Speaking of mating, my mom just sent me a pornographic email. I think you’ll like it.

I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Caught love on the golf course.

The first picture is a Swainson’s Hawk. The second picture is the act of mating (warning: it is X-rated).

I had no idea two hawks were in the tree. I just focused on the first and then all of a sudden I hear this loud screaming, look up to see what looks like one hawk attacking another, realize they are mating (their wings were flapping like crazy), and hope to goodness the camera is still in focus as my finger hits the shutter button.

Whew, lots of excitement in one day. I took other pictures of the hawks; he moved to the next tree and smoked a cigarette and she preened herself.

The thing I can’t quite figure out is how many birds are in the tree. Sometimes I count three, other times four. Very kinky.

Update, 4/10/06 - Some have noticed what appears to be a penis originating from the male. This is actually the bird’s cloaca, protruding as he mates with the female.

Most birds do not have a penis, but rather one opening called the cloaca through which all wastes and reproductive gametes pass. For certain groups that do have a penis, it has evolved differently than in mammals, and is not a homologous structure.

For more information, see Avain Genitalia (pdf format), The Auk 115(4):826-828, 1998 by James V. Briskie.

The Conon O’Brian show has a great feature called, “if they mated.” You take two people and throw them together to see what they would look like if they had a child. For example, the love child of Saddam Hussein and Dan Rather, had they mated, would look like Geraldo Rivera.

I saw something the other night that reminded me of this, but first the background.

I grew up in the Church of Christ, and in fact still worship within that religious tradition. It’s a small demonination primarily in the southern United States. Tennesse and Texas probably have the two largest concentrations of CoCers.

Now I could write oogles about things I think are wrong with the church. I stayed because I came to the realization that going elsewhere wouldn’t magically provide a “problem-free” community. As long as there are people like me in the church, there will unfortunately be problems. And while I may be dangerously close to the edge (a push might cause me to look for other churches), so long as I can find a healthy church that respects diversity of opinion, I’ll stay. Thus far, I’ve been blessed.

So, I mention this as background because our little tradition has been heavily in the news lately. Perhaps you’ve heard. A minister’s wife shot the minister, and nobody really knows why. With three little kids in the family, it is by all accounts a very sad story.

So back to the point. I was flipping through the channels the other night and came across the Nancy Grace show. She was parading a string of guests to offer “expert” commentary on the situation, or at least as much “expert” commentary as is possible when no one really knows what happened.

One of the things she did was paint the Church of Christ in the harshet possible light, strongly implying that we are a cult. While most CoC churches are theologically and politcally conservative, rise to the level of a cult they do not. Categorically labeling the entire group is particularly problematic, as is categorically labeling any group, since there are many different opinions with the church on any given issue.

Nancy Grace was vile. She repeatedly cut people off, mocked them, and generally made a dope of herself. In particular, she treated in the harshed way the one Church of Christ minister she had on the show. (It should always warn you if someone blasts a group, with 12 other guests, while letting a single person speak for the group being assailed.) She interviewed Rubel Shelly, a minister who teaches at Rochester College in Michigan. She asked, for example, about the CoC’s views on women’s roles in the church. Historically, the CoC has had limited roles for women in public worship (something I’m in complete disagreement on and something which is starting to change in places). Nancy Grace asked why this was the case, Rubel Shelly began to explain that it was traditionally because of the interpretation in 1 Timothy 2:11-12. Nancy Grace immediately cut him off and chastized him, saying that she didn’t need a history lesson. When Shelly protested that she’d asked why, she mocked him for his evasiveness and said he’d make a great lawyer.

The ineptitude, the smugness, the incredible rudeness and arrogance from Nancy Grace. I had seen this before, but where? Why of course, Bill O’Reilly. And that’s what got me thinking. What if they mated? What would the love child of Grace and O’Reilly look like?

     x     

I can only venture a guess. Read the rest of this entry »

Late to the party as usual, I came across a thread from a couple of weeks ago on The Loom where Randy “Flock of Dodos” Olson gave more of his thoughts on communicating evolution to the public. Olson also chimed in on the comments, which in the great tradition of the internet, turned heated and passionate as people argued for the best course of action.

I’ll throw in my two cents, even though that’s not really why I’m writing…

What Olson is getting at is the main reason people reject evolution — they think it conflicts with their faith, and they think the soul purpose of evolutionary biologists is to attack their faith. Olson comments on who he thinks is a great messenger of science to the general public.

Right now, I am putting all my chips on Dr. Steve Case, head of the Kansas Writing Committee. He’s got a great combination of elements — well humored, nice guy, very articulate, very humble, and best of all, very patient. There might be better spokespersons out there, but what I know so far is that all neutral folks (neither rabidly pro-evolution nor pro-intelligent design) cite him as their favorite character in my film. The bit that he delivers about “the God of the gaps” concept and how it leads to the predicament that the more we learn the smaller God gets, which we illustrated with a brick wall graphic, is I think the most profound summary to date of the flawed logic of intelligent design. At our test screening you could hear people in the audience say a hushed, “oh my goodness,” as they got his point.

That’s what a lot of this nasty debate is all about. How do you frame the issue. I continue to be a firm believer that it’s not better science education we necessarily need (though we certainly do), but rather it’s a better way to talk to people about the two. If you can’t address the religious aspects with the people who are most concerned about that, you can teach evolution effectively all day long and it won’t matter.

What Really Caught My Eye

Earlier in the same comment, Olson told some information (dare I say gossip?) that I’d not heard before.

I’ve been contacted now by a major Hollywood production company who is in casting for a movie titled, “Monkey Trial,” which is going to be a re-telling of “Inherit the Wind,” from the pro-I.D. perspective, to be directed by Mel Gibson’s producing partner who was involved with a little movie called, “Passion of the Christ,” so brace yourselves evolutionists.

Sounds lovely. If you thought the 30 minute flogging of Jesus was a little too violent, just imagine what they’ll do to Clarence Darrow.

A friend from Massachusetts sent me a couple of pictures last night, asking for help identifying a bird that got stuck in fishing line on the beach. Without a knife and the tides quickly rising, she couldn’t free it.

It’s a Red-necked Grebe, a heck of a bird in Texas. I’ve seen precisely one in my lifetime.

I think it’s a good reminder how much some of the little things matter. I see fishing line everywhere I go. I need to start picking it up everytime I see it.

And for anybody who likes to fish, keep in mind just how deadly your line can be if you leave it behind.

Don’t believe in demon possession? Then you obviously haven’t seen this video.

giant centipede eats mouse

I got it from JM O’Donnell over at Immunoblogging and he got it from Pharyngula.

It’s a video of a giant centipede, over a foot long, eating a mouse. One of the things that amazed me was the centipede’s ability to walk around carrying the mouse.

The video’s probably twice as long as it needs to be, but it gets the point across. The mouse squeels a bit but quickly becomes silent. And then there’s only munching. Lots and lots of munching.

If you enjoy the outcome being little less certain, have a look at their second video. The mouse puts up quite a valiant effort, even if the person with the camera pulls a Marty Stouffer.

Bon Appétit

A couple days back, I blogged about an Afghan that was to be executed for converting to Christianity from Islam. After an international outcry, he’s been set free.

The problem I see with this story is that he wasn’t set free because people came to their senses and realized you shouldn’t run a country where you execute people for their beliefs. Far from it, the reason given for his release was “he was mentally unfit to stand trial.”

He’s seeking asylum outside of Afghanistan. He better get it too, and quick. The general public seems more than willing to handle his execution themselves for his so-called crime.

My wife has got me reading a bloggish type site call The Sneeze. He leaves me in stitches I laugh so hard. For a typical example, take a look at this article on his wife’s suspected infidelity and his son’s eating habitats.

For readers that might be troubled by encountering profanity, I’ll warn you that The Sneeze tends to be pretty heavy with its use. The story linked to above is squeeky clean though.

The WorldNetDaily has just published an article by Lynn Barton on intelligent design. It’s title alone makes a bold claim. Why intelligent design will change everything.

Barton starts out with arguments we’ve heard before. The anger from the scientific community over intelligent design is proof that the old evolutionary paradigm is coming to an end and that Intelligent Design is good science, not creationism.

The last claim, that intelligent design is not creationism, is the most absurd of all because Barton spends the majority of the article appealing to the bias of her audience that evolution is the root of all social evils, and that intelligent design is society’s hope.

Let’s look at a few of her claims.

She starts out by talking of intelligent design and irreducible complexity.

Microbiologist Michael Behe has coined the term “irreducible complexity” to describe this. That is, the cell consists of coordinated, interlocking parts that must all be in place simultaneously, or it won’t function at all. You can’t improve the cell through one random mutation at a time because if you change any one aspect, the whole thing will crash. For evolutionary change to occur, every single piece of its Rube Goldberg-like factory would have to mutate at exactly the same time, and each single mutation would have to be beneficial, or the cell would just die.

The textbook example of irreducible complexity is the bacterial flagellum. Behe loves to claim that the whole structure is useless without its 40 proteins arranged in place all at once. Take away a protein and the flagellum is a wet noodle.

This claim, and Barton’s repetition of it, shows a lack of understanding evolutionary theory. One of the things scientists believe happens, with good reason, is that many events in evolutionary history involve co-option, where an existing biological function is incorporated in a new process.

Ken Miller has provided a particularly lucid explanation of how this works in the bacterial flagellum. Essentially, a subset of the flagellum’s proteins are found in use in a system that certain bacteria use to inject poisons into our cell membranes. This would be analogous to finding your car’s transmission at work doing a completely different function in another system. And this is hardly the only example of co-option we know of. It occurs repeatedly throughout nature. What it means is that structures can come about not just through gradual processes like the addition of 40 separate proteins to a flagellum, but rather through co-opting existing proteins for new uses.

Darwinists cannot explain irreducible complexity. They keep saying that it poses no problem for evolution, as if repetition would make it so. They insist that just because we don’t yet understand how evolution can work in light of this doesn’t mean that we won’t figure it out eventually. But they will never figure it out, because irreducible complexity makes evolutionary change at the cellular level logically impossible.

The only repetition going on is the assertion that irreducible complexity “disproves” evolution. Even after clear arguments have been presented against this claim, ID proponents fail to engage the evidence — the very thing Barton claims to desire earlier in her article. The old saying about not wrestling with a pig because you both end up in the mud and the pig likes it comes to mind here. (And perhaps I’m in the mud right now by discussing the article).

And it’s after these brief poor arguments on intelligent design that Barton plunges off the deep end.

And not a moment too soon, since evolutionary theory did not stay in the scientific realm but oozed into all the sciences, the liberal arts and out into culture, with horribly destructive results. The biblical view of man as a spiritual being created in God’s image has been replaced by the view that man is nothing more than a highly evolved animal struggling to survive in a meaningless universe. Scratch any social ill and you will find Darwinism underneath. [my emphasis]

I laughed out loud at her statement of evolution oozing into all of science and culture. Anybody seen Canadian Bacon? This comedy with John Candy features a plot where an American president is trying to start a war with Canada to boost his popularity. There’s a newscast which features a map of North America with maple syrup slowly falling across the border. A newscaster’s voice seriously warns, “Like maple syrup, Canadian evil oozes across the border…”

Her claim that Charles Darwin and his scientific theory is the root of evil should be a clue that we’re in for a rough ride over the rest of the article.

One of the worst consequences has been the devaluation of human life. It is no exaggeration to say that Darwinism has led to the killing of untold millions of human beings. […] Eugenics helped Hitler convince an entire country to follow him in his attempt to wipe out the “inferior” Jews, not to mention the toll in blood it took to stop him.

Yep. Barton’s appealing to her audiences ignorance and bias. Let’s take her claim on Hitler. She gave a few other absurd examples of evolution’s murderous history, but Hitler in particular is one that’s easy to refute. In fact, just a couple of days ago, Ed Brayton over at Dispatches worked over another article at the WorldNetDaily that claimed evolution leads to Hitler. Ed points out a couple of quotes that give Hitler’s Christian basis for his policies. Consider the following from Hitler in a 1922 speech:

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God’s truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison. To-day, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before in the fact that it was for this that He had to shed His blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice…. And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people…. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people is plundered and exploited.

Anybody think it’s particularly fair to claim that Christianity was the cause of Hitler’s actions? It couldn’t have been that Hitler used whatever means available to manipulate his people, could it? Barton should be ashamed of her dishonesty in linking evolution to Hitler and his atrocities.

Barton then sums up her article claiming that intelligent design is the hope of the world.

But intelligent design is on the move, and this is a great gift to everyone, especially Christians. It’s only a matter of time before it becomes accepted as a legitimate competing theory of origins, and as it does it will unleash enormous changes for good, not only in science but all of culture – because if people understand that there is (or at least could be) a Designer, then we can once more ask, what is the purpose of that design? What are things for?

I think this sentiment more than any other is what so greatly offends me. She’s betting the ranch on the fact that intelligent design will prove God to the world, and she’s holding a pair of 2’s.

My wife (the student teacher) told me of an absurb question that appeared in a fourth grade class on review material for the state assessment test. Can anyone spot the problems and provide a right answer? There is a set of numbers that gives a mathematically valid solution.

Bella’s age minus her brother’s age is 12. Bella’s brother is 4 times older than Bella. What are the ages of Bella and her brother?

When they said they were making the standards tests harder, I guess they weren’t kidding.