You Know You're Cool When They Name A Fish After You

In a recent paper published in Ichthyoloigical Explorations of Freshwaters, Pethiyagoda et. al just went through the laborious task of teasing apart the tropical Asian cyprinid (i.e. small, colourful and pretty freshwater fish) named Puntius, a “catch-all” genus that comprised over 120 species. In this paper, the researchers delved into the relationships between these species as well as their morphological characteristics, organizing them into more detailed genuses (geni?). One genus was called Dawkinsia, in honor of the great (and not late!) Richard Dawkins.

Now I have always admired Dawkins’s intellect and his contribution to evolutionary biology, and am prone to defend him vehemently. Those who dislike what he has to say about religion and atheism fine, dislike it, but I always argue that despite him being more famous for that aspect of his career in the public, in scientific circles he has made an enormous contribution, and the two things should be considered separately. It tires me that most people only know him as the Atheist Boogeyman, because he is so much more than that.

Anyway, despite what I think, it’s pretty badass to have a fish genus named after you, especially when you’re still around to know about it. It is also infinitely cooler than naming the species after yourself, which some people are prone to do.

Anyway, I tip my metaphorical hat to you Mr. Dawkins! Hope to be reading more of your books soon enough.

Source: Pethiyagoda, R., Meegaskumbura, M., Maduwage, K. (2012). A synopsis of the South Asian fishes referred to Puntius (Pisces: Cyprinidae). Ichthyol. Explor. Freshwaters, 23:1 6

Says It All

A little cartoon that perfectly describes my sentiments on the matter.

 

In Italy it is most certainly not illegal to sunbathe topless (quit drooling boys, it's mostly old women who do it) but regardless there is of course still a huge difference in how areolas are perceived, depending on the person's gender.

People, grow up and get over it.

Repost: Sign This Petition!

Alas I am not (officially) American, so this petition cannot be signed by yours truly, but when I saw it posted on Pharyngula I thought FINALLY we're discussing this seriously! I've been blabbing about this for ages, and people either didn't believe it was happening or knew it was happening and didn't think anything could be done about it. I'll let PZ Myers explain:

You know, if I violated tax law and then flaunted the fact to the IRS, it’s pretty much guaranteed that I’ll get slammed down hard and fast. So why do churches get a free pass?

Since 2008, pastors of some churches have openly supported and advocated specific political candidates in sermons to members in early October in an event referred to as "Pulpit Freedom Sunday". According to Reuters, videos of these sermons are sent to the offices of the IRS.
According to section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, the provision of the tax code from which these churches derive their tax-exempt status, a compliant organization must not "participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of … any candidate for public office."
The IRS has failed to remove the tax-exempt status of these churches despite their violations of tax code. This must change, and the law must be applied equally to everyone.

Don’t you suspect that many of the officers obligated to enforce the law are also members of these same kinds of churches, and are motivated to neglect their duties by a conflict of interest?

Maybe there should be a requirement that all IRS agents be atheists. That would certainly improve the popularity of atheism!

I am fully aware that PZ has a gargantuan following and does not need my help, but this glaring hypocrisy and injustice is something I care about and I want to spread the word as much as I am able to:

SIGN THE PETITION! (If you believe in the cause, of course)

Oh, and read Pharyngula (if you don't already do), tis awesome

Book Review: A Nail Through The Heart

I have discovered the prose of Timothy Hallinan, and now I am buying all of his books. It is so rare to find an author that not only gives us a gripping thriller mystery, but writes with an English befitting literature, I am not letting this discovery go to waste.

A NailThrough the Heart is definitely not for the faint-hearted (harharhar). It is set in Bangkok, which is unfortunately infamous as a magnet for sexual predators, and the evil characters are inspired by true people, which makes it both worse and better. Better because at least the horrors of the book have the purpose of bringing to light real events that the general public may not be aware of and not just invented by a sick mind for shock value, worse because you cannot close the book in the comfortable knowledge that it was all pretend. It is this uncomfortable truth that brought me on a rollercoaster ride of emotions while I was reading about some of the worst people that have ever lived, similar to the one that I experienced when reading Trafficked.

My first reaction, as always, was to jump in the book and kill the child traffickers and abusers. The second reaction that immediately follows that is no, killing them is too easy, then everything just ends for them, it’s almost a blessing, torture them first. Better yet, make them go through everything that they inflicted on their innocent victims, that’s only fair. After the initial heat wears off and if I actually think about it thoroughly I understand that this thirst for vengeance is of course meaningless, and I come back to the ultimate conclusion: take away their freedom, stick them in a tiny cell for the rest of their lives where they can’t hurt anyone or bribe anyone to make their lives more comfortable, having to stare out of a tiny barred hole in the wall day after day. This time, however, I thought a little bit more about that second reaction I feel, the one that lasts the longest and somehow feels fair, and why it is I go back there every time. Partially, of course it’s about anger and revenge, I am human after all. However there is another aspect that I understand contributes significantly to my wanting these people to suffer what they have inflicted on others.

I think that human beings have a very hard time really understanding what it means to not have empathy. Just the thought of the suffering that those children went through causes me pain. The idea that I could be responsible for such suffering in others causes me more pain than I can imagine having to endure, I would die rather than inflict such suffering on others. So many of us feel that it is this that makes us “human”, what we feel makes our species unique, our ability to put ourselves in someone else’s place and feel emotional pain. How then is it possible that there are people in this world who cannot feel that emotional pain, who even get pleasure from causing other people to suffer? It goes so contrary to our very nature that we want to force them to understand what they have put others through. If that cannot understand emotionally then we want them to understand physically what it means to be on the other side of that fist, or knife, or gun.

What it really comes down to is we want them to feel guilt. Is there any worse emotional suffering than guilt? Any other suffering that persists, never fading with age, one over which humans have lost more sleep or sanity?

Unfortunately we have to accept that sociopaths do not have the capacity to feel guilt, and perhaps that makes them lucky in an ignorance-is-bliss sort of way. Torturing them will not make it click in their heads, will not force them to see the error of their ways, it only makes you the torturer the subject of their ire and a no better person than they are. If anything it justifies what they have done in some ways by demonstrating that in some cases it is tolerable, acceptable, and acceptable in society to get pleasure out of such torture. If you are one of those people that scoffs at the idea that torture is never OK and that some people deserve it, I want to pose a hypothetical scenario to you:

A man who is responsible for torturing and murdering people, getting very aroused while doing so, is caught and convicted to life in prison. In another state a similar person is also caught, but his sentence is to be tortured and killed himself. That state decides to fly in the first convict to do the honors, not being able to find anyone else to stomach the task. Would that bother you? Even if the victim deserved every bit of torture that he got, would it bother you that the person that is performing the torture is getting his own twisted pleasure out of doing the torture?

If the answer is yes, why are you so quick to justify the pleasure you feel from the idea of torturing a monster?

Why Does This Story Still Bother Me?

Italy is a country that is famous (infamous?) for having no rule that cannot be bent, twisted or outright broken. With sound logic and/or a sad story you can sway pretty much anyone to do pretty much anything for you, even if its not 100% by the book. It is because of this, coupled with an unhealthy love of certain foods, that I knew that some of my friends here would be amused by a few choice stories of mine and my father’s from the good old US of A, which is famous/infamous for the exact opposite.

Story Number 1: My mother and I went to one of those places in the North West where you can pick your own apples, and in exchange you pay very little for them. When we had finished we saw that they also had zucchini that were ready to be picked, and on those zucchini the biggest, most beautiful zucchini flowers we had ever seen. Now Italians love their zucchini flowers, on pasta, stuffed with mozzarella and fried, nom nom nom. We asked hey, can we buy them off you? No they said, they don’t sell them. So what do you do with them? We throw them away, they responded. So…. Can you give them to us? No. In conclusion, they were so flabbergasted by this odd request, not even knowing that zucchini flowers are edible, that they preferred throwing them away rather than giving them to us. We left with faces reminiscent of a child’s when you give them a toy to touch for five seconds and then snatch it away. 

Story Number 2: My father was living in New York back in the day when espresso was nonexsistent in the United States. Italians are very particular about their coffee, and he was dreaming of having a proper espresso at night. One day he was told that at a fancy hotel they had just bought this super fancy pants espresso machine that made real Italian coffee, and before he could finish his sentence my father was there. He saw that the machine had settings one through five and that the machine was set at five, which still made a coffee that was 3-4times what he was used to. 

Dad: Great! I want an espresso, but make mine on the “one” setting

Barista: … No, I can’t touch the machine

Dad: If you can’t touch the machine, how are you going to make the coffee?

Barista: I mean I can’t touch the setting

Dad: But… that’s what it’s there for!

Barista: I can’t touch the machine Sir.

Dad: Look, if you’re afraid of breaking the machine I’ll come behind the counter, change the setting myself, and if it breaks you can sue me and I’ll pay for it

Barista: I can’t do that Sir

Dad: Please get the manager. (To manager) can I please have my espresso on the one setting now?

Manager: No Sir.

My father wanted to jump behind the counter and slap him, but eventually was forced to leave without his coffee. I can only imagine how livid he was.

Actually I don’t have to imagine, because I have one of these little stories of my very own.

Story Number 3: I was twelve years old and very excited to be cooking for my American family. I decided to make them a pasta all’amatriciana, a typical Roman pasta that is awesome. However you need cubed bacon for it (guanciale really, but I’ll take what I can get), and as you all know bacon in the States is sold very thinly sliced. Thin slices crisp up and taste completely differently, there was no point in making it without the cubed bacon, so my grandmother and I go in search of unsliced bacon. We must have gone to six different supermarkets and finally, success! I find one with a meat counter, where I spot a young man standing in front of a piece of bacon the perfect size for me. There was no one else at the counter, I run up and say

Me: Great! Can I have that piece of bacon please?

Meat Guy: How would you like that sliced?

Me: No thanks, no need to slice it, just wrap it up for me.

Meat Guy: I can’t do that.

Me:… And why not?

Meat Guy: Because I’m supposed to sell sliced bacon

Me: Do you sell it by the slice or by the pound?

Meat Guy: By the pound

Me: Right, so what difference does it make to you if it’s sliced or not? It weighs the same! I’m offering to buy the whole piece!

Meat Guy: I have to slice it.

Me: Ugh fine! Give me four slices half an inch thick then

Meat Guy: I can’t do that

Me: AND WHY THE HELL NOT??!!

Meat Guy: My slicer doesn’t slice that thick

Me: And how thickly does it slice?

Meat Guy: about a quarter of that

Me: So why don’t you pick up that big knife there and slice it yourself?

Meat Guy: No, I have to slice it with the slicer

At this point my grandmother rushed up to me and physically pulled me away from this asshat, because I was about to jump over the counter, strangle him and grab the bacon myself. Here is this twelve year old girl arguing with an adult, trying to reason with him, and the crazy thing was she never spoke up except to inquire if the manager was around (which he wasn’t). What was worse she seemed to think it was perfectly normal for this guy to categorically refuse to sell me the bacon without slicing it first, and it was incomprehensible to me.

Telling this story I was getting agitated, and my friends were laughing hysterically partially at the story, but partially because it seemed as though, twelve years later I still hadn’t gotten over not getting my bacon. Of course I’m not still upset about the bacon (I wound up finding some unsliced Canadian bacon further on, in your face meat guy), but something about this story was definitely still bothering me. The question was, why?

I realized that it had to do with the utter lack of logic that I was butting heads with. It was not only the inability to reason and follow a logical train of thought to a seemingly obvious conclusion, but more tragically it was the fact that this pigheadedness was considered perfectly normal by others around me, in this last case my grandmother. Of course he didn’t listen to you, what do you expect? He’s not paid to think! You were asking him a huge favour, you can’t blame him for not complying.

WHAT??!! That is what still upsets me today. Why can’t normal, non-academic people think for themselves also?! Being logical is not supposed to be the rare glowing pride of a few braniac philosophers, it’s supposed to be one of the fundamental aspects of the human brain. Of course there are people everywhere who are going to be stubborn and completely illogical even in the most mundane cases, but the rest of us are supposed to think that it’s weird and call it out, not accept it as the new societal norm!

I know it still looks like I’m getting worked up over bacon, but I hope I’m making it clear that it’s not about that. It’s about arbitrary rules and people blindly accepting to follow them no matter what their heads tell them, regardless of how stupid or pointless the rule is. It’s about refusing to buy into the idea that a blind acceptance of authority is not a good trait to find in someone. It’s about not wanting anyone to think that being a sheep is admirable and the new societal norm, and I felt like this story of my twelve year old head butting into a brick wall stirred up these old emotions in me. The emotions that tell me that no, I am no longer mad at the meat guy,

Now I just feel really sorry for him.

Sexual Predators: A Double Standard

Yesterday I read an excellent post on Blue Collar Atheist about sexual harassment, and after watching this video this morning on TheYoungTurks channel I felt it I needed to look at my own views, my own possible double standard when it comes to sexual advances towards a teenage boy on the part of a young, attractive woman. 

I am in no way going to deny that there is indeed a double standard in public opinion with regards to this issue. If a 24 year old man made sexual advances towards a 15 year old girl no one would be discussing whether or not that man is a sexual predator. On the other hand, when people look at this attractive, young, blonde woman hitting on a young, virile 15 year old boy, it doesn’t seem to be the same. As Cenk put it, if it had happened to him at that age “best day of my life!”

I’m not going to discount all that, but I want to counter it with a hypothetical of my own. When I was 15 or 16, I was among the girls that were “old for their ages”. Unfortunately for me, I was also overweight and not considered all that attractive. If I was in a tanning salon and a 24 year old, smoking hot Will Smith-type came up to me topless and tried to kiss me, trust me Cenk, best day of my fucking life.

I suppose the source of the double standard lies in the fact that, as a society we assume that there are far more teenage boys than teenage girls that would welcome such advances. This stems partially from the “horny boy” stereotype and partially with our societal prejudices against women or girls who are sexually active and enjoy it. The “sluts” of this world are dismissed as the oddballs, not “proper”, not what girls or young women are “supposed to be”, whereas the horny teenage boy is exactly what we all expect. Neither of these stereotypes are fair, you don’t have to be a “slut” if you enjoy sex (or would die and go to heaven if a hot guy wanted to kiss you), and not all boys at that age are ready to have sex. They shouldn’t be ridiculed for not being ready or not appreciating the advances (as Hank Fox alluded to in his post) any more than a teenage girl should be ostracized for being ready to have sex. Sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances should be and are already illegal for completely different reasons: if the boy in this case was uncomfortable with her advances and did not want to have anything to do with her, she is undoubtedly a sexual predator. If, on the other hand he was considering it to be the “best day of his life” up until the point that his mom walked in the question thus becomes: what should the age of consent be? If there really is a double standard, should the age of consent be different for boys and girls?

I definitely do not think that there should be any difference, but I find it difficult to pin down an age. Teenagers are so variable in their physical, mental and emotional development that this question is incredibly difficult to answer. I have known 15 year olds that may as well have been 20, and others that may as well have been 10 and very easily manipulated. Then again I have also known legal adults that were easily manipulated, so where do we draw the line?

I definitely think that there should be a different age of consent when it comes to someone in a position of power over the minor, like a counsellor or babysitter etc. If the two people are completely unrelated, on the other hand, I feel like somewhere between 15 or 16 is fair enough. Once again, if there is a 15 year old that is not ready to be sexually active and resists the advances that is illegal for entirely different reasons, just as it is illegal to sexually harass an adult. For those that are ready to have some kind of relationship at that age, however, I say leave them be.

It would be nice to have some science back up my shot in the dark, if anyone knows of any studies conducted on cognitive development in this regard please let me know.

Hm, I'm Not Sure How I Feel About That...

Last week a good friend of mine from the US came to visit me, and since she is studying Sports Management I used the opportunity to first and foremost use it as an excuse to force her to watch a soccer match with me, and secondly to ask her a couple of questions regarding American sports in general. I know next to nothing about American football, so our Q&A brought us to a conversation about the state of women in sports. Italians live in a glass house on this issue, where apart from volleyball female sports leagues are virtually ignored. However I was aware of the existence of the WNBA, so I asked her if there was a similar league for women in American football. She said well… kind of. There is Lingerie Football, which is a serious league in that the women definitely play hard, by the rules and to win, just that they wear lingerie instead of a full uniform. My first response was

Hmm… I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I’ve had a few days to think it over, and I still find the source of ambiguity in my head. Why is that?

On the one hand, I am no ones morality police. I’m perfectly in favor of breastaurants, bikini Jell-O wrestling, strip clubs, porn and even prostitution. Women who want to work in the sex industry (or a merely sexualized one) know exactly what they are signing up for and I have absolutely zero problems with them doing so. There is no reason to believe that the women in the Lingerie league are coerced or somehow participating against their will, and I understand its commercial appeal to the many men who are into that sort of thing.

Also, looking more into it, I discovered a host of Wikipedia pages dedicated to previous female football leagues that were disbanded due to lack of interest and money. I do not think that it is an inherent right for women to be able to participate in any sporting event known to man, I understand that if people are not going to pay to watch it, it’s not going to happen. But still there is something that bugs me about the whole thing.

I suppose, after much thought, my issue lies in the fact that bikini Jell-O wrestling is not as analogous as it may initially seem. The difference is that, if a woman wants to box or wrestle professionally and not in their underwear for the sexual pleasure of men, they can. There is the option of stripping down and covering one’s self in Jell-O for the crowd, or there is the option not to do so. Instead, when it comes to football, if a woman wanted to play even semi-professionally she has no choice but to do so in Lingerie, and a quick look at the teams in the league will also tell you that physical attractiveness is (at best) as much of a deciding factor as skill when deciding who to accept onto the team.

The question thus becomes: are there many women that even want an athletic career in football? That is something that I cannot answer, I have no idea. What I can claim is that times are changing, we are moving away from the times when “girls” were not “supposed” to like football, demonstrated by the fact that more and more women are showing interest in the sport, as well as more and more men who are willing to admit that they don’t see the point in it. (This is something I also see here: at the European Cup finals last night I was in a crowd of at least 1000 people, and it was split 50:50 gender-wise).  Mere numbers aside, who would even be willing to invest a significant amount of money in creating a league that history has shown us to be a flop?

A brief search on the internet shows me that Women’s football in college does exist, kind of, in some places. Does anyone have better information about that? I would propose if colleges started to get serious about their female football teams, offering athletic scholarships to women for them and perhaps making it a slightly bigger deal in their sports departments, it might be the spark to generate some interest, being mixed in with “school spirit” and all that. Once again I am shooting from a dark corner of complete naïveté in this regard, so please do help me out if you know more about this.

Has it all been tried, and people just could not care less about seeing women in sports, especially football? Or have previous attempts failed because backers were just not putting enough effort into the idea?