Chowder head

Somewhere I heard about this book, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky, and thought it might be a good recommendation for the Drinking & Reading Society, it being about the natural world and man’s relationship to it and all. Fortunately, I listened to it on tape first. There are way too many recipes and pointless meandering interviews with former Labradorean fishermen and not enough science or even history.

The only real lesson is to remember that people not so long ago thought cod were inexhaustible – like the buffalo, the northern forests, and hundreds of other inexhaustible resources that now stand exhausted. I suppose it’s useful to have one more example, but haven’t we learned this lesson yet? I suppose not; while changing tapes I happened to catch Rush Limbaugh’s daily rant to the effect that “People, there is no such thing as global warming. Humans aren’t doing anything to harm the planet.” Maybe he should read Cod.

But, so you don’t have to, I have included this 5-star review off the Amazon website from Cloudia in Seattle:

There's a cartoon in Matt Groening, the nine types of professors. One is the single-minded type, as in "The country that controls magnesium controls the world!" His main drawback is that he could be right. Cod sort of reminds me of that.

You may not have known how important or popular this particular fish was to most of our ancestors in Western civilization, but, according Kurlansky, Cod was practically like bread. It was easy to fish, there was a ton of it, and once Europeans learned the various ways of drying it (with cold and/or salt) all people could think about was trading this staple. Yes, Kurlansky's book is single-minded, and at times you might forget this is a fish tale. When the Vikings found America, what where they looking for? And how did they manage to sustain themselves through the long ocean voyage? The answers are of course, cod. Kurlansky also has a few outlandish things to say about another favorite topic of his, the Basque, who it appears had been regularly fishing for Cod in Newfoundland long before Columbus found America. They were really good at keeping a secret, you see.

Fortunately, there's a serious, or, at least more socially acceptable side, to Kurlansky's fish story. The fishing trade really is threatened. You can no longer practically walk on Atlantic cod. Even Icelanders who found their entire economy changing from one of sustenance to a first world service economy, during the two world wars, have a difficult time protecting their dwindling stock. If Aldous Huxley's grandfather, Thomas, asserted in the 19th century that cod would never become extinct, it was only because he could not imagine the rapid technological changes which would turn fishing into harvesting, and the classic practice of drying fish into freezing it, on board the fishing boats themselves. Good-bye bacalao, hello fishsticks.

It's a sad tale as ways of life dwindle and change, and even the very essentials of human existence that have lasted for thousands of years go unheard of by the post-industrial society. But are we really evolving into something better? Kurlansky peppers his narrative with quotes from notables throughout the ages and interesting, if often archaic, recipes.

OK, so now you don’t have to read the book unless you really, really want to.

Bad year for bluebirds

Today I removed another empty bluebird nest. Two days ago it had a tiny mass of naked wriggling bluebird chicks a few hours old. Now there's no sign of chicks nor birds. No remains of any kind, which suggests a snake or similar varmint. This box was on a metal pole, but that's no guarantee against intruders, especially snakes. The other nest that had eggs is also empty, although the birds have started a new nest. I'm not terribly hopeful. The later in the season, the poorer the chances they will survive. Meanwhile, there are eggs in the box behind the house, but that's on a wooden post and besides it's much too close to the wrens (no, we don't keep wren houses, but they are prolific anyway) which means the odds are against success in this box too. That makes three nests with eggs or chicks destroyed by predators this spring - two by land and one by air. It's been a tough spring all around.

Religion? Like, oh, wow!

In today’s Times, David Brooks raises the topic of how neuroscience is affecting the debate between science and religion and sees changes in store for both. In sum, he says:

We’re in the middle of a scientific revolution and it’s going to have big cultural effects. In unexpected ways, science and mysticism are joining hands and reinforcing each other. That’s bound to lead to new movements that emphasize self-transcendence but put little stock in divine law or revelation. Orthodox believers are going to have to defend particular doctrines and particular biblical teachings. They’re going to have to defend the idea of a personal God, and explain why specific theologies are true guides for behavior day to day.

Here’s the link to his column: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/opinion/13brooks.html

Brooks recommends reading Andrew Newberg, Daniel J. Siegel, Michael S. Gazzaniga, Jonathan Haidt, Antonio Damasio and Marc D. Hauser.

I don’t know Newberg’s latest book, Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth, but I read his earlier work, Why God Won’t Go Away, and found it interesting in a technical sort of way. It explores the brain states that exist during religious ecstasy and meditation and concludes that these states are the result of turning off the parts of the brain that orient us in space, thus giving us the “spacey” feeling of being everywhere and nowhere that we recognize so well from being stoned. Religion? Oh, wow!

No morel to this story

I guess I shouldn't be surprised. We had a record snowfall that didn't melt until mid-April. The month was 11 degrees colder this year than last, according to the power company. We had double the average amount of rain. So I shouldn't be surprised that morel season has been a bust for us. We saw one and couldn't even bear to cut it. Too cold. Soil too cold and wet. Everything grew at once and late. I didn't even have enough mint in the herb garden to make mint juleps for the Kentucky Derby. We always have a big bunch of mint growing by Derby day. Not this year. Fortunately, I still had a little of my magic mint infusion left from last summer. But really it's not the same as fresh mint. And it really isn't spring without morels.

Bozo design

I was thinking about my April 30 post God and Homo sapiens, a report on University of California Irvine professor, Francisco J. Ayala, a former Dominican priest who argues that, "If God has designed organisms, he has a lot to account for” in a moral sense. It's kind of the argument, How could a good God create evil? I think enough theologians through the ages have dealt with that question (albeit not very convincingly) that we don't have to revisit it here.

My argument is practical, not moral. If a designer was intelligent enough to create nuclear fusion, dark energy, hummingbirds, 17-year cicadas, etc., then how come she botched so many things that a moderately bright 5th grader would have done better? A competent engineer, given adequate resources, designs things to work, not just OK, but damn near perfectly. So, given infinite resources, how come the intelligent designer sort of cobbled things together? I'll give only one example - the placement of the human trachea in front of the esophagus requires that every drop of liquid, every crumb of food traveling toward the stomach has to pass over the windpipe. In theory a little manhole cover comes down and covers it up, but not always. That's why thousands of people die from choking on a morsel of steak, etc. Can you say Heimlich? Assuming that an intelligent designer designs organisms to live, not to die from trivial accidents, this constitutes an argument against intelligent design. If you can't accept evolution, your choice isn't ID, but BD, Bozo Design.

Blaming God vs the government

I will admit that, other than admiring Obama’s speech on race immediately after the Jeremiah Wright nonsense surfaced, I have not followed the so-called controversy, nor have I actually seen Wright as he has dug the hole deeper and deeper on CNN. However, in the wake of Barak Obama’s near-victory in Indiana and blowout in N. Carolina, I thought it was interesting to see this observation from http://scienceavenger.blogspot.com:

The reason the Wright endorsement is a problem for Obama, but the Hagee endorsement isn't a problem for McCain, is because Americans have a great tolerance of lunacy coming from ministers, so long as it is a particular brand of lunacy. Hagee's just happens to the acceptable variety, and Wright's isn't. What's the difference? Wright left out the intermediary: God. He forgot the Golden Rule of American society: statements with "God" in them should be tolerated. 



Fact is, you can pretty much get away with saying anything as long as you blame it on Jesus. Thanking Jesus for winning a boxing match never ever gets the "You think Jesus would help you beat the shit out of someone else" retort it deserves. Praising the same God who apparently decided to destroy your town with a tornado for deciding not to kill YOUR child today is seen as somehow loving and sweet. So why not Hagee's claim that Yahweh hates fags and New Orleans, or Robertson's claim that God hates the ACLU. Those claims are certainly not MORE deranged than thinking the creator of the universe helped your kick hook inside the uprights for the game-winning fieldgoal. 



Wright made the mistake of attacking the United States directly, accusing it of being responsible for 9/11, and really, in a basic, animalistic evaluation of the facts, it's the most reasonable (or least loony if you like) thing he said. But you don't do that in our society, not without giving the gods the blame. Nor do you claim government scientists created AIDS to commit genocide. That's the real demented thing about all of this. God is supposed to be so benevolent and perfect, whereas the US government has a host of flaws and sins on its record. Yet it is deemed OK, by the most pious and anti-government among us, to blame God for people dying, but not the US government.

A question with no answer, but they will anyway

The Templeton Foundation’s third heavy question in its ongoing series is Does science make a belief in God obsolete? And once again, the foundation has recruited a panel of, well, heavies, to answer.

Steven Pinker says yes, if by "science" we mean the entire enterprise of secular reason and knowledge (including history and philosophy), not just people with test tubes and white lab coats. He actually said more than that. If you want to read the rest of his response and find out what the rest of them said, go to : http://www.templeton.org/belief/ The panel includes:

Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, O.P., a Dominican friar, the Archbishop of Vienna, Austria, a Member of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Congregation for Education of the Roman Catholic Church, and was lead editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

William D. Phillips, a Nobel Laureate in physics, a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute of the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, chairman of the department of physics at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Pakistan, and is the author of Islam and Science: Religious Orthodoxy and the Battle for Rationality.

Mary Midgley, a philosopher with a special interest in ethics, human nature, and science, and is the author of Evolution as a Religion and Science as Salvation.

Robert Sapolsky, the John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biological Sciences and professor of neurology and neurological sciences at Stanford University. He is the author of Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, The Trouble with Testosterone, and A Primate's Memoir.

Christopher Hitchens, the author of God Is Not Great and the editor of The Portable Atheist.

Keith Ward, a Fellow of the British Academy, an ordained priest in the Church of England, a Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, and the author of The Big Questions in Science and Religion, Pascal's Fire: Scientific Faith and Religious Understanding, Is Religion Dangerous?, and Re-Thinking Christianity.

Victor J. Stenger, emeritus professor of physics and astronomy, University of Hawaii, adjunct professor of philosophy, University of Colorado, and the author of seven books including God: The Failed Hypothesis—How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist.

Jerome Groopman, the Recanati Professor of Medicine at Harvard and author of How Doctors Think.