had enough hearings” and it is now time for hard evidence or “receipts,” he said in an interview while waiting for his colleagues to arrive. “I’m trying to find the receipts. In private conversations, I’ve been given enough information to find them, I just don’t have access.”

. . . . The Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office, tasked with investigating U.A.P., has said it has no verifiable information to support reports of a government program to reverse-engineer extraterrestrial materials.

. . . . The controversial documentary has drawn mixed reactions from critics, with several reviews questioning unproven statements.

The showing was held in part to mobilize support for the U.A.P. Disclosure Act, legislation proposing a path to undoing government secrecy on this topic that has been introduced by Senators Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota. Rounds was interviewed in the film.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, did not attend but sent a statement calling for greater transparency and saying she would work in Congress to “reduce the stigma around reporting, strengthen our national security, and ensure U.A.P. records are being properly disclosed.”

Well, yes, if the government has files that attest to the existence of UFOs, it should release them, unless there are pressing national security concerns, but I can’t imagine what those would be. (Could the Russians steal our reverse-engineered mechanisms for why UFOs go so fast?)  And if we have actual spacecraft from aliens that are in the process of being reverse-engineered, I can’t believe that the entire American press corps would not be sniffing it out as hard as they could, and that eventually they’d find them—IF they existed. Documenting their reality would make the reputation of any reporter or newspaper. Sadly, there has been no credible documentation.

Right now I’d put my money on their non-existence, but of course I was a career scientist and my mindset is one of doubt, especially about extraordinary claims. Show me a flying saucer and I’ll change my mind.

Here’s Bill Maher’s latest comedy-and-politics bit from “Real Time,” called “New Rule: The Banishing Act.” It is part of a series he’s made asking for comity between people on opposite ends of the American political spectrum. This time, he argues, banishing people from your life if they voted for Trump, or are even anti-Trump Republicans, is not going to help anybody, much less the Democratic Party.

In fact I know several such people who won’t talk to Republicans, and that would make for some unpleasant holiday dinners. (My dad, for example, voted for Nixon—an earlier and less malign version of Trump—but I accepted it and moved on.)

At any rate, Maher notes, correctly, that liberals engage more in this form of ghosting than do conservatives, and Maher shows some of the articles written by liberal discussing it. (Litt’s article in the NYT is here, and, fortunately, his answer is “no”. In contrast, Sarah Jones’s piece says it’s okay to go “no contact with your MAGA relatives”; it’s archived here.)  Maher’s point is that this form of ghosting, accompanied with arrogant pronouncements, can only hurt Democrats. As he says, “Ultimatums don’t make people rethink your politics; they make them rethink you.” (Note that Maher mentions some prominent “wokeisms”, but also blames Republicans for their own missteps.

Note that at 5:50 Maher refers to the social media pile-on he experienced when he related that he had with Trump dinner at the White House—and Trump was actually nice and civil. For that Maher was excoriated by many people with Trump Derangement Syndrome. How dare he say anything good about Trump? That excoriating was  especially stupid because, during the dinner, Maher criticized Trump and his policies to his face. Maher still seems to be defensive about that pushback, but in fact he was right.

Do I have to add that I don’t think Trump is a good person, but admit that in a social situation he could be friendly and civil? Larry David’s NYT piece making the same point, is archived here and is mentioned by Maher.

In the end, I agree with Maher: “Can we please try to remember—especially at this time of year—that ghosting anyone who disagrees with you politically is not the way to fix what’s wrong with the country?”

The guests on the show are said to be “veteran political strategist Donna Brazile and Michael Render,” as well as Neil deGrasse Tyson and Andrew Sullivan, but the only ones I see are Brazile and Render.

Two kind readers sent photos yesterday, so we’re good until Tuesday.  If you’re off work for the Thanksgiving week, why not collect some of your good wildlife photos (if you have them) and send them in?Thanks!

Today we have some lovely butterfly pics from Pratyaydipta Rudra, a professor of statistics at Oklahoma State.  Pratyay’s captions and descriptions are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. (I just found out that he and his wife share a photo website called “Wingmates“).

When birding gets slow during the summer, we often pay closer attention to the insects, especially the pollinators that are quite abundant during the hotter months. Our garden (as well as some local botanical gardens and farms) has plenty of native species that attract a variety of pollinators including butterflies and moths. Below are some butterfly images that I took earlier this year.

Gulf Fritillaries (Dione vanillae) on our Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). This plant attracts a huge number of pollinators over the summer, and it is also one of the host plants of Monarch butterflies:

Monarch (Danaus plexippus), caught in flight with an interesting morning lighting:

Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia) on Indian heliotrope (Heliotropium indicum). This plant is not native to North America, but it is quite widespread in our area, and the flowers are pretty:

Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) coming in for landing on a zinnia. Flight photography of butterflies is way more difficult than birds-in-flight photography, but possible with modern cameras and a lot of patience:

The larval stage of Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae), on a purple passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) plant, the host plant for them:

Two generations… This adult Gulf Fritillary (Dione vanillae) might be quite worn, but she stopped by to lay eggs, perhaps one last time, as one of the caterpillars from the next generation keeps munching on the leaves:

Great Spangled Fritillary (Speyeria cybele) on Garden Phlox (Phlox paniculata). A relatively uncommon fritillary for us in this part of the state. In fact, it’s the first time I found one in our county:

Diana Fritillary (Speyeria diana) and Monarch (Danaus plexippus). This is one of my most favorite images from this summer. This was also my first encounter with a Diana Fritillary. This male Diana was nectaring on the Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) when the Monarch flew in. Mr Fritillary wasn’t happy at all:

There was some kickboxing that took place at this point and there was a clear winner…:

The fritillary was able to hold ground, and the Monarch took off:

American Snout (Libytheana carinenta). Not difficult to see why it is named that way. It’s always fun to find one of these little ones with the long “nose”!:

Eastern Tailed Blue (Cupido comyntas). These so-called tails are parts of their wing which they keep moving. This is theorized to be useful to fool the predators into thinking that these are their antennae. Many butterflies actually have several traits like this that give a “false head” impression. We present a Gray Hairstreak in the second image which has a similar false head:

A recent study found that these traits have evolved in a correlated manner, likely driven by a common selective pressure helping them to develop complex head-like structures on their posterior side.

Gray Hairstreak (Strymon melinus) – Another common butterfly in our area that has a similar “tail”:

Pearl Crescent (Phyciodes tharos) – A common butterfly, especially during the fall migration. For those of you who are interested in photography, this image was taken at ISO 256000 (by mistake), but the modern noise reduction programs are unbelievably capable of removing such noise due to low exposure:

Phaon Crescent (Phyciodes phaon). This one is relatively uncommon here. I was glad to find several this year:

The crescents are quite small, and Phaon Crescent (Phyciodes phaon) is typically smaller than the more common Pearl Crescent. Here is an image that has my two-year-old daughter’s finger as a reference. I am glad to have this new butterfly-watcher in our camp!:

I don’t go to poetry readings, but I read a fair amount of poetry—mostly older stuff. (To me, poetry ceased to be good when it became unrhymed prose with variable line spacing.)  So my title really refers to the three immortal poets whose recorded readings I’ve put in this post.

Ths other day, in connection with something I’m writing, I came upon William Butler Yeats reading aloud one of his great poems, “The Lake Isle of Innisfree.” To me the lyrical beauty of the work was ruined by Yeast’s monotonic, his lack of pauses, and pompous intonation, which you can hear below.

And it’s not just Yeats, but his near contemporaries T. S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas. Here, for instance is Eliot reading another great work, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”  He rushes through the poem with the same monotone as Yeats.  It’s almost as if Eliot doesn’t feel what he wrote.

Finally, another favorite, Dylan Thomas reading his great classic, “Fern Hill,” a remembrance of his childhood.  Same issue! All three poets are of different nationality: Yeats was Irish, Eliot American with an adopted accent, and Thomas Welsh. (I have to admit that of all these renditions, Thomas’s is best, as he shows at least a modicum of emotion.)

It’s not that these poems can’t be recited without feeling, as there are examples of better renditions all over YouTube (listen to Jim Meskimem reading “Fern Hill”).  So I’m still baffled by the three readings above, and I’m wondering what Oscar Wilde sounded like when reading his poems (I can’t find recordings).

While cats inhabit or live around most mosques in Istanbul, they haven’t been regular residents of the Topkapi Palace, the residence of the sultans for four centuries and center of the Ottoman Empire. If you’re ever in Istanbul, this is a must-visit place, where you can see the sultans’ jewels, the harem, and many accoutrements of the Empire, not to mention the lovely tiled architecture.  However, until recently there were no cats—a woeful lacuna.

This has now been remedied, as the Daily Sabah reports:

An excerpt. The cat door mentioned in the article is shown in the title above (click to read):

The cat door in the Karaağalar Quarters of the Harem at Istanbul’s Topkapı Palace, originally built during the Ottoman period to allow palace cats to move freely, has been fully restored, bringing life back to the palace’s feline residents, including Şerbet, the granddaughter of Mülayim, a cat that had been missing for three years, and other palace cats.

The cat door, which opens into the Karaağalar Quarters, was restored according to its original design, allowing cats to move through the Harem as they did centuries ago. The historic passage has been part of palace life for centuries and serves as a symbol of the Ottomans’ care for pets.

The small door in the Karaağalar Quarters is in the section that once housed the Darüssaade Ağas, high-ranking officials. With the restoration complete, the silent footsteps of cats have again echoed through the palace’s historic stone floors.

Cats, which are among the palace’s silent witnesses, continue to roam the Harem’s stone floors as they did centuries ago, passing through the small door to reach different corners of the palace. After the restoration, Şerbet, the granddaughter of Mülayim, along with other cats, revived the historic passage by following their ancestor’s path, bridging the past with the present.

This small detail, hidden within the Harem’s elegant architecture, reflects the care shown to animals during the Ottoman period and serves as a living part of Topkapı Palace’s history.

. . . . . [Head of the Palace Ilhan] Kocaman emphasized that pets were an integral part of palace life, moving freely and living within the Harem. “Among the palace’s pets, cats stood out more prominently. As a sign of compassion and mercy, these animals were brought into the palace and allowed to stay close to humans. People kept them nearby. To allow easy access, a special door for cats was placed under the main door.”

He continued, “The Darüssaade Ağa held the highest rank among the Karaağalar. The rooms connected to this door were used by officials of lower rank before the Darüssaade Ağa. Since they brought pets with them, the cats personally used these rooms.”

. . .The restoration of the cat door on the second floor of the Karaağalar Quarters has been completed, he said. The ground floor is open to visitors, while the second floor is not yet accessible. Other floors will gradually open, but due to the historic structure, visitor access must be limited. Narrow stairways and the challenging architecture limit the number of visitors allowed on upper floors.

Mülayim, the cat that had lived in Topkapı Palace for many years but had been missing for three, had long used the quarters’ cat door. Now, Şerbet, her granddaughter and other cats continue to pass through it.

“Pets may leave certain areas temporarily, but others take their place. Our staff ensures the needs of cats in the courtyards are met, allowing them to live comfortably. We want to showcase this Ottoman practice and we believe it will attract interest,” Kocaman said.

Here’s a video showing the cats and their new cat door:

Read the Wikipedia article on Islam and Cats, A quote from that one:

The cat is considered “the quintessential pet” by many Muslims, and is admired for its cleanliness.

Unlike many other animals, Islamic Law considers cats ritually pure and that cats possess barakah (blessings), and allows cats to freely enter homes and even mosques. Cats are believed to be the most common pet in Muslim countries.

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Here’s an article about “Bone Jovi,” a cat resident at the Bone Museum in Brooklyn. If you’re a New Yorker, you can go see him NOW.

Click to read:

An excerpt:

At first glance, a museum filled with human bones might not seem like the ideal home for a cat. But for Bone Jovi, the resident feline of the Bone Museum in Brooklyn, it’s a perfect match.

Originally from a shelter in Georgia, Bone Jovi made a 900-mile journey to the Best Friends Lifesaving Center in New York. The tuxedo-wearing cat immediately stood out.

Calm, confident, and unbothered by new environments. That unique temperament landed him an unexpected opportunity, a chance to become the next face of one of New York’s quirkiest museums.

Before Bone Jovi came along, a cat named Chonky Boy had been the beloved mascot of the Bone Museum for five years. Chonky Boy, now partially blind and mostly deaf, was ready for retirement. The museum team went in search of a worthy successor, and they found it in Bone Jovi.

The team gave him a trial run, letting him roam the museum freely. He passed with flying colors. According to the museum, “he quickly proved himself as the perfect fit.” Soon after, Bone Jovi was adopted and officially joined the museum staff as their new mascot and professional mouser.

Visitors can often find Bone Jovi curled up in a chair at the front desk or exploring exhibits like Phantom and Odd Fellow. Though surrounded by bones, he moves with ease and charm. He’s become more than just a museum cat. He’s a cultural ambassador, a social media darling, and a fan favorite.

If you want to see Bone Jovi (or visit the Bone Museum), you can find information here.  And below is a video of the Museum’s “Head of Security”.

And another video (I think more people come to the Museum to see the cat than the bones, but Bone Jovi facilitates learning, too):

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And Greycoat Research has some good news for cat owners, particularly those with senior cats. As you may known, older cats often die from kidney failure.  But now there’s a potential therapy that can give extra years to your moggy. Click to read:

An excerpt:

After decades of research and rising hope, a potential cure for feline chronic kidney disease (CKD) is finally within reach. The long-anticipated AIM injection drug—designed to restore the kidney’s natural cleaning mechanism—is set to enter clinical trials in April 2025, with completion targeted before year-end. Applications for regulatory approval are planned for 2026, and if successful, the drug could be available to the public as early as spring 2027.

This marks a historic moment in veterinary medicine. The drug was developed by Dr. Toru Miyazaki, the Japanese immunologist who discovered the AIM (Apoptosis Inhibitor of Macrophage) protein in 1999 and revealed its critical role in clearing waste from the kidneys. Unlike other species, cats lack the ability to activate AIM, which leads to a gradual buildup of waste and eventual kidney failure. Dr. Miyazaki’s breakthrough was not only in identifying this process, but in formulating a method to correct it—culminating in the development of an injectable drug that delivers active AIM directly to the kidneys.

To bring the therapy to life, Dr. Toru Miyazaki established the Institute for AIM Medicine  (IAM) in 2022 with the help of widespread donations from cat lovers who shared his vision of curing feline kidney disease. This public support allowed him to transition AIM research from academic theory into practical application.

The following year, he launched IAM Cat as a dedicated platform to accelerate feline-specific clinical development. Beyond the laboratory, Dr. Toru Miyazaki has worked tirelessly to raise awareness, build infrastructure, and push the treatment toward real-world use. A full production pipeline has now been secured, including a dedicated manufacturing base in Taiwan, ensuring that the drug can be scaled for broad distribution once approved.

Here’s a photo of Miyazaki’s book, The Day Cats Live to Be Thirty:

The site already sells supplements in the form of pills, but the wonder cure is to be an injection. Check with your vet before trying any of this stuff.

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Lagniappe: A new short of Simon’s Cat and Simon’s kitten, who learns to use the scratching post:

And a second lagniapp: parrot and cat have a chinwag:

h/t: Erik, Merilee

I have pretty much run out of contributions, but am also allowed to plunder the wonderful photos of Scott Ritchie from Cairns, Australia. Here are some more from his trip to Western Australia. Scott’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them. (Scott’s Facebook page is here.)

An update on the WA trip, part III. Here are some of my favourite birds and mammals from my travels through Denmark and Albany. I will also provide an in depth look at the aquatics from Lake Sepping, Albany in the next post. It’s a great area, wonderful trees, intriguing flowers, dramatic landscapes, brilliant cool climate wines and outstanding birds!

Golden or Western Whistler (Pachycephala fuliginosa):

A White-browed Scrubwren (Sericornis frontalis) declares his patch:

Sooty Oystercatcher (Haematopus fuliginosus) has to dodge the surf.

That was close!:

Heh, I was first! A Silvereye (Zosterops lateralis) stares down an incoming bee at a nectar bar:

While the ever agro honeyeater, the New Holland Honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae), shows off his diving form chasing any other bird that shows up:

Scarlet Robin (Petroica boodang). “Red, red robin goes bob, bob bobin away!”:

A Sacred Kingfisher (Todiramphus sanctus) shuffles out the rain:

Then flies down for a tasty slug:

I love the icy blue head on the Red-winged Fairywren (Malurus elegans)!:

A Red-eared Firetail (Stagonopleura oculata) lights his afterburner:

 

Before going into high speed orbit!:

Pelicans at Ocean Beach. Turn around or you’ll miss the rainbow!:

A Nankeen Kestrel (Falco cenchroides) hovers above Green Pool at Denmark, enjoying a grasshopper for brekkie:

“Watch out, here he comes!”  The kestrel then flies to Elephant Rocks where he is given a rude welcome by a Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena):

Heavy winter rains made for quite a itchy visit! Local mozzies were driving the Western Grey Kangaroos (Macropus fuliginosus) crazy:

Australian Ringneck (AKA 28 Parrot; Barnardius zonarius) enjoys the flowers in the field:

Well, this is it, people: the last batch of photos I have on hand. Please send in yours if you have good ones. Thanksgiving break would be a good time to get those snaps together.

Today’s pictures come from Paul Handford, who sent photos of thrushes from British Columbia and Ireland. Paul’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

Here’s a sampler of members of the Family Turdidae, the thrushes et al.  Some are from our decade living in south central British Columbia, while others are from around here now, in Ireland.

First, BC. As before, all images are from the area around Kamloops, mostly from our yard.

American robin, Turdus migratorius: IMG_7029.

Almost everyone living in North America is familiar with this bird, dubbed “robin” on account of its brick-red underparts, recalling to early European immigrants their familiar Old World robin, a much smaller bird, from a different avian family.  Its vocalizations and general behaviour strongly resemble those of the Eurasian blackbird in the same taxonomic genus, Turdus merula (see below):

Mountain bluebird, Sialia currucoides.

A bird of higher-elevations in western parts of the continent.  The males are the very bluest of the three North American. bluebird species.  Like other Sialia species, they are cavity-nesters, and feed primarily on ground invertebrates, spotted from elevated perches on fence-posts and local vegetation.

Females are generally a more subtly beautiful beige & ashy, with blue restricted to wings, rump and tail.

Male:

Female:

Townsend’s solitaire, Myadestes townsendi.

Like the mountain bluebird, this is a species of the mountainous west.  It is a year-round resident in southern BC, but its breeding range extends way north into Yukon and Alaska.  Almost exclusively insectivorous in the breeding season, it overwinters in our area on diverse berries—as here on rowan (Sorbus):

Swainson’s thrush, Catharus ustulatus.

Other than in the mountains and coasts of the western US, this is a breeding bird of forsts and woodlands of Canada and Alaska.  More often heard than seen, this secretive bird has a distinctive haunting, flute-like song [JAC: you can hear its songs here.]

Varied thrush, Ixoreus naevius.

Another strictly western bird, one typical of the deep forest, where its one-note songs, usually repeated at slightly different pitches, provide for a rather eerie ambience.  Though mainly a summer breeder in BC, individuals often would overwinter, subsisting on berries, again in our dependable rowan tree:

Eurasian blackbird, Turdus merula:

This species is the rough counterpart of the American robin:  a familiar songster in parks and gardens pretty much all over.  As Paul McCartney memorably told us, they often do produce their lovely fluting song “in the dead of night”. [JAC: A variety of song recordings is here.]

Male.  The male is the one that gives the vernacular name. Apart from crows et al, this is the only common jet black bird in these parts, so the name offers no room for ambiguity:

Female:  The female’s plumage is mostly a rather sooty brown, and it lacks the striking crocus-yellow bill and eye-rign of the male:

Mistle thrush, Turdus viscivorus.  

A large, rather pale greyish thrush, with round spots on the white breast and belly, that forms noisy little gangs during the winter, often giving their distinctive rattling calls.  They have a typical thrush invertebrate + fruit diet, though their names derive from a presumed predilection for the beries of mistletoe, Viscum album:

Song thrush, Turdus philomelos.  
This is the thrush that most closely resembles the form of the typical North American thrushes, with brown-russet back, with streaky-spots on pale under-parts that becoming buffy on flanks and near the throat.  A familiar denizen of gardens and parks, as well as in woodland and forests, this thrush has a distinctive song comprising sequences of repetitions of short whistled phrases:

Here’s Natasha Hausdorff (legal director of the UK Lawyers for Israel) explaining, in an 11-minute video, the U.N. Security Council’s resolution approving Trump’s plan for ending the war in and reconstructing Gaza.  She notes that this approval is not legally binding, but goes through the most important of the plan’s 20 provisions.

Some of the problems I’ve mentioned before, including the difficulty of bringing Arab neighbors aboard and constructing an international peacekeeping force, finding a decent transitional government to run Gaza, and the insoluble problem of disarming Hamas (a provision of the plan that Hamas of course rejects). She notes that the UN resolution clearly states that a “state of Palestine does not yet exist,” which embarrasses not only Palestinians, but also the many countries like France and the UK who have already recognized such a state. (5:05). (She notes that the UK decision has been applauded by Hamas, and thus is good for the terrorist group.)

She doesn’t mention the difficult issue of the West Bank. That’s not part of the U.N. resolution, but I’d like to hear her views on it, anyway.

This op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle is by two academics, Joan Roughgarden, whom people here might know (I reviewed her book Evolution’s Rainbow in the TLS), and Jaimie Veale, who are identified in the piece like this:

Joan Roughgarden is a professor emerita in the Department of Biology at Stanford University and author of “Evolution’s Rainbow: Diversity, Gender and Sexuality in Nature and People.” Jaimie Veale is a senior lecturer at the School of Psychological and Social Sciences at the University of Waikato in New Zealand and a past secretary of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

As Wikipedia notes, “In 1998, Roughgarden came out as transgender and changed her name to Joan, making a coming out post on her website on her 52nd birthday.”  Jamie Veale‘s gender is not public, but she (Wikipedia refers to Veale as “her”) is described as researching transgender health and other issues. But their own identification, while perhaps motivating the thesis of this short letter, is hardly relevant to discussing the issues below. Click the headline to get the archived version, as the Chronicle’s own version is paywalled. 

Roughgarden and Veale (henceforth “R & V”), make a number of statements, some of which I agree with and other which I don’t, but overall they made me think about the differences between (biological) sex and gender.

First, they agree that sex is defined by gamete size, something that Roughgarden, to her credit, has always admitted:

Zoologists, botanists, ecologists and evolutionary biologists generally define sex in this way: males make small gametes (sperm), females make large gametes (eggs) and hermaphrodites, such as most plants and many marine animals, make both.

Many animals change sex, such as coral reef fish that switch from making sperm to making eggs, or the reverse, during their lives. In turtles and other reptiles, sex is determined by the temperature at which eggs are incubated. Thus, sex may be determined well after conception according to social and environmental circumstances. And in humans, gamete production does not occur at conception. Various precursor stages appear in the fetus weeks after conception and gamete production awaits puberty.

I would note, though, that sex in humans, which is what everyone’s interested in, is determined at fertilization: whether or not the fetus has the Y-linked SRY gene that is the trigger male development.

But they also claim that every trait other than gamete size is not part of sex but is part of gender:

Beyond gamete size, everything else — including secondary sex characteristics, body size, shape, color, behavior and social roles — is gender. Gender in nature is also extraordinarily varied and fluid across plants and animals, including humans. Beyond gamete size, no general binary describes how living things look, act or relate to others. Across species, gender difference ranges from penguins with near identical male and female genders to the extreme dimorphism of lions. Human gender diversity is in the middle, showing some gender difference that varies within and across cultures.

Thus whether or not you have a penis or vagina (secondary sex traits) are, assert R&V, part of your gender, even though their presence, and the other traits mentioned, are highly correlated with biological sex.  The idea that physical traits are part of gender seemed wrong to me, but the notion of what “gender” really is has eluded me for a long time.  So I thought about why it seemed wrong to call physical traits parts of gender instead of sex (behavior, as I note below, is a partial exception). This led me to come to my own tentative definition of gender.

The first thing I did, of course, was look up “gender” in the Oxford English Dictionary.  Virtually all the definitions had to do with the classes of nouns in languages in which words have genders, like French and German. But there was one related definition that did correspond pretty closely to what I see as gender: gender identity.

Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of gender identity:

An individual’s personal sense of being or belonging to a particular gender or genders, or of not having a gender.

Gender identity is generally regarded as distinct from biological sex, or sex as registered at birth. In later use it is also often (and for some commentators controversially) distinguished from gender as a socially or culturally constructed state (cf. gender n. 3b), and from its manifestation in gender expression or presentation (see gender expression n., gender presentation n.).

Thinking further, it seemed to me that gender identity (what people mean when they self-describe their gender) is a psychological rather than a physical trait: it is how someone feels vis-à-vis where they lie the spectrum between being masculine or being feminine. Or perhaps they feel they aren’t on that spectrum at all, or are somewhere in the middle.  Now of course in this sense gender can be described as “biological,” but only in the sense that all human thoughts and feelings are biological because they reside in the neurons of the brain.  But otherwise, you can’t tell someone’s gender by their behavior, genitalia, body size, etc.  You can’t tell what self-conception a person has who possesses a penis and a beard, because you can’t see inside their brain.  Most such people, of course, are of male sex and feel themselves to be pretty close to male on the psychological spectrum, but traits besides gametes are not dispositive of gender. You  would find out someone’s gender not by observing them, but by asking them.

Behavior is a slightly different issue since behavior issues from one’s self=conception. So R&V are correct in saying that historically, different genders have characterized many societies—though I’m using gender in my sense and not theirs:

Across cultures and through time, societies included people corresponding to what the West now calls trans or gender diverse. Anthropologists and historians documented these people across North America, South America, Polynesia, India, Southeast Asia, ancient Rome and other parts of the world. Many cultures accepted these individuals as simply part of everyday life, often holding respected social and spiritual roles unique to their cultures.

I agree with them so long as you consider gender a psychological and not physical feature, and one that can but not necessarily is expressed visibly through behavior. In other words, gender is your self-identification in terms of how you fit on the sex spectrum (or off it), and gender roles are how those self-identifies are acted out in society.

But I disagree with the authors on two issues. First, on their claim that gender identity should somehow be recognized by the courts:

In matters of law and policy, “sex” actually refers to elements of gender because the criteria that have historically determined one’s “legal sex” (typically genitals, chromosomes, appearance and/or behavior) are properties of gender and not sex. As such, the courts should recognize that legal sex encompasses gender diversity. The authors aren’t clear about this, but it could mean that they think that biological males who identify as being women should be able to enter women’s spaces, including prisons or sports leagues, or have a right to do rape counseling if a woman wants a biologically female rape counselor. If that’s what they mean, then no, you need to recognize biological sex alone rather than gender. But I do agree with the authors’ final statement that you should follow the Golden Rule when it comes to gender identity: treating others as you would like to be treated if you were such people. (The exception, of course, are the stuff like sports and prisons).

Second, the authors seem to imply that “affirmative care” (they call it “appropriate care”, though I’m not sure that’s what they mean) is mandated for all young people suffering from gender dysphoria:

Today, every major U.S. medical association — the American Medical Association, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, Endocrine Society, Pediatric Endocrine Society, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry — supports transgender people and their right to appropriate care. Still, if the medical establishment can switch from pathologizing trans people to supporting them, it could switch back under political pressure.

If “appropriate care” means “psychological care up to a certain age—the age when those with dysphoria can decide whether to take hormones or undergo surgery”—then I agree. But if they mean “affirmative care,” in which the wishes of children or adolescents are accepted and acted on therapeutically and medically, then I disagree.  I favor “objective” therapy, not “affirmative” therapy, but therapy done with empathy. But I do not sign onto the use puberty blockers or surgery until a patient is of an age of consent (18 or 21; I waver).

I find the article confusing, both in R&V’s definition of gender and in how they want it to be used in law. There are some people—I believe Alex Byrne is among them—who say that gender is really a word that has no real meaning (it’s analogized to a “soul”).  But there is still the phenomenon of people who don’t feel they adhere to concepts of masculine or feminine psychology, and I’m groping to find a definition of “gender” that can describe such people. (Most of them are, of course, biologically male or female using the gametic definition.)

Feel free to give your own take on gender in the comments. But remember, be civil and don’t call anybody names!

A lot of the protests and kerfuffles on campus two years ago involved a student organization, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).  Their favorite metier seemed to be disrupting access through the Quad, using bullhorns to shout slogans (“river to the sea. . . ” etc.), and in general touting the actions of Hamas and demonizing Israel.  Now when these actions are done according to campus rules, they’re fine—it’s free speech, and that kind of expression is of the glories of our University.  But often SJP people are involved in violating campus regulations; in April of last year I documented four instances of the organization or its members violating campus regulations. Those included sit-ins that constituted trespassing and led to the arrest of both students and faculty. But, this being Chicago with a woke mayor, all charges were dropped.

What about the rest of the violations? There was almost no discipline: the University, as noted in the link above, simply gave SJP a slap on the wrist, for the last thing the University of Chicago wants to see is officials or police “laying hands on students”. Below is the “punishment” that the Standing Disciplinary Committee on Disruptive Conduct meted out to SJP after they shouted down a Jewish “teach-in” in 2023, violating campus rules.

This isn’t even a slap on the wrist, but a tap on the wrist. It’s even lighter punishment than the warning the cops give you if they catch you speeding a little.

In light of SJP’s repeated violations of university rules, I wrote a letter to the student newspaper in January of last year asking “Should Students for Justice in Palestine be a recognized student organization?” I provided no answer save to say that the University should mete out genuine punishment to people who repeatedly violate campus rules about public demonstrations.  The University did get serious once, when it used the UC police—the Chicago police refused to participate—in taking down the illegal encampment that defaced our quad and prevented free access to buildings.

Things have been quiet for the last year, and probably for two reasons: Hamas has been trounced in Gaza, and a lot of the participants in anti-Israel demonstrations appear to be outsiders rather than members of the University community.  Demonstrators may well be afraid to have a public presence because Trump sent ICE to Chicago, and if you entered the country illegally, now is not the time you want to fall into the hands of the authorities.

Regardless, I continue to promote free speech that adheres to our policies while at the same time deploring the hatred and antisemitism that seems to motivate groups and individuals like the SJP.  And so they’ve put up a legal “installation” on our quad again. It’s okay that they did so, but it’s a performative, misguided, and hate-filled “installation.”  It went up a few days ago for a week, and here are some photos:

Note that it was  erected by SJP.

What we have here is a work of art accusing one John Kirby of genocide. Well, I didn’t know who John Kirby was, but Wikipedia says he was a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy who later took up positions in the media and also in the government under Democratic Presidents:

In the Biden administration, he served as United States Department of Defense Press Secretary and Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs from 2021 to 2022 and as White House National Security Communications Advisor from 2022 to 2025. He worked as a military and diplomatic analyst for CNN from 2017 to 2021. In the second Obama administration, he served as United States Department of Defense Press Secretary from 2013 to 2015 and as Spokesperson for the United States Department of State and Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs from 2015 to 2017.

Kirby has also just been appointed as director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, a nonpartisan venue for free discussion aimed at inspiring students to go into politics and public service.  It has invited people from all sides of the ideological spectrum to speak, though when someone who doesn’t hate Israel speaks, miscreants sometimes have demonstrations outside the building or have even invaded the building (they were heaved out).  Again, those demonstrations are legal if they don’t violate university rules, but they sometimes have (I have heard of no punsihments).

At any rate, Kirby’s position in the military, and some words he said, prominently displayed in the first photo below, convinced SJP that he is complicit in GENOCIDE.  In fact, Kirby has been careful about the use of the word than has SJP, applying it only to Hamas. This is from the Guardian when Kirby was working under Biden:

Challenged at a White House briefing to confront the term “Genocide Joe” by some protesters to described Biden, Kirby, who had previously ruled out “drawing red lines” for Israel’s actions in Gaza, embarked on an animated exposition.

“People can say what they want on the sidewalk and we respect that. That’s what the first amendment’s about,” he said. “But this word genocide’s getting thrown around in a pretty inappropriate way by lots of different folks. What Hamas wants, make no mistake about it, is genocide. They want to wipe Israel off the map.

“And they’ve said that they’re not going to stop. What happened on the 7th of October is going to happen again and again and again. And what happened on the 7th of October? Murder; slaughter of innocent people in their homes or at a music festival. That’s genocidal intentions.

“Yes, there are too many civilian casualties in Gaza … And yes, we continue to urge the Israelis to be as careful and cautious as possible. But Israel is not trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel’s not trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. If we’re going to start using that word – fine. Let’s use it appropriately.”

There are three quotes from Kirby (one of them fell over last night), including one that apparently refers to the U.S. providing aid to Israel (second photo). The other two seem to show him claiming that Israel did not violate international human rights law (you can read them by clocking twice on the first photo to enlarge it).

Two points:

1.)  This is a performative “installation” that accomplishes nothing. There was never a “genocide,” and even if you think there was, there’s now a cease-fire.

2.)  Why do you never see students demonstrating against a real genocide: the one that’s a huge goal of Hamas, which wants to kill all the Jews and wipe out Israel? (Read the Hamas Covenant of 1988, especially the introduction and Article Seven.)

3.)  It shows, in my view, that hatred of Jews and Israel hasn’t disappeared here (who would ever think that, anyway?) but is bubbling under the surface, waiting to emerge should the conflict in Gaza begin again.

4.) These installations, while they should be legal, nevertheless forment the atmosphere of hatred that, in my view, keeps Jewish students (who never erect similar “installations” about Hamas) from speaking their minds or wearing paraphernalia like Stars of David and yarmulkes (I’ve heard this directly from Jewish students).  This kind of intimidation—which in America also chills discussions about abortion and gender issues,—still falls within University regulations, so there’s nothing to do about it, but according to statistics, it does chill speech.

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip, called body2, is the very first strip. As the email noted:

It’s Jesus & Mo’s 20th birthday sometimes around now. I don’t remember the exact date because it wasn’t originally in this format. Thanks to all our readers! If you want to give us a birthday present, the best thing you can do is became a patron here: https://www.patreon.com/jandm

Do subscribe!

And see Mo get out of trouble:

 

Hooray! I received two batches of photos last night, so we can keep going until Thursday, at least.

Today’s photos are from David Riddell; his captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.  These photos were taken last weekend.

Went out last Saturday on a seabird-watching “pelagic” trip off the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island.  The weather was looking marginal, but we’d postponed twice and really wanted to get out there, so set out at dawn from the small seaside town of Whangamata, heading for the deep water where the open ocean specialists live.  In the end we saw 19 “tubenose” species (Procellariiformes: the albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters and their relatives), plus little blue penguins (Eudyptula minor).

After about three hours the slow, old fishing boat we’d chartered arrived off the edge of the Continental Shelf, beyond Mayor Island. This is an extinct volcano, known for its cliffs of solid, glossy black obsidian, once traded throughout the country by Maori, who made cutting tools out of it.  The mainland behind has almost entirely disappeared in the murk along the horizon

Chopped-up fish bits thrown off the back of the boat soon had a mixed flock of birds gathering to enjoy the feast. Most were flesh-footed shearwaters (Ardenna carneipes), but other species were among them.  There’s a black petrel (Procellaria parkinsoni) right of centre in the picture below, with the bone-coloured bill:

Flesh-footed shearwaters of course have pinkish legs and feet, as well as slightly pinkish, dark-tipped bills. They breed widely on islands off north-eastern New Zealand, as well as off Australia and in the Indian Ocean, though numbers globally are declining:

Black petrels on the other hand have dark feet, and are slightly bigger and blacker. They used to breed widely on the New Zealand mainland but are now confined to two islands north-east of Auckland.  Population estimates range between 20,000 and 38,000.  Their Maori name is taiko, which some may remember from some previous photos of mine posted here. It is also the name of a much rarer bird in the Chatham Islands:

Squabbles over the fish bits grew quite intense! This is a black petrel being pursued by a flesh-footed shearwater:

It was a good day to test identification skills on the dark seabirds. This one is a grey-faced petrel (Pterodroma gouldi), which breed on islands around northern New Zealand, as well as a few mainland sites:

Another dark species, and possibly the bird of the day, was this short-tailed shearwater (Ardenna tenuirostris). They may be the world’s most abundant seabird, with an estimated population of 23 million birds, breeding on islands around southern Australia, though few make it across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand.  It’s like a smaller, daintier version of the sooty shearwater (Ardenna grisea) which is almost as abundant, breeding in huge numbers around southern New Zealand, as well as off Australia, Chile and the Falklands.  One of those was seen on Saturday as well, though I missed it myself:

After a while the big guns arrived, drawn in by the smell of the fish. Four albatross species were seen, with white-capped mollymawks (Thalassarche cauta) the most numerous:

There were also several Antipodean albatrosses (Diomedea antipodensis), the local form of wandering albatross (D. exulans), from which it was recently split.  This one is a Gibson’s albatross (D. a. gibsoni); one of the nominate subspecies also turned up:

Hanging out at the back of the feeding frenzy were a few New Zealand storm petrels (Fregetta maoriana). They were two small and distant to get decent photos with my ancient camera, but I thought I’d throw this in just to show they were there.  As I posted here previously, these were believed to be extinct until rediscovered in 2003, more than a century after the previous confirmed sighting.  Since the clearing of rats and cats from their breeding ground on Little Barrier Island their numbers have boomed – until recently they were mainly seen north of Auckland, but we saw five, further south in the Bay of Plenty:

Closer inshore was a different suite of birds, and it was a delight to see several little shearwaters (Puffinus assimilis) fly past. These are normally scattered in ones and twos, and don’t hang around boats like some of the other petrels and shearwaters:

This week’s comedy-and-news segment of Bill Maher’s “Real Time” explains why the creeping socialism of Democrats is good—but for Republicans. who wil exploit it to the max in attack ads. (We now have a socialist mayor of both NYC and Seattle.)  Maher quotes Virginia’s new Democratic governor, Abigail Spanberger, saying that “If the party doesn’t shift to the center, we will get fucking torn apart.” Maher argues that the new approbation for socialism by Democrats comes from their failure to get what they want under a capitalist system but, as he notes, the alternative is worse: “socialism doesn’t work.”

Well, of course the U.S. is already partly socialist: we have social security and Medicare, food stamps, and other government help for various groups (Maher describes some of these these). What he’s talking about is the dramatic extension of socialism proposed by people like Mamdani: free bus rides, free childcare, city-run grocery stores, and the like. To show the inimical effects of socialism, Maher uses as examples countries like North Korea, but that is “socialist” only in an extreme sense: it’s really a dictatorship in which a few get all the good stuff and most of the population goes without. But he’s right in general, as we can see what happened when Eastern Europe was under the thumb of the Soviet Union. (Malgorzata used to tell me about queuing up for hours to get a loaf of bread.) The Democratic Socialists of America, for example, call for completely open borders, defunded police, and other policies that would taint the Democrats in an election.

Some clips of the last DSA convention, showing a request for “jazz hands” instead of clapping, as well as for not wearing “aggressive” scents, tell the tale. The DSA is simply too woke for the American people, and it’s best if Democrats separate themselves from this group. Sadly, they’re pushing back on criticisms that they move towards the center, and, says Maher, that will be our undoing.  He’s right.

Well, folks, this is the last batch I have, and then the feature goes silent. If you have photos, wake it up again! Thanks.

Today’s photos come from the lens of Pratyaydipta Rudra and show one of his favorite birds. Pratyay’s captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.

This is the second part of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers (Tyrannus forficatus) photos that I have taken over the past few years after I moved to Oklahoma.  [JAC: Part 1 is here.] I don’t remember the exact date taken for each individual photo (all taken during the summer months), so I have skipped that information and included some stories behind each photo.

As much as I love to photograph these birds in a tight frame against the sky, it also gets boring after a while. So, I started thinking about different kinds of compositions by including other elements of the environment and sometimes putting the bird smaller in the frame.

This one took off from one of the Bald Cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) bordering our local lake. The golden light was beautiful:

Scissor-tailed Flycatcher catching what I believe is a soldier beetle, probably Chauliognathus pensylvanicus, but I might be wrong:

Got it!:

There was a nice meadow in a local park that used to have beautiful wildflowers every spring. The birds loved the area, and I liked photographing them among the wildflowers. But two years ago it was mowed down to make space for frisbee golf. While this may invite some more people to the park and let them enjoy the outdoors, I was sad that the wonderful habitat was lost. This is a photo that I took there before it was mowed down:

Scissortail hover hunting over the meadow:

Another one taking off to find dinner…:

Not all birds look equally good in silhouettes, but scissortails most definitely look very elegant:

Three silhouetted birds in territorial battle. It looked like there was a mated pair and one invader who was quickly chased away!:

Two of them vocalizing and flickering their wings during some territorial disputes:

Another sunset silhouette… An orange and black to honor my OSU connection:

I like the water of the lake as a better backdrop than the sky… This one predictably came back to its favorite twig as flycatchers (and dragonflies) often do!:

I was glad to capture this unique “chase sequence” involving a flycatcher and a speedboat. The bird won:

Probably my most favorite scissortail photo ever, and I never thought I would capture that using a 16-35mm lens! On this day, there was a thunderstorm in the afternoon, and the sky was decorated with beautiful mammatus clouds after the thunderstorm. I was walking around our house with my wide lens to capture some cloud images. At that time, a couple of scissortails were appearing in the neighborhood every evening, and I was wishing that one of them would show up. I like to say that adding a scissortail to any scene makes it more beautiful!:

As I was looking around, I found out that a male scissortail was sitting right on our pecan tree! I was incredibly excited, quickly increased my shutter speed, and waited for the bird to take off. This is one of the images I got after waiting for a couple minutes.

When I said “adding a scissortail to any scene makes it more beautiful”, I obviously didn’t mean adding them using AI to an existing image, and it applies to this one too where I was able to capture the bird flying across the rainbow after my waiting for that to happen for some time:

I would like to wrap up with this closer view of our state bird. This image reminds me of the box of the boardgame called “Wingspan”. I don’t know if any of you played it, but if you are into board games, you should try it. My wife and I played it over 500 times across different expansions and we still enjoy it so much:

Intellectual hero and UC Davis math professor Abby Thompson again has a batch of lovely intertidal photos for us. Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them:

The first two pictures were taken on my cellphone at the Berkeley marina, where a friend was taking us sailing. Fortunately for me, the boat needed more than an hour of preparation, which I got to spend lying flat on the dock looking at the marine life growing underneath it. There’s an entire community on inaturalist devoted to observations of such “dock fouling”; it’s an incredibly rich environment. Because all I had was my phone, only a couple of the pictures I took were legible- next time I’ll bring a camera (and hope the boat needs even more work).

Clathria prolifera (red beard sponge). Most sponges can’t be identified from a photo, but apparently this brilliant one is an exception:

Genus Ciona (tunicate). Pretty much any blobby thing you see lying around the beach is some kind of tunicate, an animal with an inflow and an outflow, and usually not too much else to recommend them (unlike, say, clams, which are at least delicious). These at the marina were lovely, however, looking flower-like:

The rest of the pictures were taken in my usual spot on the coast, near or after sunset (that’s when the great winter low tides happen). At night it’s cold, wet, slippery and, of course, dark, which makes things a bit tricky.

Genus Crepidula; Slipper snail – this clings to the rock looking almost like a limpet:

Slipper snail top view:

Order Amphipoda; I liked this guy’s eyes:

   Genus Polycirrus; Spaghetti worm- it’s one worm, with many tentacles. The main body of the worm is curled up and coated in sand:

Dirona picta:  A nudibranch, munching on some matching bryozoans:

Cebidichthys violaceus (Monkeyface eel, or monkeyface prickleback) Despite its common name and looks, this is a fish, not an eel (all eels are fish, but not vice versa). Supposedly delicious, it’s one of the creatures for which I regularly see people foraging. They’re caught by “poke-poling”; a baited wire hook is just stuck into the end of a long pole, and the fishing method is to poke the hook into crevices under the rocks.    One of the advantages of nighttime tide-pooling is that there are a few creatures- this was one- that seem to get stunned by a flashlight, and they stay completely still.  In the daylight you seldom see one of these, and they’re gone in a flash, too quick to photograph:

Anthopleura xanthogrammica (tentative) (giant green anemone) Several species of anemone fluoresce like this under UV light:

For the second group of pictures [after number 4] the camera was my Olympus TG-7, in microscope mode, with a lot of extra lights.

I have loved this song ever since, years ago, an Irish friend gave me a CD containing it. This is an instrumental version with Seamus Ennis on uilleann pipes, also called “Irish bagpipes,” accompanied by his daughter Catherine Ennis on the organ.  I have a recorded version but found this live version; I’ve started the video at 3:08 when the song begins.  I find it mournful but not depressing, and incredibly beautiful, even though the melody repeats itself many times. The uilleann pipes, to me, are far more mellifluous than Scottish bagpipes. And here they meld perfectly with the organ.

As far as I can find out, “Easter Snow” is a traditional Irish song whose name has been corrupted. It also apparently had words.  One site says this:

“Paddy Tunney’s mother Brigid appears to have been the oral the source of this in Ireland; another version was recorded in New Brunswick, Canada. Sam Henry included a 1925 version in his ‘Songs of the People’ column in the ‘Northern Constitution’ newspaper under the title Westersnow and an earlier one was discovered in J.P. McCall’s unpublished songbook, where it was said to have come from ‘County Carlow/County Wicklow’, there given the title Esther Snow. Collector Sean O’Boyle wrote of it:

‘Estersnowe is the name of a townland in Roscommon. Originally the place was known by its Gaelic name Diseart Nuadhan (St. Nuadha’s Hermitage) but in the process of adaptation to the English language in Elizabethan times, it became known as Issertnowne. By the nineteenth century the people, when speaking English, called it Estersnowe and rationalised that strange name into Easter Snow. In County Antrim where there is a strong Scots influence, the song is known as Wester Snow.

An instrumental version of the tune is in the Standford-Petrie Collection with two titles in Irish- Sneachta Casga (a literal translation of Easter Snow) and Diseart Nuadhan (the original Gaelic name of the district). The final folk etymology of the name was one I heard from the Donegal Fiddler John Doherty, who played the tune for me but did not know the words of the song. He called the tune Esther Snow and told me that Esther was “a most beautiful lady, with skin as white as the snow.” And then with equal authority, he added: “She was six foot one.” The prosody of the song is particularly interesting, being an echo of the Ochtfhoclach form with double assonantal rhymes (Aicill Dubalta). The double rhymes occur in this song only at the line endings:

Start at the song by pressing the arrow below. There are other instrumental as well as vocal versions on the Internet, but to me this one is by far the best (Seamus was largely responsible for reviving the uilleann pipes as an instrument).  If you have a cat, I’d be interested in knowing how it reacts when it hears this song.

Here we have the Triggernometry duo (Konstantin Kisin and Francis Foster) questioning astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson about his views on gender (the full interview is here).  Tyson seems quite agitated, loud, and even patronizing, but largely misses the points that gender-critical people are making. For example, he begins with his infamous argument that sex (or gender; he conflates them by bringing up sex chromosomes) is really a spectrum because people decide on a daily basis how male or how female they feel.  Well, I’m not sure how many people do that (I don’t), but Tyson seems to be arguing that people consider this supposed daily switch of gender is a subject of deep concern.

It isn’t.  Tyson doesn’t understand that what people are concerned with is not transitory fluctuations of “maleness or femaleness,” but the claim that people claim to be members of a sex that doesn’t correspond to their non-natal sex, and thus demand that they have the same privileges as members of that non-natal sex. That includes the “right,” if you’re a trans-identified male, for example, to inhabit “women’s spaces.”  Some people are also concerned with requirements that they use special pronouns or address people in specific ways according to their gender (I don’t care much about this when addressing people directly, but it becomes problematic in other situations).

Why do people care? Not because of what Tyson says. They care about male versus female natal (“biological”) sex because of sports participation, changing rooms, jails, rape counseling or battered women’s shelters, and for some, restrooms.  The only one of these issues Tyson mentions is the most inconsequential of all: restrooms. He says he’s speaking of “gender expression,” but since that includes trans people, he has to take them into account, too.  And if you do that, then, yes, some sanctions are in order. In fact, the International Olympic Committee is poised to ban people from competing in sports reserved for members of their non-natal sex.

Kisin simply dismisses Tyson’s argument by saying he doesn’t know anybody who wants to prevent people from dressing as they want, behaving as they want, or using the names they want. Kisin then makes the point I made above: the issue of sex-restricted spaces and the issues of fairness that mandates their creation.  Kisin then adds another area of sex-restricted spaces, at least in the UK: positions that are restricted for one sex or another, like positions in Parliament.  I didn’t know that, or whether it’s still true, but if there are female-only positions in Parliament (or diversity targests elsewhere), presumably those would be restricted to biological women. Kisin later says he’s not in favor of  sex “quotas”, but given that they exist, how are we supposed to deal with trans people?

Instead of taking this on board, Tyson is determined to say that all these problems are fixable. For bathrooms, for example, he says that the solution is single-person bathrooms or multi-gender bathrooms that members of both sexes can use at the same time.  The former solution is okay by me, but not by everyone. The latter one, however, comes with problems, as many women simply don’t want to use multi-gender or multi-sex bathrooms for reasons they’ve given in detail. (Tyson seems to think, for example, that urinals with partitions between them is one solution for a multi-sex bathroom, but I, for one, wouldn’t want to use those.)

As for sports, Tyson says that there are solutions, and these involve not dividing sports by sex but by things like hormone ratios.  That, of course, would lead to more than two classes of sports, and is useless anyway because anybody who’s gone through male puberty could adjust his testosterone ratio down so that it would fall into the female range (I’m not sure how easy this is).  More important, once you’ve gone through male puberty, you are on average stronger, larger, and faster than natal women regardless of your hormone titer. So that is not a fix. (I’ve suggested another fix, like an “other” class, but that doesn’t seem acceptable.)

Kisin points this out the persistence of sex differences even with hormones, but Tyson’s solution is simply “find ways to slice the population in ways so that whatever the event is. . . is interestingly contested.” Tyson’s example is weight classes in wrestling. But Kisin points out that this is not a solution because matching men and women by weight alone would result in unfair victories for men. And of course men’s and women’s wrestling are still kept separate.

By taking up this issue, it’s clear that Tyson is indeed addressibg trans issues and not just temporal fluctuations in one’s gender identity. He’s sufficiently optimistic to think that creative solutions will solve all of these problems. Perhaps, but the problems exist now, and we have to find solutions for them that can work now. 

Tyson takes up the questions of quotas, and says, properly, that if we want equity, then we have to determine why underrepresentation of certain groups exists. My claim is that yes, we need to know that before we do anything to create equity, because different groups may have different abilities and preferences that lead to differences in representation not caused by bigotry. Kisin responds, properly, “The question is: Female shortlists exist. Should biological males be able to enter those female shortlists?”  Again, Tyson avoids answering that question, which is one we need to deal with now. Tyson’s only answer is “We’re in a transitional period. So we have to figure that out.”  “Figuring these things out,” apparently means that we will find a solution that gets rid of men’s versus women’s sports, or male cersus female jails. (The jail issue doesn’t arise.)  The IOC has solved the problem with blanket bans, and that seems like a good solution to me.

Tyson doesn’t seem to realize the extent of the problem, asserting that all playing fields can be “fixed,” and fixed in a way different than anything we can imagine now. But for things like jails, sports, and changing rooms, the “progressive” (yes, he uses that word) fix may be the fix that many of us have already hit on.  Keeping male versus female sports separate, for example, doesn’t seem to me to be “regressive” as opposed to Tyson’s solution based on hormone ratios, which is not “progressive” but bonkers.

We have some diverse photos by biologist Scott Ritchie from Cairns in Australia. Scott’s captions are indented and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them. Scott’s Facebook page, on which he posts many photos, is here.

I have one batch of photos left, so send ’em if you got ’em. Thanks!  Scott’s text:

I had promised Phil Venables that I would get him in for on Cheynes Beach, WA [Western Australia], so here it is! What a great spot for landscapes, plants and wildlife! Mammals, from the small (Honey Possum) to the huge (S. Right Whale). And I managed to photograph 1 of the 3 skulking birds, the Western Bristlebird. Here are some of my favourites images.

The plants and the landscapes were brilliant. A must visit area:

From the large (Southern Right Whale, Eubalaena australis)…

. . . to the small (Honey Possum, Tarsipus rostratus, feeding on Waratah Banksia, Banksia coccinea):

. . . to the creepy…This huge skink snuck out from under the cabin and bit my wife’s foot!

. . . . and the beautiful (Waratah Banksia)…

Cheynes Beach has them all!:

First cute. I was fortunate to get get shots of this small Honey Possum feeding on the Waratah Banksia during the 1st light of dawn:

This small marsupial comes out at dusk and feeds on nectar and pollen through wee hours of dawn:

Mouse like:

With a very long tongue for nectar:

During our 1st sundowners, we saw a SR Whale breech!:

Two days later we discovered that they came just off shore at Tourist Rocks. They basically wallowed around like giant pigs. But I do like the cloud reflections on the whales back.:

Birds enjoyed the banksia too. A White-cheeked Honeyeater [Phylidonyris niger] getting ready for flight:

And chased each other around the banksias:

But the larger Western Wattlebirds [Anthochaera lunulata] chased them, and any bird that landed on a banksia flower:

A male Red-winged Fairywren [Malurus elegans] used old banksia cones as a lookout post:

The typical pose and photo of the Western Bristlebird [Dasyornis longirostris] as it runs down the sand trail:

He stopped just long enough to me to get this shot. Thanks for thinking of me:

The grass yards of the cabins attracted birds. I was lucky to get a nice close-up of a Brown Quail [Synoicus ypsilophorus]:

And a Common Bronzewing [Phaps chalcoptera] at dusk:

Matthew’s biography of Francis Crick just came out, and I’m delighted, as I’m sure he is, with the spate of glowing reviews. I haven’t seen a bad one yet, and some of them rate the book as superlative. It is certainly one of the best science biographies going, and I hope it wins the Royal Society Science book prize.

I’ll finish up my endorsements of the book (the reviews will keep coming, though) by highlighting two more: one in Science and the other in the Times of London. But first you can listen to Matthew talking about J. D. Watson, who just died, on this BBC show (Matthew’s bit, which is the only discussion of biology, goes from the beginning to 9:35). As Matthew says, “This is the most important discovery in biology since Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. It transforms our understanding of heredity, of evolution–of everything to do with biology.”

The American you hear in the interview is from an old interview with Watson himself.

The moderator then wants to discuss the sexism and racism of Watson, and Matthew eventually gets to it. First, though, Matthew discusses the involvement of Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin in the DNA structure, and says, as he always does, that the history was complicated, that the discovery was more collaborative than people think, but also that Crick and Watson failed to ask Franklin for permission to use her data, which was a scientific boo-boo. Watson’s further accomplishments are discussed (the Human Genome Project, the upgrading of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories).  The mention of Watson’s personal arrogance, sexism, and racism starts at 6:50, and Matthew manages to decry it (calling it a “terrible legacy”) while not seeming nasty, something he’s good at.

Next, two reviews, the first in Science. It’s very positive, and I’ll give the exerpts (access should be free by clicking on the headline below).

In October 1958, Francis Crick and his wife, Odile, hosted a party at their house in Cambridge to celebrate Fred Sanger’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry. During the festivities, a rocket was launched from the roof terrace, which landed on the roof of a nearby church and necessitated the services of the local fire brigade (1). This otherwise inconsequential event is an apt metaphor for the scientific assault on mysticism and vitalism that the atheist Crick and his contemporaries helped pioneer through their pursuit of a new “chemical physics” of biology—an endeavor that would eventually help describe the nature of life itself. In his magnificent and expansive new biography, Crick: A Mind in Motion, Matthew Cobb forensically explores and electrifies this important chapter in the history of science through the exploits of one of its key protagonists. Magnificent and expansive! You’ll be seeing those words on the cover.  And some of these, too:

Another intriguing theme Cobb explores is Crick’s friendship with the psychedelic beat poet Michael McClure (6). Crick was so taken by the charismatic poet, in particular, a stanza in McClure’s “Peyote Poem”—“THIS IS THE POWERFUL KNOWLEDGE / we smile with it”—that he pinned it onto a wall in his home. For Crick, the beauty inherent in the solution of a complex scientific problem and the aesthetic euphoria and sense of revelation it created were reminiscent of the perceptual effects of consuming a hallucinogenic compound, such as peyote.

Cobb also touches on Crick’s eugenicist proclamations and details some of his other disastrous forays into the social implications of science, which ultimately led him to permanently abstain from such activities. Crick’s notable lack of engagement with the 1975 Asilomar meeting, which sought to address the potential biohazards and ethics of recombinant DNA technology, was in stark contrast to Watson and biologist Sydney Brenner. Crick never explained his silence on the topic of genetic engineering (7).

Complex, energetic, freethinking, dazzling, and bohemian, Crick was also ruthless, immature, misogynistic, arrogant, and careless. The phage biologist Seymour Benzer noted that Crick was not a “shrinking violet.” Maurice Wilkins described Watson and Crick as “a couple of old rogues,” and Lawrence Bragg more politely observed that Crick was “the sort of chap who was always doing someone else’s crossword.” Cobb, however, has arrived at a somewhat more benign and nuanced interpretation of the events surrounding the discovery of the double helix, the collaborative nature of which, he asserts, was obfuscated by the fictional narrative drama of Watson’s bestseller The Double Helix.

Crick is set to become the definitive account of this polymath’s life and work. We must now wait patiently for historian Nathaniel Comfort’s upcoming biography of James Watson to complement it.

In my view, the phrase “definite account of this polymath’s life and work” is really the most powerful approbation the book could get.

You can see the review from the Times of London by clicking below, or find it archived here:

If the age of the lone scientific genius has passed, was Francis Crick among its last great specimens? His name will for ever be bound to that of James Watson and their discovery in 1953 of the double-helix structure of DNA. Yet it is a measure of Crick’s influence that this breakthrough, transformative as it was, is done and dusted barely 80 pages into Matthew Cobb’s absorbing new biography.

Cobb, a zoologist and historian of science, presents Crick (1916-2004) as the hub round which a mid-century scientific revolution revolved — a researcher and theorist of unstoppable curiosity, who unravelled the secret code behind heredity before helping to reinvent the study of the mind and consciousness. More than 70 years on, it is easy to forget how penetrating Crick’s insights were — how, before he came along, we did not know how life copies itself and the molecular mechanism behind evolution was a mystery.

But Cobb’s book is no hagiography. Briskly paced, it concentrates on Crick’s scientific life, but also offers glimpses, some unflattering, of the man behind the lab bench. The picture it builds is of a brilliant, garrulous and often exasperating individual.

. . . Cobb writes with clarity and a touch of affection for his subject. His Crick is radical in science and conservative in temperament; deeply irreligious yet moved by poetry; a philanderer who adored his wife. Above all he is insatiably curious — a mind in motion, indeed. And yes, he may also represent something that may now be lost: the era when a single intellect could sit at the centre of a scientific revolution. Crick might be best known for his collaboration with Watson and his notorious debt to Franklin. However, in the crowded, collaborative landscape of 21st-century research, where knowledge advances by increments, achieved by vast teams who work with ever growing volumes of data, it is hard to imagine another individual whose ideas will so completely redefine the life sciences.

I’d call that a good review as well. Kudos to Dr. Cobb. I told him he should celebrate by going off on a nice vacation, but I’m betting he won’t.