by Salman Hameed

For our Friday Journal Club, here is a recent paper by Ronan Southcott and J. Roger Downie:  Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology, published in the journal Evolution: Education and Outreach.

Summary: 
This paper used a questionnaire-based survey to look at the acceptance/rejection of biological evolution amongst first-year and fourth-year bioscience students at Glasgow University. I actually really like the paper as the authors take a nuanced approach to the reasons why people accept and reject evolution. Let me highlight here a few items that I found interesting (this is not an exhausted list - but biased towards my interests):

1) Here is a table that looks at the response to the following question: "Do you agree that the process of biological evolution lasting many millions of years has occurred in one form or another?"

Level 1 includes first year biology students and level 4 are final year biology students. The "High" level 4 means that these students took evolution courses beyond their first years (usually the zoology students), whereas "Low" level 4 students only covered evolution in their first year. 

Couple of things immediately jump out. The overall rejection of evolution is low (around 7%) even amongst the first-years who haven't had any exposure to a university level biology course. But it is really striking that all students who took evolution course(s) beyond their first year accept biological evolution. And this is from a decent sample of 255 students. So good news here: Education actually matters! 

2) But the reasons for rejection can be complex. The authors did ask an interesting set of questions to assess if the rejection is linked to a general skepticism about the claims of science. The table below list their four questions grouped by acceptors and rejectors of evolution. While there is no significant difference between the two groups on CO2-climate change and smoking-lung cancer connections, the responses do differ on Einstein's energy-mass equation as well as on plate tectonics (you will have to click on the table to see the larger font).

The interpretation here can be tricky. It seems that smoking and climate change similarities may simply be due to media exposure of those two topics. But the difference on the other two questions may be related to general lack of exposure to science, the authors conclude, and not due to a general skepticism of science by the rejectors. I think it will be interesting to see how these responses relate to social class and the education of parents, etc. Nevertheless, I think this an interesting avenue to explore effects of media and education.

3) I think one of the most interesting result lies in Table 10 of the paper (you will have to click on the table to see the larger font):

This exemplifies the messiness of how people think. Yes - overall there is an expected trend: those who agree with evolution have a higher acceptance rate for human evolution, macro-evolution, and micro-evolution, compared to those who reject evolution. No surprise there. However, what is interesting is that a substantial fraction of students who said they rejected evolution not only accept micro-evolution, but also agree with the statement that humans have descended from ancient species of apes! Conversely, a few acceptors also reject not only human evolution, but also micro-evolution. This is fascinating! We have been encountering similarly complex responses in our oral interviews with Muslim physicians and students and it will be fascinating to explore the reasons for these contradictory responses.

4) One last thing. The authors also looked at final year students who rejected evolution. Remember, these were the ones who did not did not take any evolution course after their first year. The numbers are low (7), but it is interesting that most of them agreed that there would never be enough evidence to overcome their religious beliefs. It is a small number, but it represents an important sub-group of students. Similarly, the authors looked at those students who used to reject evolution, but then changed their mind over the course of their time at the university. The number is again small (7), but this is what they found:

Again, this is an interesting case where evidence takes a back-seat to the reason why they accept or reject an idea. This is again a small sample - but it is fascinating that the change of mind is related to their accommodation with religion.

A very interesting paper and I will be interesting in their follow-up studies.

You can find past Irtiqa Friday Journal Clubs here.
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Southcott, R and Downie, JR. (2012), Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology Evo Edu Outreach, Volume 5, Number 2 (2012), 301-311, DOI: 10.1007/s12052-012-0419-9

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by Salman Hameed

There were three Eids (celebrating the end of Ramadan) in Pakistan this year. This beats even the usual controversy over the sighting of the evening crescent that announces the beginning of a new lunar month. What is fascinating is that there is an official moon-sighting committee (Ruet-e-Hilal Committee) - but that doesn't include any astronomers (at least that was the case a few years back). Instead, it has maulvis of various denominations. They usually sit on top of the tallest building in Karachi, and try to see the Moon and/or wait for testimonies of sightings from elsewhere. Here is a picture of the committee with the chair, Mufti Muneebur Rehman right behind the telescope:

Well as it turns out, other maulvis - especially those living in the northern areas of Pakistan (close to Peshawar) do not agree with this government-sponsored committee. So they tend to announce the sighting of the Moon on their own (often when the sighting of the Moon is not even theoretically possible) and Peshawar usually celebrates Eid a day before everyone else in Pakistan. This is an annual drama which is more predictable than the lunar calendar.

This year, however, things got even more problematic. First, a cleric in the northern province (K-P province) announced Eid two days before everyone else. He was promptly arrested by the police (I actually agree here. Finally some accountability for some bad astronomy!). But it was then followed by the usual sparring of maulvis from Peshawar versus the government lunar sighting committee over the one-day difference of Eid. Here is a clip from an evening talk-show on this matter, where two maulvis "discuss" the matter. The clip is in Urdu. But even if you don't understand Urdu, you can enjoy it as a dramatic discordant opera - especially towards the end of the clip. Here is the first part (thanks to Zakir Thaver for finding the clips):


It will not add any thing substantive, but you can watch the second and third part as well. Actually, the host did try to raise an important question at around 5 min into the clip: If there was no possibility of lunar sighting according to astronomy, why was the committee still on top of the building? The implication is that if science has nothing to do with this, then why dismiss the testimonies from Peshawar? I think it is an important question. Unfortunately, all we got was more shouting from the two maulvis.

But here is an interesting bit of news today. The critic in the clip (Hafiz Tahir Ashrafi of Pakistan Ulema Council) has decided to take the issue of multiple Eids to court. And here is the kicker: He distrusts the government sponsored Moon-sighting committee so much that he wants astronomers to decide on the dates lunar calendar.

Woo hoo! Here is an opening for astronomers in Pakistan. Science can accidentally win this calendar battle. The strategy of having no say at all finally payed off! 

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كتاب المتحابين في الله لابن قدامة المقدسي / * خ و ط

1. كتاب المتحابين في الله لابن قدامة المقدسي / * خ و ط

 

 

 

 

 

 كتاب المتحابين في الله تأليف الحافظ العلامة أبي محمد بن عبد الله بن أحمد بن محمد بن قدامة بن مقدام بن نصر المقدسي الجماعيلي ثم الدمشقي الصالحي الحنبلي/  ت 620 هـ

 

طبع في مطبعة القران القاهرة 1987 تحقيق مجدي السيد ابراهيم  

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مواد للتحميل :

ملف نصي / نسخة للشاملة 
ملف بدف / الكتاب
مخطوط / عدد الأوراق: 16 / المصدر: دار الكتب الظاهرية / صور مفردة/ التحميل 

من مرفوعات الأخ ابا يعلى البيضاوي نفع الله به 

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حفظ العمر تأليف الحافظ أبي الفرج جمال الدين عبد الرحمن بن علي بن الجوزي البكري البغدادي الحنبلي/ ت 597هـ 

طبع في دار البشائر دمشق الطبعة الوالى 1425 هـ تحقيق محمد بن ناصر العجمي 

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مواد للتحميل :

ملف نصي / نسخة للشاملة

ملف بدف / الكتاب

من مرفوعات الاخ ابا يعلى البيضاوي ( حفظه الله )

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by Salman Hameed

This is really bizarre. The Iranian government has decided to bar women from taking certain courses. It seems that one-half of the Iranian population was getting well-educated and the other half feared that they will be left behind. So, of course, the obvious solution is to restrict access to education:

In a move that has prompted a demand for a UN investigation by Iran's most celebrated human rights campaigner, the Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi, 36 universities have announced that 77 BA and BSc courses in the coming academic year will be "single gender" and effectively exclusive to men. 

It follows years in which Iranian women students have outperformed men, a trend at odds with the traditional male-dominated outlook of the country's religious leaders. Women outnumbered men by three to two in passing this year's university entrance exam. 

Senior clerics in Iran's theocratic regime have become concerned about the social side-effects of rising educational standards among women, including declining birth and marriage rates.

And what subjects will bar women?

Under the new policy, women undergraduates will be excluded from a broad range of studies in some of the country's leading institutions, including English literature, English translation, hotel management, archaeology, nuclear physics, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial engineering and business management.

Yes - we don't need women in those fields. What do they know about atoms and nuclei? Or about circuits and literature? Oh - but they definitely don't know about oil:

The Oil Industry University, which has several campuses across the country, says it will no longer accept female students at all, citing a lack of employer demand. Isfahan University provided a similar rationale for excluding women from its mining engineering degree, claiming 98% of female graduates ended up jobless.

Yikes! But in Iran's defense, their chief rival is Saudi Arabia - and it is hard to keep up with their misogynistic laws. This is the regional misogyny arms race.

Read the full article here.

By the way, this reminded me of the gender-based quota system that Pakistan used to have for admission into medical colleges. The score requirement for female students used to be 7-8 percentage points higher than the male students. However, in the mid-80s, a lawsuit was filed against this gender discrimination, and the courts ruled in favor of gender equity. That tilted the ratio of students decidedly in favor of females. I think it was fantastic that the courts didn't buy into the arguments that "women just get married and don't become professionals".

I hope the Iranian government reverses this idiotic decision.

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Michele and I are on our way to Portland for the 2012 InternationalFood Blogger Conference. I’m going to be doing a cooking demo as part of a food photography workshop led by acclaimed New York Times' food photographer, Andrew Scrivani.

As usual, you can follow my exploits on Twitter, where I’ll be posting pictures of all the deliciousness we experience along the way. By the way, this is our first time to The City of Roses, so if you have any hot tips, let me know. Thanks!

The Truth Hurts

Speaking of food bloggers, this iPhone parody video by Adam Sacks is one of the funnier things I’ve seen in a while, and would probably have most IFBC attendees laughing and weeping at the same time. Enjoy!

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It's rare that someone mentions a type of food or a particular dish and I have never heard of it.   This happened to me recently when I was out with a few girlfriends.  Someone mentioned Caponata and I had no idea what they were talking about.  So the next day I did a litte research and I found a "million" recipes/versions of the Sicilian dish/appetizer Caponata.  I couldn't wait to make it and try it for myself.  I decided on this particular recipe from No Recipes because the combination of ingredients appealed to me the most out of all the recipes that I read.  I really loved the combination of sweet eggplant, smokey roasted peppers, salty capers and tangy balsalmic vinegar.  I brought this to the beach for an appetizer last weekend and everyone loved it.  I will defintely be making this again.

 

Ingredients:

 

1 medium eggplant peeled and cut into 1/2″ cubes
1 Tbs kosher salt (less if you’re using table salt)
1 red bell pepper quartered, seeds removed
1/4 C olive oil
1 small onion chopped
1 tsp fresh thyme
3 Tbs balsamic vinegar
2 Tbs drained capers
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 C leaf parsley, stems removed and chopped

Put the eggplant in a colander and sprinkle with 1 Tbs kosher salt. Toss to coat and leave it over a colander for an hour.

Grill red pepper directly on your BBQ or over a flame on your gas stove top until the skin is charred then wrap in foil or put into a brown paper bag and seal.  Leave the pepper until cool. Trapping the steam like this makes it much easier to remove the skins. When cool, peel the pepper and remove any excessively charred bits. Slice into thin short strips.

When the eggplant is done salting, rinse in a bowl of cold water to remove excess salt. Squeeze the eggplant with your hands to wring out as much moisture as you can.

Heat the olive oil over medium heat and saute the onions until until they are translucent and just start turning brown around the edges. Add the eggplant, bell peppers and thyme. Salt and pepper to taste stirring until the eggplant is very soft and starts to loose its shape.

Add the balsamic vinegar and capers and stir until there is no liquid left. Take off the heat and add the garlic and parsley. You can serve this immediately with some crusty bread, but it tastes even better the next day.

 

 

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One of my earliest and fondest food memories is that of my grandfather making frittata. It wasn’t the taste of this hearty, Italian omelet that made such an impression, although that was always wonderful, it was the excitement surrounding “the flip.”

Traditionally, a frittata is cooked about three-quarters of the way, flipped over on to a plate, and slid back into the pan to finish cooking the other side. It’s an hot, slippery exercise fraught with danger, and more than one of his magnificent creations ended up a broken mess. Come to think of it, this is where I first learned how to curse in Italian.

The funny thing is, as long as you have a broiler to finish cooking the top, which he did, you don’t need to flip anything. Just pop it in for a few minutes to firm up the eggs, and brown the cheese, and you’re ready to eat. So, why did he insist on the always risky flip-n-slid?

I’m not exactly sure, but I imagine it was because his father flipped frittatas, and so did his grandfather. That’s just the way they were done, so that’s how he did it. Regardless whether you’re flipping or not, this rustic egg pie was invented for late summer’s vegetable bounty.

If you can fry it in olive oil, it tastes great in a frittata, especially leftover vegetables that would otherwise end up in the trash. It’s also amazing with any kind of summer squash. Just remember that the veggies need to be tender before the eggs go in, since they cook so fast. I hope you give this “memorable” recipe a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 4 servings:

12 large eggs

1 tbsp olive oil

6 slices of bacon or pancetta

1 1/2 cups sliced peppers

1 1/2 cups cubed, cooked potatoes

OR about 3 cups of any summer veggies

dry or fresh herbs to taste

salt and pepper to taste

hot pepper flakes to taste

2 oz crumbled feta cheese

*Remember to drain oil before adding potatoes and eggs!

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by Salman Hameed

Our next Journal Club this Friday (August 24th) will address a paper by Southcott and Downie: Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology (Evolution: Education and Outreach, Volume 5, Number 2 (2012), 301-311). If you don't have access to the paper and are interested in reading it, drop me an e-mail and I will send you a pdf copy.

Here is the abstract for the paper:

Evolution and Religion: Attitudes of Scottish Bioscience Students to the Teaching of Evolutionary Biology 

In a questionnaire-based survey, the proportion of Glasgow University first year biology students who rejected evolution in 2009–2011 was about 7%, similar to the previously reported average figure for 1987–1999. However, by final year, evolution rejection was absent in students who studied evolution beyond first year and 4% among those who did not. Evolution rejection was closely related to accepting a religion-based alternative, whereas acceptance was related to finding the evidence convincing. Although many religious students accepted evolution, 50% of Islamic students were rejecters, compared to 25% of Christians. A question testing acceptance of several scientific propositions showed no evidence that evolution rejecters were generally more skeptical of science than accepters. Rejecters were overall less secure than accepters in their identification of the correct definition for terms related to evolution and creationism, but, surprisingly, more than 10% of final year students chose a Lamarckian definition for Darwinian evolution. Accepters and rejecters responded equally poorly to a question on Darwin’s history, but level 4 was much better. A breakdown of evolution into three components (human origins, macroevolution, and microevolution) found that some evolution rejecters accepted some components, with microevolution having the highest acceptance and human origins the lowest. These findings are discussed in terms of strategies for evolution education and the phenomenon of evolution rejection worldwide.

I will post my comments on the paper on Friday and will be looking forward to your input as well (for comments, please do read the paper or at least skim through it).

Check out past Irtiqa Journal Clubs here.

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by Salman Hameed

Just when we think that the blasphemy accusations in Pakistan cannot get any crazier, we turn out to be wrong. The latest case is that of an 11-year old Christian girl - possibly with a Down Syndrome -  who is accused of blasphemy for burning pages of a booklet (not even the Qur'an itself) that teaches how to read the Qur'an. From Express Tribune:

An 11-eleven-year old Christian girl was accused of blasphemy and arrested for allegedly burning pages of a Noorani Qaida, a booklet used to learn the basics of the Holy Quran. 

Officials of the Ramna Police Station told The Express Tribune that the girl, named Rifta Masih, had burned a Noorani Qaida on August 16 and threw it in garbage after putting it in a plastic bag. Masih belonged to the rural area of Mehrabadi, which is next to the G-11 sector in Islamabad. 

Soon after the incident, residents of the area had gathered to lodge their protest. The protesters also allegedly beat up the girl and her mother, while the rest of the girl’s family managed to escape. 

The Kashmir Highway was also blocked by the protesters, but they dispersed after the police lodged an FIR of the case and took Rifta into custody.

This case is not in some remote area of Pakistan. Instead, this is close to Islamabad. All we can do is to constantly raise our voices against such acts and the laws that allow these things to happen.

Here is an excellent article by Mahdi Hasan in reaction to this episode:

I, for one, am fed up with politicians, mullahs and mobs using my religion to further their own vicious and sectarian agendas. So here's my own very simple message to the bigots, fanatics and reactionaries of the Islamic world: whatever intellectual or theological disagreements we may have with them, the fact is that Christians (and, for that matter, Jews) are our brethren; the Quran respectfully refers to them as the "People of the Book". Nor should we extend our tolerance, compassion and solidarity only to members of Abrahamic faiths while demonising and discriminating against everyone else. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists - all of them are also our brethren. Don't believe me? Listen to the verdict of Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib, the great Muslim caliph and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad: "Remember that people are of two kinds; they are either your brothers in religion or your brothers in mankind." 

The imprisonment of this Christian child isn't only about Pakistan or Pakistanis. Those of us who claim to be members of a global Muslim ummah cannot be silent when such flagrant human-rights abuses are committed in the name of Islam and in the world's second-biggest Muslim-majority nation. Denial is not an option, nor is turning a blind eye. We have to speak out against hate, intolerance and the bullying of non-Muslim minorities - otherwise we risk becoming complicit in such crimes. "Not in my name" has to be more than just an anti-war slogan.

Read the full article here.

And this is not just about the treatment of Christians. The Ahmadis are treated even worse. That despicable bigot, Aamir Liaqat, is back on TV after his incendiary remarks about Ahmadis - and he is being assisted in his bigotry by the "father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb", Dr. A.Q. Khan. As long as people feel safe to make hate-statements against minorities in such an open manner, we will keep on seeing violence against the minorities. They are an easily identifiable target. The national identity card in Pakistan identifies the religion.

Here is an NPR report on the return Aamir Liaqat on TV:

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by Salman Hameed

The Age of Exploration - spanning roughly from the 15th through the 17th centuries - is usually centered on European expeditions. A new book by Giancarlo Casale looks at the expeditions of the Ottoman Empire during that time and it looks like a fascinating read (tip from Jenny White's fantastic blog, Kamil Pasha). Here is a review by Christopher Mott at Muftah:

In The Ottoman Age of Exploration, author Giancarlo Casale tackles the Ottoman Empire’s naval exploits in the Indian Ocean during the 16th century, a topic long-neglected by scholars. While demonstrating the importance of these exploits to Ottoman geopolitical grand strategy, Casale also works to challenge the Eurocentricism that surrounds the Age of Exploration, the era in the late 15th through 16th Centuries when European states began to project their power over significant parts of the globe, and highlights the campaigns waged by other powers in the Indian Ocean region against these European explorers. 

In contrast to the Ottoman naval build up in the Bosporus or North Africa (where the Empire’s navies secured coastlines for amphibious landings and to facilitate military goals), Ottoman exploration in the Indian Ocean did not grow out of the Empire’s expansionistic drive. Instead, its involvement in the region was a defensive reaction to Portuguese incursions into Indian Ocean trading zones. 

The Ottomans originally regarded the Indian Ocean as foreign and removed from their sphere of influence, as did most of the European powers of the time. The Indian Ocean was a self-contained trading system stretching from the Swahili Coast all the way to South-East Asia. The sailors and merchants who dominated the region were largely Arabs from the Gulf area while India served as the geographic lynchpin and largest market of goods within this network. 

In 1498 the Portuguese rounded the southern tip of Africa and broke into this trading system. Vasco de Gama saw the immense wealth and opportunity and immediately set about re-aligning trade relations in Portugal’s favor, often at the point of his ships’ cannons. 

And so a new, dynamic, and destructive force exploded onto the scene: the heavily armed Portuguese galleon. Even with the Portuguese strong-arming their way into strategic possessions along the trade routes scattered throughout India and Africa, the Ottomans only became actively interested in exploring opportunities within the region after 1517 when they successfully invaded and annexed the Mamluk Sultanate, which was based in Egypt but extended to the Levantine Coast. While the Ottomans initially expanded into the Indian Ocean with the purpose of securing the southern flank of these new territories, they quickly realized they too could reap significant financial rewards by securing the region’s trade routes.

Read the full review here.

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فضائل أبي بكر الصديق عبد الله بن عثمان التيمي رضي الله تأليف أبي طالب محمد بن علي بن الفتح بن محمد بن علي  الحربي المعروف بابن العشاري الحنبلي/ ت 451هـ

طبع في دار الصحابة للتراث طنطا 1413هـ تحقيق عمرو عبد المنعم, ومكتبة أولاد الشيخ القاهرة 200 تحقيق محمد إبراهيم الحوتي 

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مواد للتحميل :
ملف نصي / نسخة للشاملة

ط الصحابة / ملف بدف / الكتاب

ط اولاد الشيخ / ملف بدف / الكتاب

 

 

 

من مرفوعات الأخ الفاضل ابا يعلى البيضاوي المغربي - جزاه الله الجنة .

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رابط الحفظ

http://www.wathakker.info/flyers/download/2232/2300/1952

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by Salman Hameed

This is a follow-up to two previous posts on a recent Pew Survey of the Muslim world. The first post looked at religiosity patterns across different countries and the second looked at the sectarian divide across the Muslim world (you can also download the full report here). Here is the third and final post looking at the way Muslims across different nations look at Islamic eschatology, sorcery and devotional dancing.

Couple of quick points. I find it fascinating that throughout history people find that their time is the really important time. This is the reason they look for signs of end-of times in their own particular era (see my recent post: The Folly of Seeking Premonitions in Sacred Texts). For many, this provides meaning and value to their lives and beliefs.

The second coming of Jesus is also accepted within the Islamic tradition and is expected to happen close of the End-times. Here is how Muslims in different countries view that Jesus' imminent return will be in their own lifetimes:

What struck me about these statistics was the striking difference between Pakistan and Bangladesh (formerly of the same country) and Malaysia and its next door neighbor, Indonesia. Why would there be such huge differences between these two sets of countries? Is it a particular popular culture meme (say a movie or a television serial) that has skewed the numbers higher in Pakistan compared to Bangladesh, and the same in Malaysia with respect to Indonesia.

And then here are the stats about the appearance of Mahdi (he is considered to be the 12th Imam for Shias, but he is mentioned in some Sunni traditions as well). Here the differences between Pakistan-Bangladesh and Malaysia-Indonesia are still significant, but less sever than the plot above. Interestingly, I don't see any significant jump in countries with large Shia populations (Iraq and Lebanon).

And here is the belief in witchcraft. First of all, Tanzania is off the charts here - but this belief is common more or less throughout the Muslim world. But note again the striking difference between Pakistan (50%) and Bangladesh (9%). Indonesia, on the other hand, has a higher belief in witchcraft that Malaysia. I don't think there is enough information here to say anything about the causal relations for these differences - but it would be fascinating to explore the cultural and societal factors that shape these diverse responses:

And it seems  that there is not much love for devotional dancing with the huge exception of Turkey! C'mon - what happened to sufi-incpired devotional dancing to Qawwali?

These are all fascinating numbers and it will be interesting to see how they track over the coming years. 

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  حجم الملف : 12 MB 



رابط الحفظ


4SHARED

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As promised, here’s the tomato concasse video I mentioned during the Steak Pizzaiola recipe. The technique is relatively quick and easy, and will allow you enjoy those gorgeous summer tomatoes sans skin and seeds. 

If you're feeling really ambitious, you could do a few quarts, and can them for the winter. Sure, those San Marzano tomatoes are fine, but there's nothing like putting up your own. Enjoy!

View the complete recipe

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I have been getting a lot of questions on Twitter about my upcoming trip to the east coast, so I thought I would post a brief update here. For the next month or so I'll be on the road, starting in Washington DC and then proceeding to New Haven, New York, and Boston. But most of the time - for almost the whole month of September - I'll be in Manhattan. I'm really looking forward to quality time with the startup scene there.

For some reason, most of my speaking events scheduled on this trip are private or corporate. In fact, I don't think anything is open to the public until I keynote the AdExchanger Conference on September 20.

For day by day updates, please follow me on the twitters. If you'd like to arrange a public event, please get in touch via email.

PS. In case you haven't noticed my hundreds of messages about it, there's a Lean Startup Conference coming up on December 3-4 in San Francisco. Tickets just went on sale, so book yours before prices go up. For all of my east coast friends who want to make a trip out of it, we've arranged five full days of events starting November 30.
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by Salman Hameed

Eid Mubarak!

And for this Sunday, here is a poem by Tracy K. Smith from her spectacular poetry collection, Life on Mars (see an earlier Irtiqa post about her book: The Poetry of Cosmology and Grief). In fact, this book won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry this year.

Enjoy.

The Universe: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
by Tracy K. Smith

The first track still almost swings. High hat and snare, even
A few bars of sax the stratosphere will singe-out soon enough.

Synthesized strings. Then something like cellophane
Breaking in as if snagged to a shoe. Crinkle and drag. White noise,

Black noise. What must be voices bob up, then drop, like metal shavings
In molasses. So much for us. So much for the flags we bored

Into planets dry as chalk, for the tin cans we filled with fire
And rode like cowboys into all we tried to tame. Listen:

The dark we've only ever imagined now audible, thrumming,
Marbled with static like gristly meat. A chorus of engines churns.

Silence taunts: a dare. Everything that disappears
Disappears as if returning somewhere.

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I recently heard someone call San Francisco a “granola town.” Not sure what that means exactly, although I assume it has something to do with those damn hippies. Anyway, it reminded me that we did a granola video way back in 2009 (before we were famous), so some of you may not have seen it yet. 

Besides, there’s no better way to enjoy that sweet, juicy, late-summer fruit than with yogurt and crunchy, homemade granola. Click here to read the original post, and get the ingredient amounts. Enjoy!

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by Salman Hameed

Here is an interesting exchange of views on Turkey. This is an episode of Al Jazeera's The Cafe, and it is called The New Ottomans. Enjoy your Saturday.

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by Salman Hameed

I know it has been a few weeks since the release of The Dark Knight Rises. But better late than never for the reviews. What did you think of the film?

Here is our Film Autopsy (review) of The Dark Knight Rises:


And here is our Review Essay: Vigilantism and Class Warfare in The Dark Knight Rises (this contains plot spoilers):


Of course, you can find our other Film Autopsies at our website or at our Facebook page.

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by Salman Hameed

For our Friday Journal Club, here is a recent paper by biologist Jerry Coyne: Science Religion, and Society: The Problem of Evolution in America, published in the journal Evolution.

Summary: 
The paper looks at the reasons why a majority of Americans reject biological evolution. Coyne attributes the central reason reason to the "extreme religiosity of the United States". I think the Abstract does a pretty good job of laying out the basic position of the paper:

American resistance to accepting evolution is uniquely high among First World countries. This is due largely to the extreme religiosity of the United States, which is much higher than that of comparably advanced nations, and to the resistance of many religious people to the facts and supposed implications of evolution. The prevalence of religious belief in the United States suggests that outreach by scientists alone will not have a huge effect in increasing the acceptance of evolution, nor will the strategy of trying to convince the faithful that evolution is compatible with their religion. Because creationism is a symptom of religion, another strategy to promote evolution involves loosening the grip of faith on America. This is easier said than done, for recent sociological surveys show that religion is highly correlated with the dysfunctionality of a society, and various measures of societal health show that the United States is one of the most socially dysfunctional First World countries. Widespread acceptance of evolution in America, then, may have to await profound social change.

I have to say that I expected more from this paper. I think the topic is really interesting and it is, of course, worth exploring the reasons why a majority of the population in the world's most advanced nation reject evolution. The paper, instead, turns into a polemic against religion and is often sloppy with definitions. Even if religiosity (or religion) is the main correlation with the rejection of evolution, one has to look into the reasons why evolution became a controversial topic for American religions. Just saying "religion is the cause" is too simplistic and too broad. For example (from the Pew Survey), within the US, 81% of Buddhists, 80% of Hindus and 77% of Jews agree with the statement that "evolution is the best explanation of human life on Earth" (in case, you are wondering 45% of US Muslims also agree with this statement). So one has to be careful in using the term "religion" or "religiosity" for the causation.

Now it is true that much of the US resistance to evolution comes from Evangelical Christians. But that opposition has a particular context rooted in the politics and culture of early 20th century US. For example, it became part of the Evangelical opposition as a reaction to the spread of public education, as well as a legitimate complaint of having Social Darwinism (which is not biological evolution, but its application to society) and Eugenics as part of biology textbooks (plus, Eugenics-based compulsory sterilization was part of 30 US states in the early 20th century). This is not to excuse the poor reception of evolution in the 21st century, but to provide some context of why most Evangelical groups ended up rejecting evolution. I find it a bit odd that a paper focusing on the reasons for the rejection of evolution in the US does not mention - even in a cursory manner - any historical or cultural context.

Much of the remaining paper focus on showing the incompatibility of science and religion, and then arguing that the only reasonable solution to increasing the acceptance of evolution is by reducing religion in the US:

After having taught evolution for years, we have finally recognized where our real opposition lies: creationism is simply one of many symptoms of religion. A continuous stream of anti-evolution propaganda pours from the religiously motivated, distorting the public understanding of evolution. It follows that naturalistic evolution will not attract a majority of Americans until our nation becomes less religious. That, of course, is contrary to accommodationism, which takes religion as a given.

Okay - now these are huge topics to cover - bit couple of quick points. Coyne argues that "religion breeds resistance not only to evolution, but also to science itself (emphasis in the original paper). Well - it depends on what science and what religion. I know that Coyne is critiquing Gould's Non-Overlapping Magisteria (NOMA) - and indeed there are some valid critiques out there - but a blanket statement regarding religion and science is equally problematic. Most religions (and most religious beliefs) do not have much to say about most sciences. It is only a small sub-set of sciences - usually dealing with the questions of origins - where there is explicit interaction with some (or most) religions. But then we have to address the myriads of ways individuals address these questions of origins and interpret those within their own religious traditions. Wait a minute - but then this becomes a complicated mess which cannot be reduced to a simple answer: "religion did it". In fact, the blame for all this messiness goes to the long process of evolution that led to these complex bipedal species that defy simple explanations.

Towards the end of the paper, Coyne looks at socio-economic factors that may explain the high religiosity of America, which for him, explains the high rates of rejection of evolution. Josh Rosenau on his Thoughts from Kansas blog has done a thorough job addressing this part of the paper, so I will let him deal with this:

Coyne’s causal model holds that income inequality (and economic insecurity in general) -> religiosity -> creationism. To back this causal model, he works from aggregate levels of support for evolution in 34 industrialized nations, correlating those with national measures of religiosity, then correlates national religiosity with national income inequality. As we know, correlation is not causation, and this pattern of correlations could imply many other causal pathways: e.g., religiosity -> creationism -> income inequality or income inequality -> creationism -> religiosity. 

Certainly, the inequality -> religion -> creationism causal chain has an intuitive logic, but there’s an intuitive logic to other causal chains of these three items. Correlation alone doesn’t let us decide what order makes the most sense for a causal chain. For instance, Coyne and other gnu atheists have long sought to attribute all manner of social ills to the persistence of religion, so might high levels of religiosity cause both social inequality and creationism? Or might income inequality create little incentive to learn science, and then low science literacy leaves the population without a viable alternative to religious explanations? There are, naturally, ways to statistically test these different causal chains, but this would require Coyne to have tested his model by seeking to falsify alternative explanations, or even in considering potential confounding factors, and he shows no interest in rigorously testing his model. 

As with all such correlational studies, it’s also possible that the three variables at issue are connected by some fourth factor not present in Coyne’s model. The most obvious factor which Coyne ignores is education. Studies consistently show that, even after controlling for religiosity, how educated someone is has a tremendous impact on his or her views on evolution. Countries with better educational systems also tend to be more accepting of evolution, and countries with high income inequality tend to have worse education systems. The correlations Coyne uses to justify his causal model may, then, be spurious. Oddly, his paper never even mentions differences between national educational systems in discussing different nation’s attitudes towards science. Nor does the paper discuss differences in economic and social development, as measured by GDP or GNI or broader measures like the Human Development Index (which includes economic factors, life expectancy, educational statistics, and other factors to generate a more comprehensive picture of a nation’s development). 

This omission is surprising because controlling for GNI per capita is common in such international comparisons. Lots of things correlate with economic development, and factoring that out of a comparison is usually an important first step. Indeed, among the 34 countries Coyne examines, income inequality has a strong negative correlation with GNI per capita, and the median years of schooling among adults has a strong positive correlation with GNI per capita. Many measures of religiosity also correlate with GNI per capita and income inequality. These correlations make causality especially tricky to ascertain, though he could have controlled for them if he wanted to. 

You should read his full post here.

One final thought on the paper. I think it is important to understand the impact of religion on evolution acceptance,  debates over stem cells, issues related to the beginning and the end of life, etc. However, we need to do it in a way that takes into account the complex ways people interact with their beliefs. Plus, we need to appreciate the interplay of religion with culture and politics - and devise ways to distinguish them for a study on evolution acceptance.

Also see last week's Friday Journal Club: "Science Teachers' Views of Science and Religion vs the Islamic Perspective".

_________________
Coyne, J. A. (2012), SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND SOCIETY: THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION IN AMERICA. Evolution, 66: 2654–2663. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2012.01664.x

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This post was co-written by Eric Ries and Sarah Milstein, co-hosts of The Lean Startup Conference.

We’re pleased to announce that registration is officially open for The Lean Startup Conference 2012. Taking place December 3 - 4 at the InterContinental San Francisco, it will include terrific speakers, new case studies, lot of ways to learn and plenty of time to connect deeply with other attendees.  

Tickets go on sale today. We recognize that different people have different abilities to pay, so we’re trying a new pricing experiment this year, modeled on the way good airlines sell tickets: in blocks, where the first block is cheapest and the last block is most expensive. Each block has a limited number of tickets, and when the block sells out, the price goes up.

To test the registration system (have you heard of this cool thing called an MVP?), we started last week with a block of tickets at $299 each--and we alerted those of you who signed up to be notified (we did tell you to sign up if you wanted the lowest price). That block sold out immediately, and we offered the next block at $399, which also sold out right away. We’re now opening general registration at $485, still an incredible deal. When this batch sells out, the price will go up again, so if price is important to you, we urge you to register now. (We’ll continue to give the conference list early notification, so don’t hesitate to sign up for those emails.)

So what do you get for your money? On December 3, we’ll have a slate of top speakers sharing real-world lean startup stories and implementation advice that advance the state-of-the-art in our community. We’ll also have special lunches where you can connect with other people working on lean startup in your sector and evening events where you can join up with smaller groups. 

If one day of lean starup isn’t enough, how about five? On Tuesday December 4, we'll have a full day of workshops from some of the top Lean Startup leaders, including Janice Fraser, Patrick Vlaskovits, Brant Cooper, and more. We're excited to partner this year with the Warm Gun UX/design conference and Lean Startup Machine to offer five amazing days of learning and networking in San Francisco. 

Our Platinum Pass gets you, in addition to full access to all events, first dibs on the limited seats for hands-on workshops with experts, SF startup tours and special lunches. Here’s the basic schedule:

• The Warm Gun conference is on Friday, November 30.
• Lean Startup Machine starts the evening of the 30th and runs over the weekend until Sunday, December 2.
• The Lean Startup Conference is on Monday, December 3 for a full day of sessions with entrepreneurs and lessons learned. 
• On December 4, we're holding a day of hands-on workshops with experts and site visits with some of  San Francisco top startups.

The pricing for the Platinum Pass will always be better than the price of the individual pieces, but it will go up as The Lean Startup Conference ticket prices rise. Register today for the absolute best deal! 

If you can’t steal away for five days, you have the option of buying just the one conference day or a Gold Pass, which gets you the December 3 conference ticket plus the December 4 day of workshops and startup tours.

With our range of passes and prices, we’ve tried hard to make this show appealing for as many of you as possible--and we’re working on student passes and scholarships, too. We look forward to seeing you soon!

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I’ve been wanting to post this steak pizzaiola recipe for a while now, but was bidding my time, waiting for those perfectly ripe late-summer tomatoes before trying it. 

Of course, those have been available around here for many weeks, but every time I’d buy some, I’d quickly use them on sandwiches, salads, etc., before getting to make this great dish. Hey, a BTL can be very seductive.

Well, I’m happy to announce I was finally able control my will power, and saved enough for a beautiful bowl of concasse, which is the soul of this superb sauce. Speaking of concasse – which is nothing more than a fancy French culinary term for peeled, seeded, and chopped tomatoes – I’ll be posting a video for how to do those on Tuesday, so stay tuned.

Like virtually every recipe we post, there are hundreds of ways to make pizzaiola; from versions featuring slowly braised tough cuts, like chuck or rump roast, to quickly seared tenderloin medallions, like I used here. The one thing most people agree on is that you should, if at all possible, use really fresh, very sweet, vine-ripened tomatoes.

Having said that, this would work with some finely chopped, canned San Marzano tomatoes in a pinch. I also encourage the use of both dried and fresh oregano, which I think work great together in this quick sauce. Anyway, I really hope you have access to some beautiful tomatoes, and that you give this steak pizzaiola recipe a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1 pound beef tenderloin steaks, cut into 4 medallions

salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp olive oil

1 cup mushrooms

2 tsp butter

1 cup sliced or diced sweet and/or hot peppers

4 cloves crushed garlic

1/2 cup white wine

1 cup finely chopped, peeled and seeded tomato (aka concasse)
pinch of hot chili flakes
1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1/4 tsp dried oregano

2 tbsp chopped fresh oregano

toasted bread and mozzarella, optional

View the complete recipe

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