Pharyngula::Birds!

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Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Birds!

PZ Myers • 20 Comments

There's a new edition of I and the Bird available at Birdchick Blog.

I really don't know if I should advertise those guys, though…haven't you heard that birds are conservatives who exemplify Intelligent Design?

At a conference for young Republicans, the editor of National Review urged participants to see the movie [March of the Penguins] because it promoted monogamy. A widely circulated Christian magazine said it made "a strong case for intelligent design."

Let's just remember that it is a seasonal monogamy—they get different breeding partners in different breeding seasons. This apparently justifies the practice of the Republican leadership in cashing in their old wives for new trophies. Penguins do it, so why not Newts?

I've seen the movie and very much enjoyed it, but who in their right minds sees intelligent design in flightless bird parents having to alternate 70 mile waddles in order to keep their young fed? It was a movie about pitiless Darwinian circumstances. Drop the egg, it freezes and the embryo dies. Newborn chick wanders away, it freezes and dies. One parent dies of predation or weather, the other has to abandon the young to starve, freeze, and die. As an inspiration to conservative Republican ruthlessness, I can see it…but Intelligent Design? No way.

(Note: I and the Bird does not endorse any such political silliness in the current edition.)

Carl Zimmer predicts the future, with a list of other animal documentaries to warm the hearts of conservatives. Along the same lines, someone ought to option Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex ^{(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)}—wouldn't that make a marvelous documentary?

Trackback url: http://pharyngula.org/index/trackback/2921/XPwaw3qE/

Comments:

#39978: — 09/14 at 08:15 AM
When I first heard about this penguin movie-Christian values link a day or two ago, I honestly thought it was satire.
Parody's becoming harder and harder in this country...

#39980: — 09/14 at 08:30 AM
Not sure, either, how they reconcile their values with the fact that some penguins are gay.

#39981: — 09/14 at 08:46 AM
What with the "crescent" memorial and the Christian Right penguins, there now offically IS no difference between reality and parody in the good ole shark-jumping USA. That's what a dismally, and increasingly, ignorant population will do for a country.

#39987: — 09/14 at 09:53 AM
Also, as Henry pointed out over at Crooked Timber, some penguins are a little problematic for this idea. Unless, of course, you want to assume it's because they are New York penguins, decadent city-dwellers, as opposed to honest rural penguins:

http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/studentwork/cns/2002-06-10/591.asp

#39990: — 09/14 at 10:04 AM
I'd refer all interested parties to this tidbit, too:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4264913.stm

The headline alone-- "Gay outrage over penguin sex test" -- should entice even the most incurious observer.

#39992: — 09/14 at 10:10 AM

Along the same lines, someone ought to option Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation: The Definitive Guide to the Evolutionary Biology of Sex (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll)—wouldn't that make a marvelous documentary?

Its been done, a tv series of it has been made in Britain, with song-and-dance routines (the lesbian kick-ass Japanese monkeys in Kill Bill-style yellow fighting suits), interviews with well-known scientists (including Joan Roughgarden) and a late night Channel 4 timeslot.

Oh yes, its a programme to warm the heart of any Republican*.

* They love it really, oh yes.

#39994: PZ Myers — 09/14 at 10:21 AM
Really? I want to see that.

PZ Myers
Division of Science and Math
University of Minnesota, Morris

#40000: — 09/14 at 10:51 AM

A widely circulated Christian magazine said it made "a strong case for intelligent design."

Birds are anything abut a case for intelligent design. They are a much better case for evolutionary theory. Their clear relationship to reptiles based on morphology, paleontology, proteins, and nucleic acids, each consistent with the previous set of observations has provided independent tests of this relationship.

These shallow observations and pronouncements of design indicate a fundamental lack of understanding. That’s the draw of ID, it feels warm and fuzzy, it requires little thought, and is easily digestible.

#40008: — 09/14 at 11:58 AM

These shallow observations and pronouncements of design indicate a fundamental lack of understanding. That’s the draw of ID, it feels warm and fuzzy, it requires little thought, and is easily digestible.

Sounds like a splendid description of religious fundamentalism.

#40015: — 09/14 at 12:13 PM
G and PG-rated movies are fairly rare nowadays, especially ones that will hold adults' interest as well as kids. So the fundies will always be ready to pounce on anything innocuous like this and project all sorts of their crazy values on it. Of course, the politicization of anything and everything is widespread on both sides of the spectrum.

#40017: Redshift — 09/14 at 12:21 PM
I'm reminded of the Victorian-era naturalists who described all kinds of species as "mating for life," even though we now know they don't. The urge to ascribe positive human traits to animals you think are cool is a powerful one, and the theocrat urge to claim that nature is in line with their beliefs just builds on that. (A friend of mine who's a book dealer once ran across an old wildlife book that described every animal as "a good mother" and told how devoted they were to their young. "The vole is a good mother...")

#40022: — 09/14 at 12:51 PM

so why not Newts?

You disappointed me there, PZ. I was hoping for amphibians and it was just something about some scummy human.

#40024: Kagehi — 09/14 at 01:08 PM
Heh.. Why not one on lions. We can get the polygamist groups in Utah and the rest of Christians, by getting them to claim it is a rousing endorsement of polygamous male dominated marraiges and the idea that you should kill people to get more wives (which the Bible allows in several cases). lol

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent - Robert A. Heinlein

#40025: Kagehi — 09/14 at 01:09 PM
That's "get them fighting each other", forgot to complete the sentence. :(

Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent - Robert A. Heinlein

#40031: Bistroist — 09/14 at 02:31 PM
I just find it amusing that the latest wingnut fad is a French documentary, or should that be Freedomentary?

In the French original, instead of Morgan Freemans narration, there's a cast of actors speaking for the penguins. Haven't seen either version, so I can't say which works better.

#40034: — 09/14 at 02:57 PM
"A widely circulated Christian magazine said it made "a strong case for intelligent design."

Not surprising that the magazine simply side-steps the logic of why the penguins are doing what they're doing making that nutty inland trek, and how that behavior is directly connected to the shifting climate history of Antarctica. On the other hand, one Christian, the Pulitzer prize winning movie critic Roger Ebert, was savvy enough to take home the opposite lesson:

"The film's narrator, Morgan Freeman, tells us that Antarctica was once a warm land with rich forests that teemed with creatures. But as the climate grew colder over long centuries, one lifeform after another bailed out, until the penguins were left in a land that, as far as they can see, is inhabited pretty much by other penguins, and edged by seas filled with delicious fish. Even their predators, such as the leopard seal, give them a pass during the dark, long, cold winter.

"This is a love story," Freeman's narration assures us, reminding me for some reason of Tina Turner singing "What's Love Got to Do With It?" I think it is more accurately described as the story of an evolutionary success. The penguins instinctively know, because they have been hard-wired by evolutionary trial and error, that it is necessary to march so far inland because in spring, the ice shelf will start to melt toward them, and they need to stand where the ice will remain thick enough to support them.

As a species, they learned this because the penguins who paused too soon on their treks had eggs that fell into the sea. Those who walked farther produced another generation, and eventually every penguin was descended from a long line of ancestors who were willing to walk the extra mile.

Why do penguins behave in this manner? Because it works for them, and their environment gives them little alternative. They are Darwinism embodied."

http://tinyurl.com/e4mh3

#40163: — 09/15 at 06:46 AM

Really? I want to see that

I have seen a couple of episodes, and it's quite fun.

Trackback: Penguins Tracked on: The Panda's Thumb (66.15.48.88) at 2005 09 15 15:53:26
The surprise hit nature documentary, March of the Penguins, has, according to the New York Times, been co-opted by social conservatives as a sort of affirmation of their views on sex and marriage. The article quotes conservative pundit Michael...

#40284: — 09/15 at 06:03 PM
Two words: Penguin prostitution.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/60302.stm

#40596: coturnix — 09/19 at 07:42 AM
Who Would Jesus Do?

The Penguin Wars

From multiple mates to gay tolerance to untraditional marriage roles, these birds are not at all the role models the Christian Right would make them out to be.

#41232: — 09/22 at 08:36 AM
Fark provides the perfect headine for this topic:

Christians claim penguins that march 70 miles to nest on ice are evidence for intelligent design.