The 18 lawgivers looking down on the justices are divided into two friezes of ivory-colored, Spanish marble. On the south wall, to the right of incoming visitors, are figures from the pre-Christian era — Menes, Hammurabi, Moses, Solomon, Lycurgus, Solon, Draco, Confucius and Octavian (Caesar Augustus). On the north wall to the left are lawmakers of the Christian era — Napoleon Bonaparte, Marshall, William Blackstone, Hugo Grotius, Louis IX, King John, Charlemagne, Muhammad and Justinian.

Muhammad?  Yes, and here’s his figure in the frieze:

But as you probably know, depiction of the Prophet is a severe violation of the hadith, the post-Qur’anic interpretation of Mohamed’s sayings that is to the Qur’an what the Talmud is to the Torah in Jews.  Many Muslims, and nearly all Sunni Muslims, take severe offense at such violations as a sign of idolatry. You won’t see pictures of Muhammed in any mosques.

So of course there were complains by Muslims.  Cowed, the court responded (also reported by the above link) thusly (also noting as well the aversion of Muslims to depictions of the Prophet):

After last year’s controversy about the image of Muhammad, the Supreme Court included this explanation in tourist materials: “The figure is a well-intentioned attempt by the sculptor to honor Muhammad, and it bears no resemblance to Muhammad.”

Over at Sneer Review, reader Sigmund gives the only possible response:

How do they know that?

Three of Robbins’s indictments:

• Instead we live in a bizarre place where it seems almost every half-baked opinion – no matter how stupid or irresponsible – must be broadcast to the world as valid and equal. In this polluted environment, attitudes to things like ‘facts’, ‘evidence’ and ‘science’ range from indifference to open hostility, as Adam Rutherford discovered when he made the mistake of appearing on Today recently. . .

Rutherford’s experience with John Humphrys was little better (audio). Every question was designed to put the guests on the defensive or to create conflict, and even reasonable points were phrased in an aggressive manner. Hasn’t science lost its romance? Isn’t this all a waste of money? Don’t you wish you got some of the money that CERN gets? When his guests provided answers, such as Rutherford’s neat explanation of the economic benefits of investing in scientific research, they aroused an “mm” or were ignored. Worse, Humphrys seemed almost proud of his own ignorance of the subject; it’s hard to imagine a presenter treating economics or the arts in a similar manner.

• The BBC Trust’s 2011 report on science found that only about an eighth of broadcast news items about research included the voice of an independent expert in the field, not involved with the research in question (see Alice Bell’s blog for some interesting coverage of that report).

And this is a depressing one:

• When scientists are allowed to get clever, TV producers are forced to go to absurd lengths to compensate. Witness Cox’s recent ‘Night with the stars’, in which Cox was allowed to explain aspects of quantum theory on condition that various comedians and celebrities were brought on to act dumb and reassure the audience that nobody really understands this stuff. It was fun I admit, but if the BBC filmed a lecture about the life and works of Dostoevsky, do you really think they’d have a succession of celebrities coming on stage to look bewildered by the clever man’s long words?

I don’t watch the BBC, but perhaps some UK readers can weigh in about whether Robbins’s complaint is justified.

h/t: Tom C.

And now we can look forward to a season of breeding.  Let’s hope the parents both survive this year, and that the chicks won’t have to be taken in for rearing.

You can find the EagleCam here; bookmark it if you want to see the fun.  The moderated discussion, where you can find out what’s been happening, is to the right of the video.  The cam is down right now, but should be fixed soon.

Bonus video: Eagle pwns tabby.  From YouTube; the owner apparently lives in Alaska. It’s the same person who posted the video in the first comment below.

It was Thanksgiving morning and I noticed about 20 eagles fighting over some slab of food. This eagle won the fight and went on the hill next to my house to eat his food. Next thing I know 2 of my cats are up on the hill checking out this eagle. I tried to call them in the house but they wouldn’t listen to me. I wasn’t too worried about the eagle attacking the cats because that eagle was too into that slab of food. So I got out my video camera and took this video. When Suitcase got so close that eagle could have tore Suitcase up but instead just gave him a slap with his wing. The eagles here are not really aggressive to the cats here.

Here’s Esther’s description, which I reproduce (along with the drawing) with her permission:

Generating an illustrated history of evolutionary biology was an idea partially inspired by the caricatures of James Gillray. The British artist’s work served to illustrate the political and social scenes of the late 18th century, and was interspersed throughout the Harvard summer school course, taught by Andrew Berry, for which this image was created. Starting from the Greek philosophers who first observed and consequently attempted to explain the world around them, the tree winds it way down to Darwin, the “father of evolution”, and Wallace, his widely unknown counterpart who seems to have lost out  in evolution’s custody battle (Google this man). It would,however, be false to say that the image was not in any way spawned by the thought: “Hmmm. I’d really rather not write a history paper.”

Click to enlarge.  It repays long study, for every detail in this drawing is meaningful.  If you pull the picture onto your desktop, you’ll see that you can zoom in on it considerably without loss of detail, as you’ll get a 10.6 megabyte image.
Thanks to Esther and Andrew for alerting me to this, and allowing me to reproduce it.

There are several species of dormouse, found mostly in Europe, but the famous one is the hazel dormouse  (Muscardinus avellanarius), a nocturnal rodent named after its favorite food, hazelnuts. They hibernate underground through the winter (the specimen above is undoubtedly one of these), and are protected throughout Europe: their numbers are declining because of habitat loss.

A dormouse website shows the characteristic sign of their presence:

Dormice like to eat hazelnuts and if you examine a hazelnut shell it is possible to tell for certain whether it has been eaten by a dormouse.  Look at the picture of the hazelnuts [below]. Both have been eaten by Dormice. The characteristics are a neat smooth circular cut to the inside of the opening and tiny radiating teeth marks on the outside. Woodmice also like hazelnuts and eat them in a similar way but the inside of the cut shell is not smooth as woodmice gnaw across the cut. Squirrels just crack the nuts open with their powerful jaws.

So remember, a smooth circular cut with tiny radiating teeth marks is the sign of the Dormouse!

And, of course, we have the world’s most famous dormouse, the always-sleeping rodent from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.  Here the dormouse is sleeping at tea next to the Mad Hatter. Eventually the Hatter and the March Hare wake him up by putting his head into the teapot.

You can adopt a dormouse for only twenty pounds, and receive a personalized adoption certificate as well as a soft toy dormouse.

h/t: Matthew Cobb via Christina Purcell

As the National Center for Science Education reports, such a bill has just passed an Indiana state senate committee:

Indiana’s Senate Bill 89, which if enacted would allow local school districts to “require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science,” was passed by the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development on January 25, 2012. . .

. . . Testimony against the bill stressed the unconstitutionality of teaching creation science, established by the Supreme Court in 1987. Among those testifying against the bill were John Staver, professor of chemistry and science education at Purdue University; Chuck Little, executive director of the Indiana Urban Schools Association; David Sklar, the Director of Government Relations for the Jewish Community Relations Council; the Reverend Charles Allen, a chaplain for Grace Unlimited, a campus ministry in the Indianapolis area; and Reba Boyd Wooden, executive director of the Indiana Center for Inquiry.

Note who voted for and against the bill (in America “D” stands for Democrat and “R” for Republican):

The vote was 8-2, with the bill’s sponsor and committee chair Dennis Kruse (R-District 14), Carlin Yoder (R-District 12), Jim Banks (R-District 17), Jim Buck (R-District 17), Luke Kenley (R-District 20), Jean Leising (R-District 42), Scott Schneider (R-District 30), and Frank Mrvan Jr. (D-District 1) voting for and Earline S. Rogers (D-District 3) and Tim Skinner (D-District 38) voting against the bill.

As usual, it’s the damn Republicans behind this stuff.

 Here’s what State Senate Bill 89,says:

    A BILL FOR AN ACT to amend the Indiana Code concerning education.

SOURCE: IC 20-30-6-18; (12)IN0089.1.1. –>     SECTION 1. IC 20-30-6-18 IS ADDED TO THE INDIANA CODE AS A NEW SECTION TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2012]:

Sec. 18. The governing body of a school corporation may require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science, within the school corporation.

Of course to become law, the bill has to pass the State Senate, then the state House of Representatives, and then be signed into law by the governor.  As the Indiana ACLU notes, the bill is unconstitutional on its face: teaching of creationism in public schools was rejected on freedom-of-religion grounds by the U. S. Supreme Court in the 1987 case of Edwards v. Aguillard.

Given all this, the bill is likely to be stopped at some point short of becoming law. But I want to say for the gazillionth time that we wouldn’t be facing these brushfires if there were no religion.  If we didn’t have goddy creation myths, why would anyone oppose the teaching of evolution?

_____________

Alain de Botton, whom we’ve encountered before, is rapidly becoming an embarrassment to atheism.  First he wants us to adopt many of the ritualistic trappings of religion, and now he wants to erect a £ 1,000,000 pound tower to atheism in London.  Apparently he’s already raised half the money for this project. The Guardian reports:

The philosopher and writer Alain de Botton is proposing to build a 46-metre (151ft) tower to celebrate a “new atheism” as an antidote to what he describes as Professor Richard Dawkins’s “aggressive” and “destructive” approach to non-belief.

Rather than attack religion, De Botton said he wants to borrow the idea of awe-inspiring buildings that give people a better sense of perspective on life.

“Normally a temple is to Jesus, Mary or Buddha, but you can build a temple to anything that’s positive and good,” he said. “That could mean a temple to love, friendship, calm or perspective. Because of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens atheism has become known as a destructive force. But there are lots of people who don’t believe but aren’t aggressive towards religions.”

What a stupid waste of money!  Richard has responded:

Dawkins criticised the project on Thursday, indicating the money was being misspent and that a temple of atheism was a contradiction in terms.

“Atheists don’t need temples,” the author of The God Delusion said. “I think there are better things to spend this kind of money on. If you are going to spend money on atheism you could improve secular education and build non-religious schools which teach rational, sceptical critical thinking.”

In the article, various people weigh in on the boondoggle, with some humanists predictably objecting to a memorial to what is, after all, an absence of belief. Curiously, at least one wooly-brained priest is in favor of the tower:

Another Anglican, the Rev George Pitcher, a priest at St Bride’s, Fleet Street, and a former adviser to the archbishop of Canterbury, “rejoiced” in the idea. “He is referring to a sense of human transcendence, that there is something more than our visceral existence,” Pitcher said.

“Building a monument acknowledges that we are more than dust. Whether we come at that through secular means or a religious narrative, it is the same game.

“This is a more constructive atheism than Dawkins, who is about the destruction of ideas rather than contributing new ones.”

It’s just like a priest to try to claim an atheist monument for God!  And really, more constructive than Dawkins?  Dawkins has converted dozens of believers to rationality and naturalism, and I see that as quite constructive.  After all, as Steve Gould always said, the destruction of bad ideas (he was referring to science) is a contribution just as real as the vetting of new ideas.  And Dawkins has certainly made far more of a contribution to understanding nature than any priest—much less the Anglican faith as a whole—has done.  One would have to be a moron to think that an atheist temple could convert anyone to disbelief.

The design of the temple is trite beyond belief:

Each centimetre of the tapering tower’s interior has been designed to represent a million years and a narrow band of gold will illustrate the relatively tiny amount of time humans have walked the planet. The exterior would be inscribed with a binary code denoting the human genome sequence.

Given that humans aren’t the apex of evolution, I favor the Natural-History-Museum solution of Steve Rose, who shows, in another Guardian piece, how silly the atheist tower is

What De Botton seems to be preaching is his own rather narrow definition of atheism, with its own unified philosophy, set of rules and even architectural brand identity. It feels rather like, er, a religion.

To answer De Botton’s original question, atheists do have their own versions of great churches and cathedrals. If the antithesis of religion is scientific rationalism, then surely its temples are the British Library, the Millau Viaduct and the Large Hadron Collider? If it’s about glorifying creation, then why not the Natural History Museum or the Eden Project? What about the Tate Modern? Or Wembley Stadium? Or the O2? Or the Westfield shopping centre? Perhaps non-believers should decide for themselves what a temple of atheism should be.

Running neck and neck are:

Rick Santorum, Republican candidate for President, said this about education in a speech in Florida:

“It’s no wonder President Obama wants every kid to go to college,” said the former Pennsylvania senator. “The indoctrination that occurs in American universities is one of the keys to the left holding and maintaining power in America. And it is indoctrination. If it was the other way around, the ACLU would be out there making sure that there wasn’t one penny of government dollars going to colleges and universities, right? . . . If they taught Judeo-Christian principles in those colleges and universities, they would be stripped of every dollar. If they teach radical secular ideology, they get all the government support that they can possibly give them. Because you know 62 percent of children who enter college with a faith conviction leave without it.”

Yeah, the ACLU has such awesome power over government spending on schools.

Santorum’s solution?  Stop supporting higher education:

“I’ll bet you there are people in this room who give money to colleges and universities who are undermining the very principles of our country every single day by indoctrinating kids with left-wing ideology. And you continue to give to these colleges and universities. Let me have a suggestion: Stop it.”

Can Republicans get any more stupid?

But giving the ex-Senator a run for his money is

Ralph Shortey, a state senator from Oklahoma, who thinks that food companies are putting aborted fetuses in food, and has introduced a bill in the state legislature to prohibit the use of fetuses or fetal cells in food. Of course nobody is doing this or intends to. Over at ERV, Abbie describes the insanity.

Shortey is a Republican, of course.

If God did bless America, he blessed it with a surfeit of idiots, many of whom march under the flag of the GOP.

h/t: Don B

Here’s one observation described in the paper:

At 1427 h, two adult-sized dolphins (approximately 3 m in length) reversed direction and approached the humpback whales. The dolphins positioned themselves directly in front of one humpback still at the surface and appeared to surf the pressure wave created by the whale’s head as it swam. The two dolphins could be differentiated since one of them had a distinctive cookie cutter shark (Isistius brasiliensis) bite on the right side of the body and a notched dorsal fin. During the next two breaths by the same whale, each dolphin independently was seen lying across the whale’s rostrum as it surfaced, oriented perpendicular to the whale’s body. At 1430 h, the whale stopped and slowly raised its rostrum upward while lifting the well-marked dolphin out of the water (Figure 1a). Once completely clear of the water, the dolphin remained arched, on its side, balanced over the end of the whale’s rostrum (Figure 1b). The dolphin appeared to cooperate, with no discernible effort to free itself or escape. When the whale was nearly vertical, with its eye nearly breaking the water surface, the dolphin slid down the dorsal side of the rostrum (Figure 1c) while swinging its flukes upward (Figure 1d). This entire lift sequence lasted about 3 s, ending when the dolphin entered the water tail first.

A bottlenose dolphin slowly lifted out of the water by a humpback whale 1.8 km off the northwest coast of Kauai, Hawaii, on 25 January 2004 (photos by L. Mazzuca)

A bottlenose dolphin lifted repeatedly out of the water by a humpback whale about 800 m off the northwest coast of Maui, Hawaii, on 25 January 2006 (photos by M. Deakos)

What in the world is going on here?  The authors suggest a number of hypotheses:

• The whale is pwning the dolphin.  Dolphins are known to surf the “pressure wave” in front of swimming humpback whales, and this could piss off the whale. The lifting of the dolphin could result from a head lunge by the whale, and head lunges are known to be part of the whale species’ aggressive behavior. The authors discount this because the head lunge was so slow, and the dolphin didn’t appear to flee it.

• The whale is helping a distressed dolphin.  This is called succorant behavior, and has been seen in other marine mammals, though it’s very rare in baleen whales. The authors discount this because the dolphin didn’t appear injured or distressed. Also, if the action was merely a maternal response by a misguided female humpback whale (sex was not determined), that wouldn’t explain the dolphin’s “cooperative” behavior.

• They’re playing!  Both bottlenose dolphins and humpback whales have been reported to engage in play-like behavior.  The authors suspect that this is the most likely explanation—that “social play” was initiated by the dolphin, perhaps stimulating a maternal effect on the part of the whale.

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Deakos, M. H., B. K. Branstetter, L. Mazzuca, D. Fertl, and J. R. Mobley, Jr.. 2010. Two unusual interactions between a bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) in Hawaiian waters. Aquatic Mammals 36:121-128.