My Article Is In Skeptical Inquirer!
My article, “Understanding Believers’ Cognitive Dissonance” , just came out in Skeptical Inquirer, Vol 37, No.2, March/April 2013, Pg. 50. If you don’t subscribe to it, then go buy a copy! Well, what are you waiting for? Go read it!
Atheism+. Why I Am More Resolved Than Before To Support It
Jen McCreight quit blogging yesterday. This from Almost Diamonds who wrote a post explaining some of the reason why.
I’m angry that Jen has been pushed to the point where she has to stop blogging. She’s done so much, especially with the SSA, to help advance atheism. The detractors say that those who support Atheism+ are trying to take over the atheist movement, that we are being hateful and divisive, that we are not thinking critically and are letting our emotions cloud our judgement.
Of course it is emotional. We are enraged and appalled at the misogyny that has become so apparent in the past year. We aren’t automatons, but human. Using our anger at the misogynists and others like them in the atheists movement to try to build something better is good, as Greta Christian says in her book.
Anger can motivate people to right wrongs and gain rights and recognition in society. We want to be seen as atheists who do more than just attack religion. We want to take this movement to the masses, as it were, beyond the atheist community, by working openly, and publicly on important social issues that, until now, religion or other organizations have owned. At least, that’s what I would like to see. I think many who support Atheism+ feel this way too.
The people who drove Jen away want to attack anyone who doesn’t agree with them. It can’t, and won’t, stand. But, I’m not going to attack those people, I’m going to ignore them. They aren’t worth my time. Instead, I’m going to do something positive and try to make Atheism+ a thing that will unite all those atheists who want to focus on social issues instead of just bashing religion and slapping ourselves on the backs for how much more clever we are than theists.
“God is Just a Placeholder for Our Ignorance”
“God is just a placeholder for our ignorance.”
I just thought this up. It’s not original really, at least not as a thought, but a search of google doesn’t turn up that exact wording with the same context and meaning (although it does turn up this on Butterflies & Wheels, but that isn’t exactly the same). Yeah for me!
I want to have buttons and bumper stickers made up with that on it. Anyone know the best way (read cheapest) to do that?
Follow-up and Apology
I posted the other day about some comments DJ Grothe made about women feeling safe at TAM. I was dismayed and angry about how his words were perceived as sexist.
I overreacted. I’ve had a chance to read more from other sides of the issue and I can no longer stand by my condemnation of DJ. He has done much to help the skeptical community become more inclusive and I was wrong to be so quick to judge him.
I let my emotions get the best of me. I allowed my bias (the fact that Rebecca was the first one to really inspire me to become a skeptic) to get in the way of clear thinking. Worst of all, I didn’t do any digging to find out more about all sides of the issue. I didn’t use reason, but I let emotion guide my writing. It was a disgraceful performance equal to the sloppy woo ridden drivel that I constantly rail about here.
To DJ, and to all of my readers, I most sincerely apologize.
The Luck Of Numbers
Numbers are part of everyone’s life. We use numbers to count things, to label things, even to describe the universe in which we live. They help us organize and make sense of the world around us. Numbers are practical. How much food do we have? How many weeks before the harvest begins? Numbers allow us to divide the day into manageable chunks, those days into weeks, weeks into months, and months into years.
Given this, it is easy to believe that numbers play an important role in our day-to-day lives, but due to how our brains work, we ascribe special significance to numbers that goes beyond their practical value.
Lucky numbers. Unlucky numbers. We are all familiar with these, even if we don’t believe in their reputed powers. In the west, 13 is considered unlucky, while 2, 4, and 12 are considered lucky. In contrast, the number 4 is considered particularly unlucky in Chinese and other asian cultures because the word for the number 4 sounds like the word for death.
If number were truly lucky or unlucky you would think that the numbers that are considered lucky or unlucky, like the number 4, would be consistent across cultures. Of course, they are not, because there is no correlation between a particular number and any good or bad things that happen to us, except in the misguided significant we assign to them due to confirmation bias.
Humans have a need to make sense out of everything around us. This leads us to try to find purpose for events that actually have no purpose. We find it hard, if not impossible, to accept that things that happen to us could have no reason or purpose behind them. Our brains just aren’t evolved to think that way. Because of this, our brains construct explanations for inexplicable events. If something bad happens to us, then someone, either ourselves, someone else, or even a god or spirit must have done something to cause it to happen. The same goes for good things that happen. While the event was likely completely random, we need to make sense of it so we come up with a reason, no matter how strange or unlikely, to explain it.
This is where the ancient myths first came from. Our ancestors needed to understand why things happened, be it rain, drought, famine, or disease. These kinds of events brought great fear and much of this fear was due to the lack of control they had over these events. To understand how something works is to have control over it. To try to regain control and reduce the fear, they came up with stories of gods or spirits that cause these things. If they could somehow appease these gods or spirits, perhaps they could ward off these events in the future.
Of course, despite their efforts, diseases, famines and such kept coming, but now they could explain them by their actions of either doing what the gods wanted (when things went well) or displeasing them (when bad things happened). While the reality was that these events were mostly random, the need for their explanations to be true caused them to remember the times when events seemed to support their beliefs and forget the times that they didn’t. This confirmation bias continues to be the basis for our faith in gods, spirits, mysticism, and luck right up until today.
More Cool Science and Skeptical Images
Here are some more cool science and non-theist images for your enjoyment!
They make as much sense as the Christian trinity.
It is just as plausible as the Christian version.
Science rocks!
The man who showed the world that science can be exciting and beautiful.
Probably the most influential scientist since Newton. Evolution baby!
His work greatly influence Darwin. He is the forgotten hero of evolution.
Pass the peas please! The theory of inheritance derived by his work with peas laid the groundwork for the science of genetics. I still remember this to this day from high school biology class.
Using Humor to Show Up Delusions
There is a well known example that supporters of science use when refuting the idea of a perfect creator. The example is the laryngeal nerve. This nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx. What is unusual about it is that, even though the larynx is located in the throat in most invertebrates, it follows a path down from the throat, into the chest, and back up to the brain, rather than the shorter and more obvious route of going straight from the throat and up to the brain.
In referring to Richard Dawkins use of the laryngeal nerve argument, Wikipedia states:
“The extreme detour of this nerve (over fifteen feet in giraffes) is cited as evidence of evolution as opposed to intelligent design. The nerve’s route would have been direct in the fish-like ancestors of modern tetrapods, traveling from the brain, past the heart, to the gills (as it does in modern fish). Over the course of evolution, as the neck extended and the heart became lower in the body, the laryngeal nerve was caught on the wrong side of the heart. Natural selection gradually lengthened the nerve by tiny increments to accommodate, resulting in the absurdly circuitous route now observed, which, if designed, could only be described as unintelligent.”[1]
I’ve heard this argument against intelligent design given many times and in different ways, some more effective than others, but as is often the case, humor and satire can serve to drive the point home much better than any physical evidence or well articulated argument can.
Jonathan Rosenberg draws the funny, topical, and skeptical Scenes From A Multiverse. Today’s installment address this particular augment with great hilarity and precision. It is a perfect surgical strike against the idea of a perfect creator, and leaves us with the conclusion that god either does not exist or, if he does, is just plain stupid. The next to the last panel says it all.
1. ^ Dawkins, Richard (2009). “11. History written all over us”. The greatest show on Earth. New York: Free Press. pp. 360–362. ISBN 9781416594789. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
An Excellent Example of Science vrs Pseudoscience
The website atheism.about.com has a really good article examining if astrology is pseudoscience or science. While I agree that astrology is bullshit, that is not what, I think, is the real take away point from the article. You could easily subsitute any number of questionable practices such as “psychic powers” or “homeopathy” for astrology.
The real importance of the article is how well it explains the scientific method. The reason this is important is that so many people have no concept of what the scientific method is and how it works. This leads to a gross misunderstanding and mistrust of science. This is bad because it leads to the undermining of scientific advancement in our society, a society that, more and more, is very dependent on the technology that science gives us.
There is a sad and firghtening trend in this country of mistrust, and even hostility, toward science. This kind of anti-science belief used to be confined to the radical right or left wing movements. The religious right fights against science when it contradicts the Bible (which is does the vast majority of the time). The radical left distrusts it because it is not “natural”, and they fear the possible misuses of science. Now, however, anti-science beliefs and rhetoric have become the norm. We see this in the current election cycle where Republican candidates are falling all over themselves to see who can be more anti-science than the rest.
It used to be that the GOP trumpeted the benefits of science as a way to make our society stronger, better, and safer. Does anyone remember the “Star Wars” program of the Reagan era? How about the Space Race? In this country, the military has always been a major driving force in advancing science and technology. It will be interesting to see how the military responds to the ever growing hostility of the GOP to science, considering that most of the military leadership has tended to be republican, as evidinced by the many generals who have gone into politics after retiring from their military careers.
This country used to be a leader in science and technology and that is what made it a great economic and military power. If this anti-science trend continues, we can only sit back and watch as our scientific technological leadership slips away and our economy because a totally consumer driven one, dependent on the technology of other countries who put science above superstition.
Another Example of Bad Science Reporting
The newspaper, The Telegraph, has published a story with the exciting title, Large Hadron Collider rumoured to have found God Particle. What makes this bad science reporting is that the actually text of the article is more along these lines:
“It is far too early to say if there is anything to it or not. There are 3,000 scientists working on ATLAS and they divide the analysis work up between them.
“This is an internal communication that highlights something interesting, but it has to go through several stages of assessment by the scientific team before it will be released as an official result by the collaborative team.
“The majority of these things turn out to be nothing at all. It is very speculative at this stage, but there is a great deal of excitement and anticipation that something will be found which is probably why this has found its way onto the internet.”
What the story is really about is this:
Despite the official caution, there was intense speculation on internet blogs and scientific websites that the results described in the memo signalled the first discovery of the Higgs boson.
This is a story about the rumors of the discovery of the Higgs boson, not about the actually discovery it’s self. This is not science reporting, this is rumor mongering. Isn’t the current state of the general public’s science knowledge bad enough without the media having to sensationalize a non-story?
My Best Friend is a Magic Jewish Zombie!
I was browsing my favorite art site, deviantart.com, a few days ago and came across this painting. A nicely done picture of Jesus titled, My Best Friend. My tollerence of bullshit was very low at that particular time (lower than it ususlly is!). In a fit of pique I left a simple, harsh, comment, “I’m sorry”. I am not usually so blunt, espeically with someone I’ve never met. I probably should have just ignored it and moved on. I didn’t and now I have an interesting situation to deal with.
Today, the artist who made that picture sent me a note. Here is the exchange:
i read your comment on my work.,my best friend,….and this has many interpretations…
may i ask your reason for being sorry…so that i may comment accordingly my friend…I’m sorry that your best friend is someone who doesn’t exist, or at least who you can’t see, touch, or hear. I believe that this life is precious and that it is all that we are sure that we have. For me, to put emotions into something that you can’t be sure is there is a waste. It does you and the people around you a disservice. By expending time, emotion, and even love on something that may or may not be real takes that time, emotion, and love away from the people around you who need it here, now.I am not trying to say that you shouldn’t believe in Jesus, but you live in this world with people who love you and need you. Make the most of it and give yourself and those you love every minute you have, every bit of love that you can. If after doing this, you feel you still have time and energy left for Jesus, great. But to say that he is your best friend is an insult to your real friends, who are here now and who need you.
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