Don McLeroy Is (A Little Bit) Right

I’m disturbed by the Texas Board of Education’s recent revisions to their state educational standards for the Social Studies curriculum, but not just because of what (now former) Bible-thumping board member Don McLeroy wants.

According to McLeroy’s proposed changes, which will be voted on this month, everyone who ever did anything important was white, Christianity-hating secular genius Thomas Jefferson wasn’t really one of the Founding Fathers, separation of Church and State is a myth, and hip-hop has no cultural significance but country music does. I’m not making this up. McLeroy thinks someone needs to “stand up to the experts”. That is an actual quote.

This revisionist chicken-shit, and the fact that they actually might be getting away with it, is laughable, pathetic, and terrifying. However, others have already discussed it (see heah for example). I have other concerns, which seem to be largely lost in the scramble to slam McLeroy for his historical spin-doctoring.

In addition to these omissions, McLeroy and his supporters want some additions. These include discussing the Black Panthers alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Jefferson Davis alongside Abraham Lincoln, and the Venona project alongside McCarthy. They also advocate discussing the 2nd Amendment, and suggesting that conservative groups like the NRA and the Moral Majority has an important impact on the course of American history.

Watching left-leaning coverage (for example, AronRa’s YouTube video linked above), these additions are simply stated without commentary, as though it should be self-evident that they should not be discussed.

Well, why the fuck not?

The Black Panthers did exist, they were militant, and they did have an important and largely negative impact on how many Americans viewed the civil rights movement…in addition to unifying black communities and being the victims of a vicious counter-intelligence movement by the FBI. They do not provide a single easy and unambiguous moral lesson favoring either liberal or conservative agendas. Jerry Falwell was a loathsome, willfully ignorant douchebag, but it can’t be denied that he had an important influence on American politics and society, as have other conservative movements. The 2nd Amendment was the SECOND AMENDMENT, as in, it came right after the first, and before the third and fourth. The Founding Fathers clearly thought it was important, and the fact that it is unpopular today with a large chunk of the American population is reason to talk about it, not marginalize it.

This isn't quite like the attempts of the Texas School Board to work Intelligent Design into the biology curriculum, or to propose discussing "problems" with evolution which are based on a grotesque misrepresentation of how science in general, and evolutionary theory in particular, actually work. The things listed above are subjects of actual historical relevance.

Both sides betray themselves, not in what they want included and not removed, but in what they want removed and not put in. Just as the particular omissions of McLeroy’s board are dripping with racism (or at least white defensiveness) and religious insecurity, so does automatic opposition to many of his particular additions reveal liberal insecurity with the idea that non-whites or leftists might have ever done anything questionable, or that conservative movements might have actually have had an important place in American history.

Does McLeroy want these subjects taught honestly and objectively in American history classrooms? Will his preferred treatment of the Panthers get far beyond “they were scary black people with guns?” Of course not, are you fucking kidding? However, I don’t hear his many of his critics asking that these subjects be given fair and even-handed treatment, just talking as though it is a crime against reason that they are being discussed at all, and that is bullshit.

Why the automatic snide giggling at the suggestion that real individuals organizations of interest to a substantial chunk of the American population should actually be discussed in classrooms? Why the knee-jerk outrage at suggesting that there were equivocations, complications, and moral ambiguities to the civil rights movement, or any other subject in the history of this extraordinary, weird, and fucked-up country?

Like it or not, McLeroy’s claim of liberal bias has merit. Even though unequivocally slamming everything he has pushed for is easier (and more satisfying), effort should be made to extract the valid points against left-wing bias from the rest of his agenda.

People Writing Sedimentary Geology Papers, Please Read!

"SILT" IS NOT SOMETHING DIFFERENT FROM "MUD." SILT IS A TYPE OF MUD.

"MUD" refers to all clastic grains smaller than 0.06 mm. "SILT" IS MUD with a grain size between 0.06 mm and 0.004 mm. If you are referring to MUD that is finer than SILT (i.e. is not gritty when you chew it), you are talking about "CLAY."

The two types of MUDSTONE are SILTSTONE and CLAYSTONE.

Got it?

JESUS.

Agnostic Secular Humanist Morality: HHDQ > SGD

You are probably aware by now that Richard Dawkins and fellow atheist Christopher Hitchens want Pope Benedict XVI arrested if he sets foot in the UK for allegedly covering up sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church in his pre-Pope days. Relatively sane critiques of the two center on whether or not what they want is actually legally feasible (here is one of the more comprehensible discussions, and one I can’t follow a fucking word of), or whether or not Ratzinger, while still a cardinal, actually tried to prevent or interfere with the secular legal investigation. At least some sources (like this one) claim that secular authorities were alerted promptly in cases Ratzinger was involved with, and that the letter Ratzinger wrote (which allegedly encouraged silence under threat of excommunication) was intended to discourage discussion within the church to ensure a fair church trial, and was NOT intended to discourage the secular authorities from being notified and cooperated with. Having not read the letter, nor knowing anything about how cases are handled in the Catholic Church, I can’t address whether or not this is a reasonable interpretation.

However, the recent article in the Huffington Post written by Catholic Rory Fitzgerald does not take the sane and rational approach to critiquing Dawkins and Hitchens. Fitzgerald retaliates against Dawkins and Hitchens by arguing that they should be arrested for “atheist crimes”, specifically atrocities committed under Nazi Germany and communist regimes. Fitzgerald’s article has already been addressed by P.Z. Meyers and Jerry Coyne, but it worth taking another look at just for what it tells us about how religious apologists often view, and misrepresent, non-religious secular humanism.

One of the most important reasons why agnostics and atheists do not like religion is because of how it prioritizes in its view of what constitutes morality. The exact atheist/agnostic secular humanist standards for morality are rarely spelled out explicitly, even in anti-religious moral screeds like Richard Dawkins’ The God Hypothesis, or Sam Harris’ Letter To A Christian Nation, so it may be confusing to a religious reader why an atheist considers something moral or immoral. To agnositic secular humanists, morality means enhancing human happiness, dignity, and quality of life (which I will refer from here on out as HHDQ). Reason and critical thinking are also important, but only because it is the most clear-headed and reliable means of determining what it factually true, and what the most effective method is for achieving HHDQ.

It is important to note that atheism is NOT, by itself, a moral position, or even necessarily a rational one. It is simply a lack of belief in the existence of God. The view that Nazi Germany was an atheistic regime is bullshit, but communist regimes, and the human rights violations that occurred under them, undeniably had an anti-religious component. This is important to address. Communist regimes do not reflect the thinking of non-religious rational secular humanism, as many of their policies were neither rational, nor concerned, first and foremost, with HHDQ. Atheism should not be considered a moral position in and of itself, but only as a side-effect of rationality and a desire to focus on HHDQ. Even a casual perusal of God Hypothesis reveals that this is clearly Dawkins’ position.

Monotheistic religions also consider human happiness, dignity, and quality of life to be important, but they have another priority that trumps it: sucking the dick of a powerful imaginary friend in exchange for a reward (which might be abbreviated as “SGD”). The God of the Bible cares more about SGD than HHDQ, and religious atrocities throughout history are based on the same fucked-up priorities. Atheists and agnostics do not think this imaginary friend exists, and even if he did, we find the idea of appeasing him for no other reason than because he offers a reward to be morally cowardly and repugnant. Just as repugnant is the idea of covering up or making excuses for the wrongdoing of religious authorities in order to create the impression that religious people are less likely to do things that are evil and repugnant things (or even, heaven forbid, human things like wanting to get laid with a consenting adult).

Many of the things that religious authorities consider "immoral" are not clearly so under HHDQ, and can only be considered "immoral" if we assume 1) God is real, 2) that what God wants is, by definition, moral (no matter what that might be), and 3) that the things the Bible (or Koran) says God wants really are what God wants. Homosexual activity with other consenting adults does not (neccessarily) violate HHDQ, at least not if both partners are happy with it. Therefore, agnostic secular humanists do not consider it immoral. Christians and Muslims think that God doesn't like it (for reasons that He never clearly and rationally explains), which makes it immoral. SGD > HHDQ. However, sex with children psychologically scars human beings too young to know what they are getting into even if they say "yes." It violates HHDQ, and is therefore immoral to agnostic secular humanists, and we don't need God to tell us that.

Some of Fitzgerald’s comments are unintentionally ironic, particularly when he accuses Dawkins of trying to “undermine Judeo-Christian principles.” Dude…the issue at hand is CHILD RAPE. Dawkins and Hitchins have both stated explicitly that they consider CHILD RAPE TO BE BAD. Is holding individuals accountable for covering up CHILD RAPE “undermining Judeo-Christian principles”? If you say so, dude, but I doubt that is quite what you had in mind.

However, this is almost irrelevant to addressing Fitzgerald’s article, because he misrepresents the nature of the accusation against the Pope. Holding Dawkins accountable for “atheist crimes” committed by other atheists in the past would only be semi-reasonable if Dawkins wanted the Pope arrested for, say the Spanish Inquisition, or the Crusades. However, Dawkins and Hitchins are alleging that Pope Benedict personally did something wrong and illegal: interfering with a secular legal investigation into child sex abuse. Fitzgerald’s knee jerk reaction of trying Dawkins for every atheist atrocity ever committed smacks of defensive overcompensation.

Are the accusations of Dawkins and Hitchens fair? I don't know enough to say, but the answer hinges entirely on Ratzinger's personal intentions and actions.

Now for some random crap.

If you liked Dr. Tran, you'll probably like this.

Yeah, cute. Cats are not to be fucked with, not by babies, bears, or anyone.

Rank your facial hair. My beard fluctuates between the full beard and somewhat patchy (when I trim it), which I suppose means that I fluctuate between totally trustwothy and mildly dangerous. Sounds about right.

LNJ

Late Triassic Dispersal And Endemism

I last left you with a Rube Goldberg machine and a walrus sucking its own cock. That was a high note for this blog, but I think it is time we got back to the Triassic. Focus, people.

A new paper by Martin Ezcurra attempts to quantify geographic variation in Middle and Late Triasic tetrapod faunas, and I want to elaborate on the problems that Bill pointed out due to absent data. Ezcurra took big composite phylogenetic trees meshing phylogenies of different groups of Triassic tetrapods, and ran them through something called “tree reconciliation analysis.” I don’t know exactly what that means other than it involves numbers, and my eyes tend to slide quickly and nervously past sections of papers containing lots of numbers they might slide quickly and nervously past an alley where two homeless people are butchering a third for the meat. Occasionally, as a matter of principle, I might force myself to read through the procedure to get a basic grasp on the calculations, the same way I might, as a matter of principle shout “hey, you guys shouldn’t be doing that!” into the alley before running. But not this time.

That seemed funnier when I thought it up at 3:00 this morning.

In a nutshell, Ezcurra compared phylogenetic trees with the geographic distribution of taxa to establish which areas of Pangea tended to have the most similar faunas, and what that tells us about patterns of dispersal. For the Middle Triassic, Ezcurra found evidence that vertebrate faunas tended to be more cosmopolitan with a “polyphyletic Gondwana”, meaning that different regions of Gondwana (South America, India, and Africa) had more similarities to various parts of Laurasia than they did to each other. Ezcurra interpreted this to mean that there were few barriers (climatic, geographic, or otherwise) to tetrapod dispersal across the supercontinent.

However, for the Late Triassic, Ezcurra found more evidence of faunal endemism, both between Gondwana and Laurasia, and between equatorial Laurasia (North America), and higher latitudes (Europe). It has been recognized for a long time that Late Triassic Laurasian and Gondwanan faunas showed some key differences, with Benton’s (1983) paper being the real landmark. However, Ezcurra’s analysis, largely as a result of leaving out some key taxa, missed some of the more important patterns noted by Benton (1983) which are still valid, and probably exaggerated the differences between Europe and North America. In particular, I have some issues with the decidedly selective treatment of phytosaurs and aetosaurs.

Part of the problem is the phylogenetic tree used for phytosaurs. Phytosaurs were a hugely important group in the northern hemisphere during the Late Triassic (e.g. Long and Murry, 1995; Hungerbeuhler, 2002), and virtually unknown from South America and Africa except for some scrappy specimens (Kischlatt and Lucas, 2003). However, Ezcurra’s phylogeny used Parker and Irmis’ (2006) phytosaur phylogeny, which (like Hungerbeuhler's 1998 phylogeny) was almost entirely concerned with pseudopalatines, the most derived phytosaur clade. As a result, other phytosaurs were pretty much ignored; Ballew’s (1989) analysis was the last published phylogeny to include the forms now assigned to Parasuchus, Angistorhinus, Leptosuchus, and/or Rutiodon, which show a lovely correspondence between stratigraphy and phylogeny in the western United States. Subsequent (but as of yet unpublished) phylogenies by Axel Hungerbeuhler and Michelle Stocker fit the broad patter Ballew recognized.

Phytosaurs show some really important geographic patterns. Basal phytosaurs (sometimes lumped into the genera Paleorhinus or Parasuchus; e.g. Hunt and Lucas, 1991a; Long and Murry, 1995) had a broad distribution and are known from Europe, North America, North Africa, and India (e.g. Chatterjee, 1978; Long and Murry, 1995). A Leptosuchus-like form from India links it to North America (Hungerbeuhler and Chatterjee, 2002). Moreover, Leptosuchus and the more derived Pseudopalatus are known from the from the Adamanian and Revueltian (which Ezcurra lumps into the South American “Ischigualastian and “Coloradian”) of North America respectively, but the European pseudopalatines Nicrosaurus and Mystriosuchus fall out in between them phylogenetically (Ballew, 1989; Hungerbeuhler, 2002; Parker and Irmis, 2006; Stocker, 2008). Phytosaurs were really getting around throughout Laurasia, and to at least some parts of Gondwana, and dispersal seems to have been occurring continuously as phytosaurs evolved during the Late Triassic.

The same is true of some aetosaurs. Ezcurra (2010) used Bill’s analysis from his Heliocanthus paper (Parker, 2007), which established the three broad groupings of aetosaurs (basal aetosaurines, typothoracisines, and desmatosuchines) that agree with my own observations of aetosaur morphology. As suggested by Ezcurra, the spiky desmatosuchine aetosaurs do seem to be restricted to North America (at least, so far), but the same isn’t true of aetosaurines. Although Ezcurra claims that the broad-bodied typothoracisine aetosaurs were also endemic to North America, Paratypothorax is also known from Europe. Moreover, I have seen photos of Indian aetosaur material that suggest to me that Typothorax and Paratypothorax might both have been present there, so like phytosaurs, typothoracisines were moving widely across Laurasia and probably at least down the east coast of Gondwana.

Most importantly, Ezcurra claims that “aetosaurines” (by which he probably means BASAL aetosaurines, as typothoracisines are also aetosaurines) were restricted to high latitudes and absent in North America. However, both Aetosaurus and Stagonolepis-like forms are known from western North America, so basal aetosaurines actually had a VERY cosmopolitan distribution, all the way from the deserts of Scotland to the more tropical conditions in western North America, back into higher latitudes of Brazil and Argentina.

From Paleo Errata

In summary, I don’t think all of Ezcurra’s latitudinal differences really hold up. The abundance of rhynchosaurs at high latitudes, while they are virtually absent in North America (Elder, 1978; Hunt and Lucas, 1991b), may be valid. The absence of prosauropods in North America (e.g. Nesbitt et al, 2005) until things really dried out there during the Early-Middle Jurassic may also be an important latitudinal pattern. Perhaps prosauropods and rhynchosaurs really did like dry conditions. It had also never occurred to me for some reason that an entire aetosaur clade (the desmatosuchines) was restricted to North America, while aetosaurines were more cosmopolitan. Perhaps the desmatosuchines liked more wetter conditions, which falls in pretty nicely with the timing of their extinction in North America (Parker and Martz, in prep). However, North America was not nearly as isolated as Ezcurra indicates, and many of the groups that he lists were a lot more cosmopolitan than he realized.

As noted by Benton (1983), India is a very interesting anomaly, forming an important faunal link between Gondwana and Laurasia, and between high and low latitudes. Rhynchosaurs and therapsids link it to the rest of Gondwana, while it also seems to contain aetosaurs and phytosaurs linking it to both North America and Europe. Its placement along the western margin of Tethys makes me wonder if oceans currents might have given the east coast of Gondwana a different climate from the rest of the southern supercontinent. Ezcurra’s analysis, though it contains a lot of problems, has certainly given me a lot to think about.

Oh yeah, here is something funny and unrelated. It just goes on and on and should stop being funny, but somehow it doesn’t. Well, it kind of does. It comes and goes.

“Female asses are mysterious creatures. They come and go as they please, and much of their behavior seems unfathomable to an outsider.”
-David Attenborough, “Planet Earth”

REFERENCES

Ballew, K.L. 1989. A phylogenetic analysis of Phytosauria from the late Triassic of the western United States. In Lucas, S.G., and Hunt, A.P. (eds.) Dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs in the American Southwest, pp. 309-339. New Mexico Museum of Natural History, Albuquerque, NM.

Benton, M.J. 1983a. Dinosaur success in the Triassic: a noncompetitive ecological model. Quarterly Review of Biology, vol. 58, no. 1 (March), pp. 29-55.

Chatterjee, S. 1978. A primitive parasuchid (phytosaur) reptile from the Upper Triassic Maleri Formation of India. Paleontology, vol. 21, pt. 1, pp. 83-127.

Ezcurra, M. D. 2010. Biogeography of Triassic tetrapods: evidence for provincialism and driven sympatric cladogenesis in the early evolution of modern tetrapod lineages. Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Hungerbühler, A. 2002b. The late Triassic phytosaur Mystriosuchus westphali, with a revision of the genus. Palaeontology, vol. 45, pt. 2, pp. 377-418.

Hungerbühler, A., and Chatterjee, S. 2002. New phytosaurs from the Upper Triassic of India. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol. 22 (suppl. to no. 3, September 19th), p. 68A.

Hunt, A.P., and Lucas, S.G. 1991a. The Paleorhinus biochron and the correlation of the non-marine Upper Triassic of Pangaea. Palaeontology, vol. 34, pt. 2, pp. 487-501.

Hunt, A.P., and Lucas, S.G. 1991b. A new rhynchosaur from the Upper Triassic of West Texas, and the biochronology of Late Triassic rhynchosaurs. Paleontology, vol. 34, pt. 4, pp. 927-938.

Kischlat, E.-E., and S.G. Lucas. 2003. A phytosaur from the Upper Triassic of Brazil. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 464-467.

Parker, W.G. 2007. Reassessment of the aetosaur "Desmatosuchus chamaensis" with a reanalysis of the phylogeny of the Aetosauria (Archosauria: Pseudosuchia). Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 41-68.
Long and Murry, 1995

Nesbitt, S.J., Irmis, R.B., and Parker, W.G. 2007. A critical re-evaluation of the Late Triassic dinosaur taxa of North America. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, vol. 5, no. 2 (May 25th), pp. 209-243.

Parker, W.G., and Irmis, R.B. 2006a. A new species of the Late Triassic phytosaur Pseudopalatus (Archosauria: Pseudosuchia) from Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. In Parker, W.G., Ash, S.R., and Irmis, R.B. (eds.) A Century of Research at Petrified Forest National Park 1906-2006. Museum of Northern Bulletin no. 62, pp. 126-143. Flagstaff, AZ.

Stocker, M.R. 2008. The relationships of the phytosaur Leptosuchus Cape 1922 with decriptions of new material from Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Iowa, IA, 220 pp.