Eat more cookies

It’s a rite of spring.

Final exams are looming

but today we cheer!

Evidently, one of the most egregious problems with the new Ben Stein movie “Expelled” is an alleged link between “Darwinists” and The Holocaust. No, I’m not making this up. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is offered as the underpinning of European antisemitism that brought Hitler to power and, by association, all modern day proponents of the theory must be evil Jew-haters to boot. Again - not making this up.

Unfortunately, the message has resonated with the weak-minded, and biologist Michael Shermer was recently called out by an impressionable man who had seen the film. The following is the story of their interaction, and an open letter response from evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, reproduced here in its entirety from Dawkins’ website:

(more…)

I noticed the first Great Crested Flycatchers and Chimney Swifts of the season in Stillwater yesterday afternoon. Welcome back, guys!

This morning I heard singing Clay-colored Sparrows and saw my first-o-season Western Flycatcher while on my morning jog. When I returned home, there were dueling Swainson’s Thrushes in the backyard, and a warbler that sounded suspiciously Blackburnian. That would be a good one for sure . . .

That Japanese whaling expedition to the Antarctic failed to reach its quota of minke whales. They blame the failure at least in part on disruptions caused by environmental activist groups on the high seas. Synopsis here.

Slam!

That sound you just heard is the door (yet again) slamming shut on the anti-evolution crowd and their ridiculous claims that there are no “missing links” in the fossil record to demonstrate transitional forms among divergent groups.

The latest? Alexandra Houssaye at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris has recently described completely articulated hindlimbs (femur, tibia, & fibula) in a fossilized snake (Eupodophis descouensi) from Cretaceous limestone unearthed in Lebanon. Yes Virginia, snakes evolved from leggy, lizard ancestors.

The full story is, of course, way cooler than I describe here, as it involves not just the revelation of a fascinating transitional form, but the researchers used some seriously advanced technology to illustrate the structure. Check it out, and this commentary is worth a look as well!

“Bueller?”

“Bueller?”

Ben Stein’s iconic portrayal of a disaffected egghead economics teacher in 1986’s “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” established his career as the quintessential brainy character on screen, and his real-world persona as a general know-it-all. Even more than 20 years later when people are looking for something that is clearly not there, you’ll hear them ask “Bueller?” Movie-magic at its best!

But Ben Stein is apparently the one playing intellectual hookie with his latest project, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”
While it would be disingenuous to pan a movie I hadn’t seen, I’ve heard and read things about this movie that seem disturbing. Apparently, the movie is rife with factual errors on the nature of evolutionary biology, and the producers don’t seem to have acted at all honorably to the biologists who agreed to be interviewed. For a laundry list of what’s wrong with this movie, please visit here: “Expelled Exposed“.

Look, science advances by observation, prediction, and hypothesis testing. We scientists are not “scared” of ideas that challenge our positions - we encounter such ideas all the time. The insinuation that notions like “intelligent design” are squashed by mainstream science because scientists are trying to maintain their grip on some kind of an NSF gravy train of research funding is just silly. If intelligent design was science (i.e., it led to falsifiable predictions verified by hypothesis testing), then this startling new revelation could become the next big funding initiative for the NSF. Imagine hundreds of millions of dollars allocated to intelligent design research! Rank and file scientists would have far more to gain from intelligent design being scientific than from the sad alternative.

The reality is that intelligent design is, of course, not scientific. It does not lead to falsifiable hypothesis testing; it has no predictive value. That, and that alone, is the reason that it should not be taught in science classes. We wouldn’t teach Spanish vocabulary in an algebra class, so we shouldn’t teach a religious philosophy in a science class. It’s that simple.

We get plenty of rain on our plain sometimes too.

We’re in a bit of a stormy pattern here in Oklahoma, but the big threat today looks to be flooding.  I guess it’s more than a threat at this point.  Check out the radar image for right now:

On Saturday, I birded Lake Carl Blackwell in Payne County, spending most of my time in one small area rather than covering the whole park. I still managed 51 species with several seasonal firsts: scissortails, Franklin’s Gull, fish crow, orange-crowned warbler, and, the pinnacle of avian evolution, Louisiana Waterthrush. The waterthrushes were two pairs, probably in the nest-building phase. The phoebe nest looked complete.

Last week’s storm outbreak toppled many trees west of Stillwater, including the big old cottonwood snag where I’ve seen the back end of barred owls sticking out of a nest hole not quite big enough for a whole family. The tree came down across a fence and is obstructing a horse riding trail. There was a pair of wood ducks hanging around, so I fear they may have lost a clutch of eggs.

(more…)

As powerful and resonant today as it was then, thanks to http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html for this transcript of Martin Luther King’s famous speech:  

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

Superstar ornithologist (and friend of the O’Connells) Amanda Rodewald has recently published some findings of her work with graduate students to unravel the mechanisms through which forest birds nesting in urban areas don’t do as well as those in more rural areas. She’s finding that the qualitative difference between the individuals that nest in either the urban or the rural areas may play a huge role in nest success.  Cool stuff!  

Some Migratory Birds Can’t Find Success In Urban Areas

COLUMBUS, Ohio — New research finds fresh evidence that urbanization
in the United States threatens the populations of some species of
migratory birds.

But the six-year study also refutes one of the most widely accepted
explanations of why urban areas are so hostile to some kinds of birds.

(more…)