Reader kai shared this interesting story: Why Flowers have Lost their Scent (making it more difficult for bees to find them), and points out that perhaps the most interesting bit of the story is the deluge of irate comments denying global warming. Global warming denialism is of course nothing new, but it’s interesting that the denialists feel compelled to attack even a story that doesn’t even mention climate change.

People are accusing the story of being a sloppy bit of - well, either science, or science journalism, or both. They seem entirely incapable of separating the original study from the dumbed-down media version. Someone said that the stupid scientists should’ve moved away from their ivory towers universities and instead gone to the countryside to do the study, as apparently in the countryside there’s no pollution at all. Someone else snorted derisively about the scientists magical ability to sort out pollution from car exhausts from all the other kinds of pollution (planes, factories, what have you) - as if it cannot possibly have crossed the minds of the scientists to find out exactly what these different pollutants actually are and how much they contribute to average pollution.

In short, many commenters display an absolutely baffling lack of respect for these working scientists, seemingly assuming they’re paid off by liberal politicians who want to make people feel guilty about driving cars. When all the scientists have really done, as far as I can tell, is figure out that scent molecules from flowers are easily degraded by pollution. They claim there is “no separation between science and politics”, which is clearly a case of projection, as they themselves are unable to look past their denialist agenda to consider the actual science behind the story.

Pollution in various forms is affecting the world around us. One study isn’t going to tell us exactly to what extent. But to discount the effect of pollutants on flower scents entirely just because you can smell the roses (the people who said this must have missed that the flowers haven’t stopped producing scents, the scent just doesn’t reach as far as it used to - you’ll still be able to feel it if you’re standing in the damn rose garden!) … I don’t know whether to blame this on scientific illiteracy or just plain stupidity.

flowers, bees, science journalism, pollution, global warming

Apologies about the unannounced hiatus. Blogging will resume shortly.

ScienceDaily reports on an interesting phylogenetic study in their imaginatively named article Tree Of Animal Life Has Branches Rearranged, By Evolutionary Biologists (who else?).

The big shocker: Comb jellyfish — common and extremely fragile jellies with well-developed tissues — appear to have diverged from other animals even before the lowly sponge, which has no tissue to speak of. This finding calls into question the very root of the animal tree of life, which traditionally placed sponges at the base.

To clarify, comb jellies (Ctenophora) are not grouped with the other jellies, corals, anemones, hydras etc. (Cnidaria), and at least on the course I very recently took on systematic zoology, we were taught that Cnidaria is most likely the sister group of Bilateria (the rest of the animals), Ctenophora is the next group down, and then Porifera (sponges) sits at the very base of the animal tree. The question was whether either Ctenophora or Cnidaria were more closely related to Bilateria, or if they were a monophyletic group that itself was the sister group of Bilateria - but Porifera’s place at the base of the tree was never in question.

Although I have the original Letter to Nature I haven’t had the energy to actually read it yet, although I did look at the pretty pictures. The figures suggest that Cnidaria and Porifera compose a taxon that is the sister group of the rest of the animals, and Ctenophora is now the basal group.

I must say I instinctively feel very skeptical of this, but since I haven’t reviewed the evidence I’ll obviously reserve judgement. Sponges have no real tissues and can only barely be considered animals. Also they share a very interesting characteristic with some colonial organisms that might very well be the sister group of animals, the Choanoflagellates. Pharyngula recently blogged about this.

I’m hoping more accomplished scientist bloggers will pick up on this story as I’m interested what they have to say - if anyone sees a post about it, please don’t hesitate to point me in the right direction!

On a sidenote, ScienceDaily has illustrated their article with a picture of Cnidarians, apparently thinking that “comb jelly” means “any ol’ jellyfish”. Comb jellies don’t swim by pumping clumsily like jellyfish - they’re the ones with the combs of beating cilia that refract light like rainbows.

biology, evolution, systematics, tree of life, animals, jellyfish, sponges

Welcome to Life Before Death and the latest edition of Carnival of the Godless! I’m your hostess, Felicia, and originally I had big plans on making this carnival something … speshul. Then I realised that nothing I could possibly come up with would in any way add to the quality of the many, many posts submitted, which is why I’ve simply elected to let them present themselves with representative (or sometimes not so representative) quotes. So, without further ado:

HankFox.com: The Good Stuff - “I don’t know a single atheist, I’m not sure I’ve even MET one, who hated humanity, or wanted anything bad to happen to anybody.”
Also at HankFox.com: The Brassican Heresy and Atheist Questions.

The View from Here: Benny Hinn - What a Friend He Has in Jesus - “Despite the overwhelming evidence that Hinn is the lowest form of con man, exploiting the emotional and spiritual needs of the desperate, viewers, many of whom can ill afford it, will no doubt continue to donate millions of dollars annually in the hope of realizing some small improvement in their lives.”

The Barefoot Bum: Fine Tuning - “In short, the Fine Tuning argument is speculative, probabilistically meaningless, and, even if true, doesn’t establish anything interesting. I think it’s safe to say that, after Pascal’s Wager, it’s the second worst apologetic ever.”

Epsilon Clue: Where Are all the Reflective Christians? - “These people do believe in a magic man in the sky who helps them find their car keys /…/ So why aren’t the intelligent, reflective Christians telling them they’re full of shit?”

defryer.com: The Multiple Stages of Faith - “‘Faithlessness’ as a definition of the absence faith is really only used in a religious context since no one really knows or cares about our extent of faith in any other context. No one is ostracized (except possibly on a local level) for their lack of faith in government or purity of food or future direction of the stock market.”

Greta Christina: On Illness, Bodies, and This Weird Free Will Thing - “If there is no God and no soul, and everything we are is comprised of physical things and the relationships between physical things… then when you change those physical things, the self changes as well. Our selves are not in our own hands nearly as much as we like to think.”
Also from Greta Christina: The
Meaning of Death, Part 3 of Many: Fear, Grief, and Actually Experiencing Your Emotions

A Swedish American in Sweden: Sweden Separates the Church and State - “I don’t buy creationism, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a subject that should be taught in public schools. At the same time though skeptical of the complete banning of a subject or idea.”

Rational Apologetics: God is Evil - “God doesn’t care if we’re good or not — he only cares if we stroke his ego.”
Also at Rational Apologetics: The Elijah Challenge

The Skwib: The Lost PowerPoint Slides (Wacky Ancient Greek Atheist Edition) - “soul is just an exceedingly fine and spherical kind of atom - or perhaps superstition - in any case, it’s not that different from a goat.”

Surgeonsblog: Funnyman - “The mind reels. It’s like walking into a crime scene, wading through body parts, and, because the perpetrator wrote “Hah hah” in blood on the wall, saying he must have a humorous streak.”

Wild Philosophy: My Favorite Moral Bible Passages - “To summarize, morality requires that we beat our children, control our women, or burn, stone, or sell them, execute homosexuals, cast the sick out of our society to fend for themselves, and completely and utterly destroy any society with which we are at war (except for their virgin girl children, whom we are free to rape). Truly, God is great, and will reward us with many slaves if we keep His ways!”

Free Thinking Joy: Religion is mental horror vacui - “Whereas religions must fill the mental vacuum at any price, using gods and other stuffing material, science just tries to construct useful theories that grow into the empty space, but never filling it completely.”

Alexander the Atheist: Zeus Endorsement - “Rather than engage in voter fraud to ensure a win for Zeus I have decided, instead, to officially endorse him as my candidate of choice for the Coolest Fabricated Deity in an attempt to stem the tide of this Odin fanaticism.”
Also from Alexander: End Times: 2,000 Years and Counting

Skeptic’s Play: The moutnain theologians - “Soon he realizes that the mountain goes much higher, but the path is poorly marked and obscured in fog. He points it out to the theologians, but they cannot see the markings.”

Fannie’s Room: Blasphemy! (Part I) - “I think the idea that God is some sort of male being is a quaint man-made idea.”

ShakaOfEarth: ‘Earth Worship’ on the rise among evangelical youth - “Wouldn’t a smart parent allow their child to explore all the different faiths? Oh wait, Evangelical like to brainwash their kids and hate anything that even looks like it might allow their offspring to learn about reality.”

Bay of Fundie: Fundie Atheists - “For all practical purposes, God does not exist. If there is not now nor has there ever been any evidence for a god, then in practical, real-world terms, it is identical to making the statement that a god does not exist.”

Atheist Revolution: “In God We Trust” Must Go - “How do you suppose American Christians would feel about using currency on which “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is the greatest) was printed? How about “We Believe in Evolution,” “Secular Democracy,” or a similar slogan?”

Rational Responders: How to Respond to a Superlicious Christian - “As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, if you believe something without sufficient evidence, you are irrational.”

Atheist Ethicist: Hope - “Actually, I do grow warm and fuzzy in a blanket of science. Well, warm, at least.”

Homo Academicus: This Atheist - “…she is always asking me about my opinions or beliefs on all sorts of things, trying to see how far my atheism goes. I thought I’d save some time and just compile it all here.”

Long Live the Village Green: Upon the rack of this tough world… - “Before he died, I thanked my dad for being the best dad I could ever hope for. I told him how much I appreciated all the gifts he gave me: love for theatre and all the arts, for science and philosophy, for literature and history, for books and book collecting, and for Shakespeare!”

The Gaytheist Agenda: “Why do Atheists Hate America” - “…without faith and Christianity “America as we know it” would cease to exist. Of course to an extent that second part is true. Just imagine how much bigotry and oppression we could dispense with by eradicating Christianity alone.”

And finally, my own entry here at LBD: On Happiness: “The difference between atheists and religious people is that atheists are aware that our personal happiness is entirely up to ourselves and not some imaginary friend.”

carnival of the godless, atheism, religion, science

I’m cranky today. The reason is most likely a relapse into SAD, which I tend to suffer bouts of every winter. In light of this, one would assume today isn’t the best of days to write about happiness, but bear with me (and please excuse the somewhat rambling nature of this post).

Often in discussions about the relative virtues of atheism and religion, personal happiness is brought up. We atheists are told we cannot possibly be happy, or at least not as happy as christians/muslims/jews/whatevers. Because we don’t have god in our life. Immediately, atheists snap back that we are indeed happy, in fact we couldn’t be happier. We’re so happy, happy, happy that it’s a wonder we don’t explode. It’s like we forget, in our eagerness to prove to the religious that one can lead a fulfilling existence even lacking god, that happiness isn’t the standard human condition.

Am I basically happy with my life? Oh, yes. I have a lot to be very happy about, like my wonderful family, my amazing boyfriend, and biology. But am I happy all the time? Oh hell no. Are you?

Seriously. If anyone can honestly answer that they’re happy every minute of every day - because they feel god’s love or because they’re looking forward to the UFO coming to take them to Paradise Planet or whatever - I would have to question their sanity. Feelings of happiness and discontent is the mechanism by which our brains reward good behaviour and punish doing things that are bad for us. If we were perpetually happy, we would cease working toward a better life for ourselves and our loved ones. The human mind is a problem-solving tool, and it needs motivation.

That is not to say that depression is a good thing. If you’re always feeling like life is pointless, there is something wrong, and you should seek help. But my point here is that there is nothing wrong with admitting that you’re not always happy. In fact, I think it’s a problem for many that they feel unable to open up and admit to themselves and to others that they are not happy with something, be it their entire lives or just that horrible purple shirt their spouse insists on wearing to a nervous family dinner. And keeping those feelings bottled up, pretending that everything is perfectly fine when it’s not, is just about the worst thing you can do for your long-term happiness.

In the end, I think most people enjoy similar levels of happiness and unhappiness. Regardless of your circumstances your brain will still reward you with happy feelings when something good happens, and punish or motivate you with bad feelings when you need to do something to change your situation. The difference between atheists and religious people is that atheists are aware that our personal happiness is entirely up to ourselves and not some imaginary friend. We know that when bad things happen, it’s due to circumstances, enemies, or bad choices and that we are the only ones who can do something about it. And conversely, we also know that when good things happen, it’s due to circumstance, or our own actions, or the good will of other human beings. We never worry about being punished for faltering in our faith, and we never let some sky-god take credit when we have every right to be proud of ourselves or grateful to those around us.

As for my own current crankiness, I know most of it has got nothing to do with anything outside my own head. It’s an african mammal’s unfortunate reaction to lack of sunlight (and, well, exercise). If my brain were designed, I’d blame the designer, but as it is, all I can do is ride it out, and try to remember to eat properly and not snap at people too much.

atheism, happiness, religion, depression

One thing I have noticed as I have learned more and more about bees over my years of keeping them is that invariably, if someone who isn’t a beekeeper (or an entomologist) writes a text on bees, they always get something wrong (usually about reproduction). It seems as though bees are so incredibly mysterious that unless you are an expert, or handle bees regularly, bee biology is virtually impossible to get basically right. Thus it was with some trepidation that I started reading The Hive: The Story of the Honeybee and Us (ISBN 0719564093) by aptly nicknamed author Bee Wilson.

Wilson is not a beekeeper, or an entomologist - she is a food writer and a historian. It was her love for honey that prompted her to write this book, which is not about natural science but anthropology and history. She takes us on a journey through history and literature; through the minds of people who have kept, loved, revered or sometimes disdained the honeybee. The book is divided into large chunks with the headings “Work”, “Sex”, “Politics”, “Food and Drink”, “Life and Death” and “The Beekeeper”, and each chapter is riddled with references as well as - gasp! - illustrations.

On the whole, it’s a very pleasant and often amusing read. Most of the book concerns how humans have always imposed their own preferences when trying to interpret the mysterious insects. The way the beehive has been invoked by various writers to represent the perfect monarchy, the perfect oligarchy, the perfect meritocracy and even the perfect republic, depending on the particular preferences of the writer, is a perfect illustration of how humans employ Matthew 7:7 (to get a little biblical). Whatever behaviour or opinion you want to justify, you will find something in nature to support it, if you just look hard enough.

Of course, looking for justification of political ideas in the beehive is mostly a matter of interpretation - it gets much more surreal when it comes to the sex of the queen. To beekeepers today, it seems extraordinary that no one in ancient times, or even a couple of hundred years ago, seemed to bother actually observing the queen, as that surely would have let them realise that she lays eggs. However, not only have people been exceedingly confused about her gender, but also about whether she’s a virgin or not. See, no one actually saw the queen mating, so therefore she must not have. And, according to an altogether different kind of logic, she couldn’t possibly have been female either, as, after all, she carries a weapon. And everyone knows women just don’t do that.

Unfortunately, while Wilson appears to be as amused by this as I am, she does at one point embarrass herself by doing exactly what I was afraid of - making an egregious mistake when it comes to the reproductive behaviour of bees. To any modern beekeeper the error is so blatant and obvious that I’m shocked it made it through to the final edit. Perhaps she didn’t let any beekeepers proofread the book, but that’s hardly an excuse. The error itself consists of her sad misunderstanding of the parthenogenetic birth of drones. While she’s obviously understood that drones are born from unfertilised eggs, she appears to believe that these eggs are laid by the queen before her nuptial flight. This is wrong, very wrong, as the queen’s egg-laying apparatus isn’t fully developed until after she has mated, by which time she’s too fat to fly any greater distance (if a queen fails to mate within a few weeks of her birth, she develops her sexual organs anyway, remaining an “old maid” forever, and the hive dies). Once she has mated, she stores the sperm in special chambers, and makes a choice every time she lays an egg to either fertilise it or not.

Still, just one blatant mistake about bee biology in the whole book is pretty good, I think. And the rest of the book contains enough entertaining stories about other people’s faulty beliefs to make up for it. Wilson is unabashedly harsh on those she considers too kooky to deserve any respect - mormons and anthroposophers fall in this category - while she treats other, more innocently confused sources, with gentle amusement.

Although I think Wilson perhaps exaggerates the importance of bees through the history of humanity (as providers of sweet, sweet honey as well as candle-light), I can hardly fault her for that. Bees are amazing, after all.

bees, honeybees, beekeeping, bee wilson

Carnival of the Godless will be hosted here in a couple of weeks. Send in your submissions!

Via Skepchick I found this blog on Wired about bees as a superorganism. I’m not going to comment on it really, as it pretty much speaks for itself (also, I haven’t quite made up my mind about how useful the “superorganism” idea is), but! The author refers to a scientist (a honeybee expert, it seems) saying this:

…the worker behavior of honeybees. They’re one example of the superorganism. They have a very intriguing division of labor. That’s one of the hallmarks of superorganisms: individuals do different things, like organs in the body. An organ is different from another organ in the context of the body. The division of labor in honeybee workers is between bees in the nest and those out foraging. And between foragers, there’s specialization of a bee collecting a mixture of pollen. Just as people can do different jobs, based on interest, these bees are doing very different things.

Okay, maybe I have myself to blame for the confusion, perhaps I’ve missed a few years of groundbreaking research that hasn’t yet made it into the beekeeping textbooks, but I find this outright misleading. Honeybees, as opposed to many species of ants, only have three castes; Queens, Workers and Drones (whereas ants may have more than one kind of worker). Workers are identical to one another and an individual worker, during the span of her life, carries out all or most of the tasks essential to the working of the colony. Worker labour division is sequential; specialisation depends on the age of the individual worker. Newborn bees start their life by cleaning themselves and the cell they came out of, then they start secreting royal jelly and help nurse the larvae, then they develop their wax-secreting glands and become builders, etc. There is also a certain degree of plasticity where the workers can switch to a task that is currently in demand.

I’m sure the person quoted must know this, so why use an analogy that is just so preposterously false? My lungs didn’t start out as excretory organs and won’t switch tasks to circulation in the future. They’re morphologically distinct from other organs and only carry out the tasks they’re made for. In short, worker bees are nothing like organs in a body, but more like members of a household, where small children may carry out certain tasks, teenagers other tasks and adults yet others.

Another thing that strikes me as really odd about the Wired blog post is that the picture at the top, while beautiful, cuts a queen in half (notice the large, dark and shiny abdomen at the top edge of the picture; very different from the striped, fuzzy bottoms of the workers). The photographer was obviously aiming for the queen and whomever cropped the picture completely missed out on this…

bees, honeybees, worker bees, superorganism

I’m sure a lot of you have seen the news earlier this month of female muslim med students in the UK not wanting to have to bare their arms, even though hygiene rules state that doctors have to be bare below the elbow. Now a female muslim was denied a job at McDonald’s in Angered (Sweden) for the same reason, and she’s taking it to the Ombudsman against Ethnic Discrimination.

She says, “Alla ska ha samma möjligheter till ett arbete. Det här är diskriminering och det är inget man ska hålla käft om” - “Everyone should have the same possibilities to get a job. This is discrimination and it’s nothing you should shut up about.”

Frankly, this is ridiculous.

It’s one thing if people don’t want to comply with arbitrary dress codes. They can bring it up with their employer and try to explain why their religious dress is important to them. But this is about hygiene. It is something that affects other people. Freedom of religion is and should be a human right, but only so long as it doesn’t harm other people. Freedom of religion should not be possible to invoke to cut off the foreskins on male babies, or deny your child a life-saving blood transfusion - and the same goes for med students who don’t want to show their arms. Religion simply doesn’t come into it.

Unfortunately there appears to be a previous case where a female muslim dentist was allowed to wear longer sleeves than the dress code prescribes, so this girl might actually win. Ugh.

islam, muslims, hygiene, freedom of religion

In a depressingly alarmist article on BBC News UK, Finlo Rohrer encourages us to imagine an idyllic image of British countryside, complete with the harmonious buzzing of busy bees, and then asks us to fast forward ten years to this desolate vision:

The hedgerow is deteriorating, the birds are silent, the orchard is disappearing and the countryside is changed. Why? The hives are empty. Their once-buzzing occupants mysteriously vanished.

Excuse me?

I’ve encountered this idea before. I suppose it’s not entirely far-fetched; after all, I’m sure a lot of humans feel as though they would die without sex. But let me assure you, this is not the case for apple trees. An orchard in the absence of beehives might yield less fruit, and if all pollinating insects disappeared, perhaps none at all, but the poor trees, albeit sexually unfulfilled, wouldn’t die from it. Nor would the birds stop singing (that doesn’t make any kind of sense - would the birds go quiet in mourning?).

Although I love my bees and think they are fantastic little creatures, I don’t think they have a special place in the world. Although bees may be important for agriculture, I don’t really believe that the prevalence of our particular favourite species of honeybee is absolutely vital to the survival of plants. There are many, many other pollinating insects (and in some places other animals as well) out there - including a variety of bees other than Apis mellifera - and I suspect many of them would fare quite a lot better in the absence of bees. And I’m not aware of any predator that subsists primarily on honeybees (not even bee-eaters).

The rest of the article is marginally better. British beekeepers are complaining that unusually many hives died last winter, which may or may not be true, but at least the article includes a more reasoned voice, stating that “Beekeeping always goes through periods of prosperity and dearth. People do enjoy a good panic.” Someone complains that varroa mites are getting resistant to the chemicals we use to combat them, which is true, but usually this happens only when people use the chemicals wrong.

Case in point is Apistan, which is applied to a hive during a few weeks in the autumn in the form of plastic strips from which the chemical slowly leaks into the hive, and are then supposed to be removed. A lot of ignorant beekeepers reason that longer exposure to the chemicals will kill more varroa, so they leave the strips in, and/or reuse old strips, exposing the hives to gradually lower concentrations of miticide. Anyone familiar with how bacteria gain resistance to antibiotics can figure the rest out for themselves.

In short, when it comes to varroa, it’s entirely manageable if you’re smart and follow the proper instructions of whatever methods you’re using to battle the “infection”. If beekeepers actually started behaving rationally it wouldn’t be as much of a problem.

The article also dwells on CCD, essentially saying that if beehives started to die in the UK … beehives would die in the UK. Oh, dear. In the end, the conclusion is that we don’t really know if the hives are all going to die, so we’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, someone is writing a book about all the horrible things that will happen if bees disappear. Because people’s enjoyment of a good panic is, as we all know, quite profitable.

bees, honeybees, beekeeping, varroa, colony collapse disorder

This time it’s wikipedia that’s the culprit. And the pictures aren’t even offensive cartoons but medieval depictions, in some of which the dear prophet doesn’t have a face. New Humanist Blog reports here, linking to the NY Times.

Sometimes I really just want to tell every muslim who ever complained about other people’s transgressions of their arbitrary rules that their entire holy book offends me, as a freethinking human being, and that I demand it banned. Yeah, let’s make it an eye for an eye - I promise to stop drawing pics of Muhammad if you just get your religion off this planet. Argh!

Wikipedia to their credit explains on a FAQ page:

Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with the goal of representing all topics from a neutral point of view, Wikipedia is not censored for the benefit of any particular group.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! And please stand by that decision!

Depressingly it seems wikipedia has more integrity than certain European politicians. Also depressingly, a friend points out that there seems to be more people upset about some Muhammad drawings than about Sayed Pervez Kambaksh being sentenced to death for distributing some material critical of Islam. Quoth my friend Dologan:

Sad that basic, human, secular empathy doesn’t seem to elicit a similar response [as religious fervour]… A 23-year old is going to be KILLED for simply reading the opinion that the Quran maybe doesn’t really tell you to oppress women, and most people simply just don’t fucking care.

So far this day hasn’t really done wonders for my faith in humanity.

islam, muhammad, kambaksh, wikipedia

So I just listened to the “debate” between PZ Myers and one Dr Simmons on christian talk radio, which PZ links to here. I’m not going to provide any extensive commentary nor even recommend listening to the debate - sure, it is rather hilarious to hear PZ state matter-of-factly that Simmons has just, and I quote, “made stuff up!” - but since stupid MIGHT be contagious I wouldn’t recommend assaulting your ears with the drivel of an obviously extremely ignorant man.

Really all I wanted to say here is that what I found possibly most amusing in the whole “debate” (and I put those ironic quotation marks there since only one side actually provided any factually true arguments, so it was more of an execution than anything else) was that Dr Simmons actually admitted that his whole reasoning’s based on a gigantic argumentum ad ignorantiam. On talking about the workings of the brain, he ejaculates the following pearl of wisdom:

It’s beyond my comprehension that this could come about by trial and error.

Yes, Dr Simmons, I imagine it is.

In his closing statement, he finally resorts to that which he at at least two points in the interview whined that PZ was doing - insults. To his credit he doesn’t level those insults at PZ, but instead slams Darwin with a big fat ad hominem, calling him a bigotted, misogynistic racist. As if those things (were they even true) had any bearing on the theory of evolution at all. It’s especially ironic since PZ opened the whole debate stating that Darwin’s really out of the picture by now, and Dr Simmons desperately tried to save face by claiming “Darwin” is really just a good name to put on the theory because it’s so well known, even though of course he knows that current evolutuionary theory isn’t the same as Darwin’s evolutionary theory.

Hoooo-boy. I think I’ll go read a biology textbook to purge my mind of the obtuse, infantile nonsense I was just exposed to.

science, biology, evolution, intelligent design, pseudoscience

Pharyngula regulars will already have seen this but it’s too good not to repost:

Put like this, who can argue?

Also, a warning: Posting might be a little sporadic over the next week (as it has been since the weekend) due to me being very busy right now.

science, religion, bible

The Astrological Magazine sez:

We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of The Astrological Magazine will cease with the December 2007 issue.

Any commentary is really superfluous.

(hat tip to Jesper Jerkert at the Swedish Skeptic Society)

astrology

Nima Daryamadj is a columnist for one of Sweden’s major tabloids and has written a few very good ones on the subject of religion and spirituality. Here is a post from his blog that I have translated and am reposting with his permission. I don’t really think it requires more by way of introduction…

ETA: Apparently I had a brainfart and forgot to translate a word when I first posted this. Apologies.

Last year in december I got in touch with Pernilla Ouis, ((lektor)) lecturer at Malmö Högskola. I was told that Save the Children had censored her research paper on sexual violence against girls in the Middle East.

Save the Children (SC) have offices in different parts of the world. The office that handles the Middle East and North African region is called SCS-MENA (Save the Children Sweden - Middle East and North Africa). In 2006, Ouis was a consult for SC and was commissioned by SCS-MENA to lead a research project to do a situation analysis in the countries of Yemen, Lebanon and Palestine. The analyses concerned honour violence, early marriage and sexual abuse of girls.

When the report was almost done, SC required certain parts of it to be removed, supposedly because they were not in accordance with RB:s core values.

On May 7, Moa Roshanfar from the regional office in Lebanon wrote the following:

/…/ The problem for us at Save the Children is that the text about violence creates a polarisation between different groups, between west and east, between western and muslim societies. We want to be a radical voice and challenge men’s violence against women and children, but not in a way that separates cultures from each other and may lead to us and them-thinking. Below follows a few concrete examples in the text that either need to be clarified or changed, that can be understood as offending, generalising and may be viewed as polarising. Often in the text the words “culture”, “traditions”, “communities”, “societies” etc. are used, it’s important to be clear on what is meant. /…/

Then she gives examples of polarising paragraphs:

“Since sexual relationships outside wedlock are associated with strong religious taboos in this Muslim setting, sexual abuse in the MENA region is a special problematic topic for children.”

If the research shows that muslim sexual morals makes it difficult for children to tell others about sexual abuse, why are you not allowed to say this?

“It was suggested to have separate FGD with male teenagers as well. The male opinions, perspectives and experiences are important since we are dealing with gender-based violence in patriarchal communities.”

Here it was problematic to say “gender-based violence in patriarchial communities”. As Ouis herself answers: To exclude that the Middle East is generally patriarchal would be a faulty analysis that I as a scientist would feel ashamed of. Of course it’s a patriarchal society!

Let’s take a break: Maybe Pernilla Ouis isn’t a scientist but a “scientist”? Maybe she’s a rabid closet racist who hates people from the Middle East and Islam? Maybe the report is part of a hidden agenda to defame these?

Ouis is an arabic name. Pernilla has been married to an arab, whose name she chose to keep even after the divorce. Additionally, she converted to Islam in 1986 and has been a muslim for over 20 years. Not exactly a description of a hater of Islam and the Middle East.

Those suspicions dealt with, where were we? More polarising sentences:

“Playing games and bicycling for example are not accepted for girls in many honour societies because of…”

Ouis: That girls in many honour cultures are not allowed to play like boys or ride a bike (for fear of losing their virginity/hymen) is an acknowledged fact. It’s an important piece of information. Why should it be left out? Girls have told us about this. Should their evidence be silenced?

The blame of sexual assault and rape is on the victim, not the offender; in honour cultures…”

Ouis: The guilt is on the victim in honour cultures (in our western society too, if a comparison has to be made!). All the people we’ve interviewed say this and their answers also show how they’ve internalised this thinking. Should I lie about this and keep it in the dark? Motivate this, please. Is lying in accordance with SC:s core values?

After this, it becomes even more absurd:

“The acts that can do so are various, but it seems that in Yemen only wearing a decorated, but still Islamic, dress or laugh in the street is…”

“…children suggested that the Islamic dress…”

Apparently it is problematic to call the clothes of yemenitic girls “islamic”, despite the fact that 1) it IS islamic clothing and 2) the girls themselves used that term!

The children in Yemen called their clothes “Islamic dress” and said that if it had even the smallest decoration it could be viewed as immoral. They were only allowed to wear black, from head to toe. Islamic clothing has different names in different cultures; sometimes it’s called abaya, jilbab or hijab (which means different things, but still), but the term “Islamic dress” is to me a neutral term. How could it be offending? It’s what the children said!

“…and not to be debated openly in public, since it damages the self-image of many Muslims…”

Ouis: Of course the self-image of Muslims is damaged by discussing sexual violence against children. Sexuality is important for the self-image of a society and it’s problematic to discuss openly. This is the case in the west as well. Why do you think certain countries in the Muslim world don’t report any cases of HIV? Well, because it damages their self-image, as the disease is viewed as shameful and connected to sexual immorality.

In her letter Ouis points out that she’s been a Muslim for more than half her life, that she has a unique inside and outside perspective, has travelled a lot, written and read a lot about Islam, is an active participant in the debate about Islam in Sweden and often gets invited to tv, radio and government institutions.

The news were published yesterday in the newspaper Nima writes for. Today, Sanna Johnson from Save the Children responds in a different newspaper, claiming that Ouis’ report states that patriarchism and honour thinking is a problem exclusively in muslim societies.

Nima, who has read the report, states that this is not the case, which means that Johnson is either lying or incompetent. Given that Save the Children has expressly asked Ouis to lie by omission in her report, it seems the former isn’t so improbable.

Save the Children wants to find a way to criticise the individual instances of sexual abuse and honour violence without judging a whole culture. Essentially, they put political correctness and rampant “tolerance” before the advance of modern, secular thinking - equality. Given that their mission is to “creating real and lasting change for children in need”, it seems they’re really shooting themselves in the foot.

islam, save the children, sexual abuse, pernilla ouis, middle east