Atheist Ireland (AI) posted a lovely tribute to Grania on its site yesterday. It was written by its President, Michael Nugent—who knew Grania well—and tells about her activities for AI (she was one of its founders as well as its first secretary), her penchant for gaming, and other things I did not put in my memoriam yesterday.
The tribute was reprinted on Michael’s webpage, too, and you can see either or both versions by clicking on the screenshots below.
From AI:
And on Michael’s site:
As I had hoped, the many comments on my post about Grania’s death—there are now 319, a very large number—acquainted her sisters, with whom she hadn’t spoken in several years—with the many people who considered Grania a friend, as well as with some facts about her life and work. Her sister Gisela posted this as a publicly-viewable announcement on Facebook.
Finally, Richard Dawkins tweeted the sad news:
Jerry has a very moving tribute to Grania.https://t.co/KWWULXzoWd
She was a leading figure in the burgeoning atheist movement in Ireland, and obviously an extremely good person.— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) June 18, 2019
Subscribe 🙁
sub
tears again.
and sub
Ditto. Such a terrible loss for you, Jerry, and her other closest friends, her family and all of us. I am so glad she was here to share her wit, love and light with as as long as she could.
Exactly.
Maybe one ‘positive’ straw: she did not go after a long suffering.
Mixing tears and coffee…second morning in a row. Lovely tribute though.
Virtual hugs… She would have loved this –
How canines capture your heart: scientists explain puppy dog eyes
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jun/17/how-dogs-capture-your-heart-evolution-puppy-dog-eyes
A note of distraction. Michael Nugent describes The Ancestor’s Tale as a more “popular book” as compared to The Selfish Gene, suggesting it was easier or lighter reading. I found The Ancestor’s Tale perhaps the most difficult of Dawkins’ books to read. Was it just me?
I found ‘the extended phenotype’ his most difficult book. ‘The ancestors tale’ I found quite accessible.
I’d probably go with that – though I was a lot younger when I read “Gene” and “Phenotype” than when I read “Ancestor”.
Actually Dad got me “Ancestor”, having first checked that I hadn’t brought it already. We got those wires crossed over “The Silmarillion”.
I think you’re probably right – Nugent is equating “popular” with easier, and indeed I found Ancestor’s to be much easier since I knew the outline of the territory before it was published nearly 30 years after The Selfish Gene
I encountered The Selfish Gene [or The Immortal Gene as recognised as a truer title by RD years later] in my earlier guise of callow youth & it was conceptually, attractively challenging back in 1976. It took me three reads or so to accept & internalise that the unit/vehicle of evolution is NOT the individual. Not many people could have written that book & even fewer with the clarity of Dawkins. A very special book that almost causes a brain rewiring.
The Ancestor’s Tail was a disappointment by comparison – I couldn’t get into the reverse chronology contrivance & my mind wasn’t in the least bit blown by it. I ended up speed reading it & I have no desire to reread it.
RD’s mistake was writing his best book first 🙂
I really liked Climbing Mount Improbable.
Yes I agree, Climbing Mount Improbable is amazing – RD on the co-evolution of various wasp & various fig species is top drawer Dawkins, [a far superior writer to overhyped Gould & Sagan BTW] both in terms of prose & explanatory power. In my edition there’s this huge, long footnote on it which still fries my brain & I’ve read it many times.
Dawkin’s footnotes are gold – best to have a large format book as the Penguin paperback should be sold with a magnifying glass!
I read it quite a while ago – I think the hardcover. I was thoroughly dazzled.
I agree. Ancestor’s Tail was a bit off-putting for me as well. I thought the reverse chronology was gimmicky, but I thought it might attract and/or entertain others. I liked The Selfish Gene and Extended Phenotype. None of it seemed radically new and different, just an excellent presentation and elucidation of the implications of natural selection. But, I think Dawkins could write an instruction manual for IKEA and make it sound beautiful.
Um, isn’t it Tale, not Tail🤓
😀 well, our ancestors did have tails.
❗️
I enjoyed The Ancestor’s Tale, perhaps for the same reasons that others didn’t like it. It is not presenting new insights into the mechanism of evolution, it is just a romp through zoology, a subject I don’t know very well. You can pick it up and jump to the chapter on Xenarthrans, without missing a beat. A discussion of the star-nosed mole and the duckbilled platypus is just fund to read.
Nice that so many loved her. Sad that she probably didn’t know how much.
A good reminder to make sure you let the ones you care for know on a regular basis.
A Twitter user remarked that Prof. Dawkins link to WEIT would not load. But – quelle surprise – the fellow lives in Pakistan.
I thought Jerry’s tribute the other day was very touching, and the tributes moving. A good reminder that what we do, and how we conduct our lives can touch so many others…
+1
Thanks for the additional information on Grania and about her life.
Gosh, the news about Grania is so sad. My thoughts are with you, her family and friends.
Hell, I’ll raise another glass…to Grania.
Me too! Does anyone know if she drank, and if so, her favorite libation? If not Guiness, its probably not available to me, but I would like to raise a glass filled with her favorite beverage.
Yes, she drank, but she didn’t like Guinness. Since she was wary of carbs, I used to watch her drink Bud Light (ecch!) and sometimes vodka with cranberry juice.
I’ll pass on the Bud Light, but the vodka with cranberry sounds interesting.
Sorry it took so long to say thanks for the info. I’ll pass on the Bud Light as well, but I enjoy a good Cape Cod as long as the cranberry juice is on the sour side. A nice squirt of lime helps.
Grania’s GRAVATAR says this:
So how about a real rich, dark roast coffee? Which you can improve with a generous dash of Irish whiskey of course 🙂
[I’m not advocating an Irish coffee – I think the cream & sugar are superfluous or even a negative. Coffee + whiskey is perfect!]
An excellent suggestion.
Is a whipped cream topping, no sugar, allowed on the whiskeyfied coffee?
There are other ways of knowing 🙂
When I worked in a bar at Butlin’s Holiday Camp in ’71 as a 17 yr old I was told the cream wouldn’t float without sugar in the coffee-whiskey/whisky mix & also you HAD to pour the cream over the back of a cold spoon so the cream slipped gently onto the surface without sinking. I heard the same tale in a few bar-work jobs in the ’70s & I was too trusting of experts back then to test this immutable Law.
I think this sugar & spoon myth got a grip because a lot of ’70s British ‘hospitality’ was absolutely dire – cheap, bitter, pre-ground coffee out of a can & put through one of those paper filters with boiling water? Demerara sugar hides the crap coffee & thin cream [often UHT] that lasts forever or even Carnation out of a can was used & there’s not much fat in those.
Use a warmed glass, a rich cafetière coffee & a heavy, real, unprocessed cream & it floats fine – the fat & bubbles I suppose. Very cold cream too thick to pour is best & just put it on top with a spoon like you would an ice cream.
No spray cream from cans, an abomination, or you’ll not go to Heaven!
PS – I believe the original south of Ireland recipe had sugar, perhaps a taste thing given how nearly everyone had tons of sugar in their mugs of tea back then. Guessing.
Gonna try what you described with Devonshire cream!
Yeah, I like the sound of that- better than a Cape Cod.
Jerry mentioned yesterday in his lovely tribute that Grania led a lonely life in Cork, and today he said that she had not been in touch with her sisters for several years. This hurts my heart deeply. I hope she had some knowledge of the regard with which she was held on WEIT.
It seems to me more often than you’d think, family relationships fail. I can think of many examples of disowning, failing to communicate, and angry emotional feuds that go on for years, among family members. Unfortunate but common. So, it doesn’t surprise me that Grania, or anyone we get to know and respect, have difficulty that way. But, as we know, she had other attachments and a great many admirers. Yes, I’m sure she had knowledge of the love for her that’s out here in the rest of the world.
I wouldn’t read the circumstances into implying any discord between Grania and her sisters. Gisela’s FB post doesn’t imply that.
Often family members living in different locations with different interests don’t find occasion to talk to each other regularly.
cr
Your right. Not necessarily any discord – perhaps just a lapse. Discord is just what jumped to mind. We don’t know in this situation.
I had no idea Grania was a founder of AI. She was even cooler and more accomplished than I knew.
Commiserations to Jerry for the loss of such a valued friend, and such an obviously admirable person. At such an early age too. And condolences to her family of course.
Still finding it hard to get my head around this…
+1
Beautiful tribute.
Many thanks for all tribute details. She made a mark on many people’s lives, including mine.
Not that it’s a Turing substitute, but thousands of her thoughts can be found within the WEIT chronicles. Brings another tear, but a slightly happier one.