Molluskan Cross-Stitch

I have just been reading a few posts at the Quintessence of Dust and  DarwinCatholic blogs on how to deal with creationist lies.  The tone of the discussion its rather different from that at ScienceBlogs.  Take, for example, this exchange:

'Darwin': 

My own favorite anecdote in this regard (and my apologies if I've trotted this out here before -- I fear I may well have) dates from my time at Steubenville, when I found myself in debate with a part time Classics lecturer who'd written several articles for Catholic magazines advocating Intelligent Design theory.  (He's since gone on to become a fellow at the Discovery Institute and a prolific writer.)  He asserted that the fossil record contained absolutely no evidence for evolution, and referred, if memory serves, to gaps like that between whales and their land-dwelling ancestors.  Species were always so different, he asserted, it was impossible to imagine one was descended from another.

I pointed out that in less exciting (and far more frequently preserved) species such as mollusks, the sequential species in the fossil record were so closely and clearly similar that the species divisions seemed almost arbitrary.  Without missing a beat he responded, "Maybe, but no one cares about mollusks."

CMinor:

"...no one cares about mollusks."

Priceless.

I'm tempted to do it up in cross-stitch.

'Darwin':

"I'm tempted to do it up in cross-stitch."

Oh! With a little mollusk in one corner with a tear?

That would indeed be priceless. Is there any way I can beg or bribe you to do it

I, somehow, can't see that fitting in very well in the customary flame-fests at Pharyngula.

Brain Removal and Skull Cleaning

Brian Switek got his wife to help him decapitate a dead deer.  He then asked on his blog for advice on how to remove the brains and clean up the skull.  If you are interested in this sort of thing then the comments are well worth reading.  If you are not, or if you are at all squeamish, then steer well clear.

The Descent of Me

Several decades ago, well before the internet and the current craze for genealogy, a great uncle of mine traced a line in our family tree back to Edward Plantagent, King Edward I of England.  This must have involved him in quite a lot of effort, travelling and inspecting registers of births, deaths and marriages.  Over the years I have often wondered how accurate this line actually was.  Well, today I got round to comparing the earlier parts against records available on the Web. 

The main discrepancies were in the spellings of the names: "de Courtney" vs "de Courtenay", "Emeline Downey" vs "Emmeline Dawnay", "Trethwiffe" vs "Trethurffe", and so on.  Some of these may be misreadings, some may be just the natural variability in spelling that existed in the Middle Ages.  In one case I think my great uncle merged two consecutive Sir Hugh de Courtenay's into one.  However, in general I was pleasantly surprised by the accuracy of his work.  So, here is my slightly corrected version [with a few extra dates and details from the web and some corrections suggested by Jenny Barnett in the comments]:

• Edward Plantagent, Edward I King of England (1239-1307) = Eleanor of Castile
• Elizabeth Plantagenet (1282-1316) = Humphrey de Bohun 4th Earl of Hereford
• Margaret de Bohun (d 1391) = Hugh de Courtenay (1303-1377) 2nd Earl of Devon (fought at the Battle of Crecy)
• Edward de Courtenay (2nd son) = Emmeline Dawnay (d 1371?)
• Sir Hugh de Courtenay (d 1426?) = Maud Beaumont (3rd wife)
• Sir Hugh de Courtenay(1426?-1471 executed after the Battle of Tewkesbury) = Margaret Carminow (b 1422?)
• Elizabeth Courtenay = John Trethurffe (d.1510)
• Joan Trethurffe = John Tregarthin (of Gorran)
• Joan Tregarthin (1515?-1581?) = John Kellaway
• Mary Kellaway = William Cooke (b 1514? of Thorne, Devon)
• Christopher Cooke (b 1540? of Thorne) = Margaret Garland (of Marwood)
• John Cooke (b 1582? of Tregessa) = Prudence Godolphin
• Prudence Cooke (d 1636) = Arthur Levelis (1611?- 1671 of Trewoofe)
• Prudence Levelis (1636-1660) = Richard Vosper (of Trewoofe)
• John Vosper (d.1729) = Mary Phillips
• John Vosper (b 1698?) = Grace Barnacle
• William Thomas Vosper (of Lewannick 1738-1830) = Elizabeth Adams (1743-1821 of Altarnun)
• John Vosper (b 1767) = Eleanor Baldock (1773-1837)
• John Vosper (b 1802) = Mary Popplestone (1808 - 1868)
• Matilda Vosper (b 1832?)  = Thomas Beer Randle (b 1826?)
• Laura Randle (b 1869?) = Ernest Cripps Thornhill
• Patrick Thornhill (1900-1989) = Alice Leighton (1910-1949)
• Clare Thornhill (1934-1997) = John Brelstaff (b 1934)
• Tristram Brelstaff (b 1958) = Elisabeth Tapsfield (b 1960)

By the way, the great uncle was George Thornhill, brother of Patrick Thornhill in the above list.

White Deer

I saw a white deer this afternoon.  It was nibbling at a security fence on the eastern side of the railway track between Bagshot and Ascot.  The deer was a pure white, not just a yellowish white, and didn't appear to have any darker patches or spots.  There were several other normal-coloured (grey-brown) deer with it.

Update on Tue 2008-10-21 by Tristram Brelstaff

I saw this animal again, a week or two ago, and it occurred to me that it might not be a deer but a large goat.  I will keep a watch whenever I go that way (which is not very often nowadays).

Update on Sat 2008-10-25 by Tristram Brelstaff

I saw this animal again yesterday.  It was sitting with some others, including a black one.  They most probably are goats.

Lotteries and Hope

A pearl of wisdom from Eliezer Yudkowsky:

Understanding that lottery tickets have negative expected utility, does not mean that you give up the hope of being rich.  It means that you stop wasting that hope on lottery tickets.

I might not agree with all that Eliezer says (it would take me some fairly intensive study before I could say that), but I do find him to be one of the more interesting writers out on the web at the moment.