Christian finally meets his master

God: Why, look who's here! What took you so long?

You: Uhh, what do you mean, God?

God: Duh! 30 years ago I prepared a welcome feast for your arrival. Grand party with choirs of angels and all. I rang you up. Sent a platoon of my elite pathogens so you could be here in a jiffy but still have time to say hasta la vista to your family. So did you wear your best suit for the homecoming? Nooooo! You went and took all those antibiotics for an entire month and annihilated my army! Needless to say, I was heartbroken. And then 15 years ago I buzzed you again. I thought that giving you a heart attack would make my invitation loud and clear. But no! Instead of kissing your wife goodbye, you had her drive you to the ER. And those minions of Satan--wolves in white clothing--got your heart up and running again. To add insult to injury you even thanked those doctors on your way out of the hospital.

Well, who the fuck do you think you are! Who do you think makes the rules around here! Well, I've had it playing Mr.Nice Guy.with you. Since you've been such a bitch, I decided to stop sending you invites altogether and just yank you up here. Yes, yes, yes, that bloke who pumped half a dozen 357s into your thick skull was Angel 007. He's been on missions 24/7 ever since that demonic Fleming guy concocted penicillin or you would've been here years ago. Well now that you've finally arrived, what do you think happens to those who make it a point to fuck up my plan? Hmmmm?

Empty-headed

Philosopher Simon Blackburn reviews Karen Armstrong's latest opus: The Case for God: What Religion Really Means. Armstrong is a former nun and is the author of over a dozen titles.

Apparently, Armstrong is saying that religion as it is now is faux religion. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, etc. with all their doctrines, dogmas, cathedrals, mosques, synagogues, are bogus religions. They're rogue, adulterated, corrupted forms of the real thing. True religion is one that does not say anything about God. In fact if you can talk about God, if you start spouting off God's properties, deeds, will, etc, then what you're talking about isn't God.

Well, that's exactly the same theme in Taoism (I guess the real Taoism, not the kind being practised by the superstitious Chinese masses--mind you, some of whom are probably my kinsfolk). The Tao Te Ching says, "The Way is eternally nameless." "The ways that can be walked are not the eternal Way; The names that can be named are not the eternal name." (Tao Te Ching, Victor Mair, Bantam, 1990, p. 59,99) If you can say something about it, describe it, circumscribe it, it isn't the real McCoy. Thus you just have to approach the subject of God/Tao with silence. You cannot intellectualize it. You cannot relate to it via belief, much less dogmas and doctrines. Once you do, you've lost God, you've tried to produce, so to speak, a 3-dimensional representation of what is an infinite-dimension phenomenon, and made an idol.

This is the religious tradition of apophasis, where silence toward the subject is the principal tenet. Which makes you wonder what apophatic masters teach. I imagine Lesson 1 goes: "God is that which you cannot speak of, think of, believe in." And Lesson 2: "There is nothing else to say or think about."

I think the problem with apophasis is that its adherents are a drop in the ocean. That kind of religion is completely foreign, perhaps even inconceivable to the run of the mill believer. Most people can't possibly subscribe to such a religion. What people are looking for are derivatives from religion such as attenuation of anxieties, comfort, pat certainties, unchanging rules, black and white answers.

Religions obviously have evolved and continue to change and develop, with all the denominations and sects as living proof of the number of variants and strains, whilst other forms have died off. Moreover, claiming that the apophatic religion is the true kind of religion is just that-- another claim. The Koran claims that its Islam is the true religion. It would be silly and unthinkable indeed if any religion declared, "Oh I'm sorry, but we're not a or the true religion. So why do we keep at it? We're plain nutcases, you see." So the charge (either by Armstrong or by Blackburn) that the Four Horsemen are tilting at windmills, roughing up a strawman is hardly true. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens are engaging the extant species of religion. It seems to me that Armstrong's trying to save an endangered form, a high form of religion, if you will, but one which will never become a dominant species ever or even come close to such stature. Or she's just defending a tradition she prefers.


----------------------

Breaking News: Just read John Crace's "synopsis" of The Case for God. And I thought I was being a tad harsh on Armstrong!

What epistemology?

Learned of the following via the Center for Inquiry. It's an article by physicist Lawrence Krauss in yesteday's Wall Street Journal.

Science is only truly consistent with an atheistic worldview with regards to the claimed miracles of the gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Moreover, the true believers in each of these faiths are atheists regarding the specific sacred tenets of all other faiths. Christianity rejects the proposition that the Quran contains the infallible words of the creator of the universe. Muslims and Jews reject the divinity of Jesus.

So while scientific rationality does not require atheism, it is by no means irrational to use it as the basis for arguing against the existence of God, and thus to conclude that claimed miracles like the virgin birth are incompatible with our scientific understanding of nature.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that these issues are not purely academic. The current crisis in Iran has laid bare the striking inconsistency between a world built on reason and a world built on religious dogma.

Perhaps the most important contribution an honest assessment of the incompatibility between science and religious doctrine can provide is to make it starkly clear that in human affairs -- as well as in the rest of the physical world -- reason is the better guide.

I really don't understand why anyone bothers defending religion. It claims to have a valid epistemology. Well, ok, show us. What supernaturalistic claim does any religion have that's been verified to be true? We've been waiting for several millennia now. Face it. Religion has tons of supernatural claims. None have been found or is known to be true It has tons of empirical claims too (and it even claims to have a real epistemology) and a good number have already been disconfirmed (eg. the earth is not--as some sacred texts claim--flat, the age of the earth is way more than ten millennia, there is just no evidence for any worldwide deluge, evolution is the origin of species not some mythic anthropomorphic militaristic macho prick as claimed by a tribe in the Bronze Age, ....)

Provide us a means by which we can find out whether religious epistemology actually works. For instance offer a procedure by which revelation can be shown to be a valid way of knowing. And show that revelation (whereby a "truth" or idea is placed in someone's head by a supposed supernatural entity) actually is a revelation from a supernatural entity and not just natural firing of neurons. Show that whatever "truth" is supposedly uttered by this prophet is not true simply due to coincidence or was arrived at by other ways of knowing.

In contrast, science has demonstrated again and again and again over hundreds of years that its epistemology does work and does provide us reliable knowledge. If you've ever used a computer and know of the things called airplane and antibiotic and seen those stunning Hubble deep space photographs then you would be a freaking idiot to claim that science doesn't work.

Epistemic progess is of course a barometer of the validity of the epistemology that any discipline flaunts. So which domain has had epistemic progress? Yes that's a no-brainer. Which religion has had any epistemic progress vis-a-vis supposed supernatural "truths"? If this were a contest (and I think it is!) religion should've been booed out of the stadium eons ago.

Now tell me which of the two is arrogant: Science which lets reality be the ultimate arbiter as to which explanations, hypotheses, theories are true, or religion which rides roughshod over reality whenever any of its doctrines/dogmas are contradicted by reality?

Yes, I am so uber frustrated over the fact that even educated adults keep getting duped into clinging to superstitions in sheep's clothing.

What makes a man a man ... according to the KJV

Via Michael Nielsen



Religion does turn some into pricks.

How not to find cause of and cure for cancer

A friend brought to my attention (via a forwarded email that has been circulating for some time it seems) a certain Professor Jane Plant who claims in a book of hers that she's discovered a causal factor of breast cancer and that she was cured of her own affliction by eliminating milk products in her diet. The book may be old hat to some of you but I just got wind of it.

Just to be sure that this wasn't another urban legend, I turned to Amazon.com. Well, Jane Plant and her book Your Life in Your Hand (the US edition is entitled The No-Dairy Breast Cancer Prevention Program: How One Scientist's Discovery Helped Her Defeat Her Cancer) checks out. So much the worse for Plant as you'll see. Go read the widely available excerpt from her book (that particular website goes to show how governments are not necessarily keepers of the light, enlightenment that is).

Allow me to put cart before the horse and provide you my conclusion: Geologist and professor Jane Plant is incompetent. I say that because she's supposedly a scientist and yet she commits errors in thinking and analysis that would earn science undergrads a failing grade. How she could, in the same breath, remind us she's a scientist and write as a woowoo is jaw dropping.

Now for my arguments.

Plant tells us that it dawned upon her that in China practically no one drinks cow's milk and that dairy products including cheese are not part of the diet. She also says that statistics show that only 1 in 10,000 women in China die from breast cancer, while the figures for Western countries is around 1 in 10. (Let's at the moment just take for granted that she has her numbers right, although those would need to be checked too of course--I'm suspicious of the 1 in 10 stat). So Plant puts two and two together and comes up with the hypothesis that dairy product consumption might be a or the culprit.

Can we jump to the conclusion that milk is dangerous to women's health? Most certainly not. There's a truism in statistics and science: Correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Correlation is the phenomenon wherein two or more variables/events are associated with one another. For example, the temperature of the ground is correlated with the time of day--the closer it is to noontime the warmer the ground is. And of course this is because the sun heats the earth up. However, just because two variables are correlated does not mean one causes the other. The clock we used in recording the time of day obviously does not cause the ground to heat up. Yet another example. Over two decades ago researchers in Taiwan found that there is a strong correlation between the number of electrical appliances (including toasters) that a household owns and the frequency of use of birth control methods. Does this mean then that buying more appliances causes people to resort to contraceptives more often? Or does it mean that higher frequency of employing contraceptives makes Taiwanese buy more appliances? One of these would have to be our conclusion if correlation were equivalent to causation. The truth of the matter, however, is that the above variables are both correlated with yet other variables, namely, income and educational attainment. And it is these two latter factors that cause the increase in both number of appliances owned and contraceptive use. Income and education are both correlated with the former two variables. They also are causal factors.

In summary, if X is correlated with Y then either X causes Y, or Y causes X, or neither X nor Y is a cause of the other. On the other hand, if Q is the known cause of P, then Q and P will by necessity be correlated with one another. So while correlation does not necessarily imply causation, causation necessarily implies correlation.

In discussing Plant's hypothesis, another friend reminded me of how the Chinese consume a lot of soybean in its various forms--tofu, soybean milk, soy sauce, salted soy beans, etc. That in itself would correlate significantly with breast cancer mortality since Westerners consume less soybeans than Orientals. Just as with dairy products we could also say something like, It might be that the high consumption of soybean products guards against the occurrence of breast cancer. And these surely are not the only variables that correlate with breast cancer incidence and mortality. You could scour the world for various factors and find correlations, both positive and negative.

Plant goes on to tell us that based on this correlation and hypothesis of hers, she stopped taking any product that contained milk. She narrates what happened soon thereafter:

About two weeks after my second chemotherapy session and one week after giving up dairy produce, the lump in my neck started to itch. Then it began to soften and to reduce in size. The line on the graph, which had shown no change, was now pointing downwards as the tumour got smaller and smaller.

She goes on to conclude that based on her experience she was right in identifying milk as the cause.

It was difficult for me, as it may be for you, to accept that a substance as ‘natural’ as milk might have such ominous health implications. But I an i living proof that it works....

Well, unfortunately for Plant, her reasoning is flawed. She commits the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (after this, therefore, because of this). This is a causal attribution error whereby just because event B comes after A, we conclude that A caused B. Thus, just because the sun rose after the rooster crows obviously does not imply that the chicken made the sun rise. But this is precisely what Plant is saying. She tells us that she stopped taking any dairy product after which she noticed that her lump started waning until it totally disappeared. She then attributes this to her diet change. This is a textbook case of causal attribution error.

But note how she herself tells us that she was simultaneously undergoing chemotherapy, a treatment modality that is known to work against cancer. Why does she not attribute the remission to chemo? So what actually caused her lump to up and disappear? Well, we don't know for sure. It may have been the chemo, the diet change, both of these, spontaneous remission, or something else. To jump to the conclusion that it was diet change is to commit the post hoc fallacy.

Furthermore, Plant has the gall to jump to a conclusion based on her own personal experience. One anecdote is not evidence. And even if a thousand other women shared a similar story, it would still not be evidence. Thus, the aphorism goes: The plural of "anecdote" is not data, it's "anecdotes." And even if this had been a clinical trial, it is impossible for it to be a randomized controlled study for the simple reason we'd need to have at the very least two participants in the study--with one serving as the control. A clinical study with a sample size of two is in itself laughable--the margins of error would be so huge as to make its results practically useless. Hence, a sample size of one is just absurd.

Linda Bily, a reviewer on Amazon.com of Plant's book, likewise apprehends the lack of critical thinking that Plant manifests and has this to say:

The premise that since Oriental women don't consume a lot of dairy products and have less incidence of breast cancer is plausible, but unproven. I shudder to think of the thousands of women who will change their diets based on this book. I am most concerned that the high intake of estrogens and phytoestrogens, especially in the soy products recommended, could be detrimental to some women. There is still controversy in the medical community about the use of soy. If you read this book as an interesting scientific, but unproven, premise, you will be fine. If you take this book to heart, without consulting your medical specialist, you could be opening a can of worms. Dr. Plant is a respected scientist in her field. As a breast cancer survivor and advocate, I question some of her findings. The studies she cites to validate her ideas are older, some of obscure practice and are not widely confirmed. I also take issue with her description of her own breast cancer diagnosis. It returned 5 times according to the author and yet she states that it was an early stage at diagnosis. The tumor on her neck disappeared during chemo and she credits only her non-dairy diet for this shrinkage. She says that it spread to her lymphatic system, but her lymph nodes were clear. The book is interesting reading, but while I do not doubt her personal beliefs or her expertise as an earth-based scientist, I do hesitate to recommend this book to anyone. I am afraid that too many women, looking for a quick fix, will adapt her lifestyle without question. There still is no known cause or cure for breast cancer. Feel free to search alternative options and methods, but please, discuss any changes in your treatment, diet or life with your medical team and make an informed decision.

So, is Jane Plant's hypothesis that dairy products are a casual factor in breast cancer wrong? Certainly not. Let me repeat that in case you think that's a typo. It may be that regular consumption of dairy products are (partly) responsible for breast cancer. My critique above does not imply that Plant's hypothesis is totally off the mark. What is utterly awry are the methods/reasoning by which she reaches her conclusion, which means it is nowhere close to being conclusive. Keep in mind that an argument may have false premises but true conclusions. When the argument contains various fallacies then the conclusion cannot be known to be true. However, if the argument is sound (i.e, the premises are known to be true and the argument contains no fallacies) then the conclusion must by necessity be true. Because Plant does not follow scientific protocol (ie., objective, unbiased methods of testing hypotheses) we cannot have any confidence in her conclusion.

As a scientist, what Plant could have done is applied for a grant and performed randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trials (RCT) employing at least several dozens of participants. Barring this (for ethical or whatever reason), she could've performed an epidemiological study (just as was done with tobacco use and lung cancer decades ago), although such studies hardly provide the degree of certitude of RCTs. (But since she has no degree nor expertise in medicine I doubt she would've been awarded research money in the first place; thus she should've left testing of this hypothesis to the experts).

It is said that when a layperson makes a mistake in matters of, say, rocket science then that mistake is out of ignorance. But when a rocket scientist commits an error involving rocket science, that's stupidity. Prof. Jane Plant claims to be a scientist. But she made elementary mistakes about hypothesis testing and induction. Now that's utter stupidity.

As we've seen above Plant says of her cancer treatment: "I am living proof that it works." No, Prof. Plant. You're living proof that you failed to learn the essentials of Scientific Method 101. For shame!

Speak univocally, not equivocally

What's wrong with the following argument?

Mad men should be put in mental asylums. Annie's dad is mad--he just berated her for one full hour for taking money from his wallet without asking permission. Therefore, Annie's dad should be carted away in a straitjacket and locked up in a mental institution. (example is adapted from Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking, 3ed., by Merrilee H. Salmon, Harcourt Brace, 1995, p.47)

If that made you chuckle, then you hit the nail on the head intuitively. In the first sentence (statement) "mad" is used in the sense of "insane" / "mentally disturbed" / "demented". However, in the second statement "mad" is used in the sense of "angry." Because Annie's dad was angry and not insane, the conclusion (the last statement) simply does not follow. If you say that the conclusion does follow from the preceding statements then you're mad! (no, not angry, but nuts and off your rockers).

The use of the same term but with different meanings within the argument is known as the fallacy of equivocation. Professors of logic Copi and Cohen tell us that equivocation is an:

informal fallacy in which two or more meanings of the same word or phrase have been confused. If used with one of its meanings in one of the propositions of the argument but with a different meaning in another proposition of the argument, a word is said to have been used equivocally (p.688)

Equivocal arguments are always fallacious. (p.192)

[Irving M. Copi & Carl Cohen, Introduction to Logic, 10th ed., Prentice-Hall, 1998]

As we've seen from the (facetious) example above the premises (1st and 2nd statements) have nothing to do with one another given that the same word "mad" was used to mean quite different things. The Philosophy Pages tells us that: "The inferential relationship between the propositions included in a single argument will be sure to hold only if we are careful to employ exactly the same meaning in each of them," in other words, if the terms are used univocally--with only one meaning--and not equivocally--several meanings.

As with other logical errors, equivocation is sometimes used in humor. Lewis Carroll, for instance, employs it in Through the Looking Glass:

"Who did you pass on the road?" the King went on, holding his hand out to the messenger for some hay.
"Nobody," said the messenger.
"Quite right," said the King; "this young lady saw him too. So of course Nobody walks slower than you."

(quoted in Copi & Cohen, p.192)

Moving on to more serious examples.

It's the duty of the press to publish news that's in the public interest. There is great public interest in UFOs. Therefore the press fails in its duty if it does not publish articles on UFOs. (Theodore Schick, Jr. & Lewis Vaughn, How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age, 2ed., Mayfield, 1999, p.286)

Did you catch how "public interest" shifted in meaning? From meaning "welfare of the public" in the first statement it changed to "what the public wants to read about" in the second.

Here's one that's requires some prior scientific understanding. It's also an example that has an ethical side to it:

[A] sugar advertisement ... argued for increased consumption of sugar on the grounds that "Sugar is an essential component of the body ... a key material in all sorts of metabolic processes." (Howard Kahane & Paul Tidman, Logic and Philosophy: A Modern Introduction, Wadsworth, 1995, p.311)

It is true that sugar is an essential component of the body. But this "sugar" is glucose. On the other hand, the "sugar" which the advertisement is promoting is sucrose--table sugar. While both glucose and sucrose are examples of sugars (i.e., saccharides), using "sugar" to mean glucose in one part of the advert and "sucrose" in another part (even if just implicitly) is a blatant commission of equivocation. Given that this is an ad, it is almost certain that the ad makers were fully aware of what they were doing and intentionally took advantage of the equivocal meaning of "sugar" in an attempt to mislead and dupe the consumer (perhaps to counter the prevailing notion that table sugar in one's diet should be reduced to a minimum).

Now that wily, deceitful ad appropriately segues to an example of equivocation by a member of the sect/cult Jehovah's Witnesses (JW) who had the temerity of locking horns with an atheist using illogic and absurd claims. Like the above ad, his argument misleads readers by resorting to the equivocal use of a pivotal term.

This JW made the following argument:

The gods in the religion of the atheists are the atheists themselves. The atheists deny the existence of all gods. But the atheists believe that they are gods. So they idiotically deny their existence.

If you're a bit nonplussed as to how and why he can make the claim that atheists are gods, he offers the following idiosyncratic definition of "god":

A god can be the true God, can be any powerful being, any person with power in high position or anyone can be a god over a group of people under him, anyone makes himself a god if he denies the true God, a god can be also a thing like money, sex, idol, etc.

Going back to his argument about atheists, let's number the sentences/statements therein:

1. The gods in the religion of the atheists are the atheists themselves.
2. The atheists deny the existence of all gods.
3. But the atheists believe that they are gods.
4. So they idiotically deny their existence.

In #1 since atheists are human beings, natural (not supernatural) phenomena, we know that he uses "gods" in the sense he has defined it.

In #2 however, "gods" can only pertain to supernatural entities since that is what atheists don't believe in, that is what "gods" mean when atheists declare "I/We do not believe in gods". It cannot be in the sense that this JW has defined it since needless to say atheists believe in the existence of powerful persons in high positions, in the existence of other humans beings, in the existence of sex, money, and idols (presumably he means that sex, money and other objects in the world can be idolized, i.e., inordinately valued by some people to the point of obsession, reverence, etc.). This JW cannot of course claim that "gods" in #2 refer to a subset of the "gods" as he has defined it since he tells us that "atheists deny the existence of all gods" (emphasis added). Insisting that "gods" here is the same as in #1 would mean that premise #2 is false, pretty obviously so, thus pulling the rug from his argument.

In #3,ostensibly, he uses "gods" in the sense as he does in #1.

Given that this JW uses "gods" in two different senses, his argument commits the fallacy of equivocation.

#4 is the conclusion. But as we've seen and learned above this conclusion cannot legitimately follow from the premises because the word "gods" has been used equivocally.

In order to further see more clearly how the above argument in fact commits the fallacy of equivocation here is an example that uses "God" (capitalized) equivocally:

Some religious arguments can also include equivocations, for example:

It is not possible for the universe to exist without a cause, therefore there must have been a First Cause, which we can reasonably call "God." I already believe in the God of the Bible, and now you have no excuse for not doing so as well.
...

[W]e can see that God is being used in two entirely different ways. In the first sense, God is simply being used as a convenient term to describe a First Cause of the universe, with no particular attributes beyond that which is necessary to cause a universe. But in the second sense, the term God is used for something much more specific and with many more attributes: a traditional Christian conception of God.

(Fallacies of Ambiguity: Equivocation)

In logic, a deductive argument is said to be valid if it contains no fallacies. In a valid argument the conclusion logically and necessarily follows from the premises. An argument is said to be sound if the argument is valid and all the premises are known to be or have been shown to be true. Given a sound argument the conclusion therein must necessarily be true.

It is important to stress that the premises of an argument do not have actually to be true in order for the argument to be valid. An argument is valid if the premises and conclusion are related to each other in the right way so that if the premises were true, then the conclusion would have to be true as well. We can recognize in the above case that even if one of the premises is actually false, that if they had been true the conclusion would have been true as well. Consider, then an argument such as the following:

All toasters are items made of gold.
All items made of gold are time-travel devices.
Therefore, all toasters are time-travel devices.

Obviously, the premises in this argument are not true. It may be hard to imagine these premises being true, but it is not hard to see that if they were true, their truth would logically guarantee the conclusion's truth. It is easy to see that the previous example is not an example of a completely good argument. A valid argument may still have a false conclusion. When we construct our arguments, we must aim to construct one that is not only valid, but sound. A sound argument is one that is not only valid, but begins with premises that are actually true.

(Validity and Soundness)

Given this primer on validity and soundness, is the argument by the JW a valid argument? No, since it contains at least one logical fallacy.

Is it a sound argument? No, since it is invalid. And we don't even need to ask if the premises are true (a necessary condition for an argument to be valid), because an invalid argument can never be sound (validity is also a necessary condition for an argument to be sound).


The lesson: Make sure you use terms consistently. You can preclude equivocation by defining your terms precisely and in detail at the very beginning and double checking that every instance of the term is consistent with how it has been defined. Remember: the existence of equivocation renders an argument invalid. And sometimes, if flagrant, it may make it rather silly too.

Deja vu, Oprah

Three years ago Oprah lent her weight to a book entitled A Million Little Pieces, written by James Frey. It's an autobiography about his drug addiction and eventual recovery. At least that's what Frey purported it to be. It was soon discovered, however, that Frey had falsified a good number of "facts" and embellished others. His memoir turned out to be largely fictional.

Oprah had made a mistake, a big one--for her endorsement had boosted sales of this title to millions of copies. But Oprah did something very few do--she admitted on a succeeding episode how she had made a terrible mistake. Oprah bit the bullet, swallowed her pride, and apologized to her audience and viewers and even invited Frey and censured him right on her show. She even told a Washington Post columnist who had criticized her as deluded that he was right--that she was wrong and that his criticism was appropriate.

Recently, Oprah committed a far more egregious mistake, one that puts lives on the line. She's endorsed anti-vaccine propagandist Jenny McCarthy. Oprah has practically given Jenny a carte blanche by providing her her own show on the Oprah network.

Three years ago Oprah owned up and showed America her integrity. Hopefully this time around she will do the same.

Shirley Wu has written an open letter to Oprah encouraging her to do the right thing.

...To me, it is clear that a significant number of people look up to you, and trust your advice and judgment. That is why it is such a huge mistake for you to endorse Jenny McCarthy with her own show on your network.

Surely you must realize that McCarthy is neither a medical professional nor a scientist. And yet she acts as a spokesperson for the anti-vaccination movement, a movement that directly impacts people’s health. Claims that vaccines are unsafe and cause autism have been refuted time after time, but their allure persists in part because of high-profile champions for ignorance like McCarthy. In fact, ten of the thirteen authors of the paper that sparked the modern anti-vaccination movement retracted the explosive conclusions they made due to insufficient evidence. Furthermore, it is now clear that the study’s main author, Andrew Wakefield, falsified data to support these shaky conclusions.

Go on over to Shirley's blog and read her missive in its entirety. If you think it's worth it spread the word. And let Oprah know about it if you can. Remind her about Frey.

Vatican twaddle

The latest from the Vatican:

Cardinal William Levada, head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the Catholic Church doesn't stand in the way of scientific realities like evolution, saying there was a "wide spectrum of room" for belief in both the scientific basis for evolution and faith in God the creator.

"We believe that however creation has come about and evolved, ultimately God is the creator of all things," he said on the sidelines of the conference.

But while the Vatican did not exclude any area of science, it did reject as "absurd" the atheist notion of biologist and author Richard Dawkins and others that evolution proves there is no God, he said.

What?! When did Dawkins say evolution proves there is no God/gods? Firstly, science is not in the business of offering proofs. Can't they (and journalists) get that into their skulls? Secondly, the worst or best (depending on your perspective) that evolution can say is that the various extant species came to be via natural processes--that the "some deity zapped plants, animals, and humans directly into existence" hypothesis has been dealt a coup de grace.

The Catholic Church might be finally learning. It's shoving its deity into those regions where science cannot follow it (the Church, that is). Sure, you can be Deistic and say "God is the creator of the universe." For now--and perhaps a long time to come--it's nonfalsifiable and nontestable. But those Vat boys better cross their fingers and pray that scientists don't take that away from them as well. There are already alternative naturalistic hypotheses, you know.

The Aviator

Imagine there's this top pilot, the best in the world. S/he can fly any plane blindfolded from the smallest to the biggest, commercial or military. Let's call him the Aviator. Not let's say a new electronic system has been invented that allows any plane to be flown by remote control from the ground. Given how this fly by wire(less) device can save a troubled plane from crashing this type of avionics becomes the new standard in civil aviation. The leading aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus quickly retrofit all their existing short, medium and long-haul planes with this device. What's more, there need only be one remote control box (RCB) to manage all aircrafts. One merely has to punch in the aircraft's number into the RCB and, voila!, one immediately has total control of that particular plane with all the feedback from the sensors and gauges displayed right there on the colored LCD screen.

Imagine the Aviator is the sole individual authorized and certified to operate the RCB which he has with him all the time, 24/7. (It has various hi tech security measures that makes it practically impossible for some one with malicious intent to gain access to the RCB's functions). In case of an emergency the Aviator is informed and he can proceed to try and bring the plane of the crisis.

Now let's say Flight 576 bound for Tokyo, carrying some 300 passengers, has radioed in and reports that they've been losing altitude over the past hour. Nothing the pilots have done has been able to bring them back up to a safe altitude. Media has already picked up the exchange between 576 and the tower. The latest word is that the aircraft is now flying less than 500 meters above the Pacific Ocean.

At present the Aviator is in a pub in Dublin. By sheer luck the telly is broadcasting the news about Flight 576. The Aviator watches and knows of course that the situation is about to end horrifically. But instead of immediately pulling out the RCB he sits back and continues sipping his drink.

Someone in the pub recognizes him. "Mr. Aviator! It's you, right? Hey that plane's going down. Aren't you going to do anything?" He waves the guy away. "Neither the tower, the FAA nor the IATA, or any of those in charge has asked for my help. If they don't buzz me, well, that's just too bad for the crew and passengers." The man is incredulous. "What?! You're just going to let all those people die?!"

----

Do you think you the Aviator had an ethical obligation to use the RCB to try and prevent the plane from crashing? Do you think he should be ethically and criminally liable for ignoring the crisis, for not doing anything to help?

One of the latest air mishaps--real one this time--occurred in Buffalo, New York last week. Continental Flight 3407 dropped out of the sky and crashed into a house, killing one on the ground and all 49 on board.

Who do you think had the RCB that could've prevented this tragedy?

God.

We can be quite confident there were people on board who rung Him/Her/It up. They had beseeched their deity to save them from certain death. But even assuming not one supplication was beamed, this being is said to be all-seeing, all-knowing. This entity in a sense was watching the entire drama unfold on his heavenly 600-inch plasma tv. And what did it do? God just let all those people die horrifically.

If you're a theist who believes God had the power to prevent the accident, knew what was happening and what would eventually happen unless he stepped in, actually cares about human beings, is a good and loving being, then if you have the gall to tell me that your deity is not morally, criminally culpable then you are absolutely sick in the head. Conjuring up such explanations as "higher good" or "mystery" to absolve this being of responsibility is nothing but a quadriplegic excuse.

Theodicies are just psychological painkillers to stem the massive attack of cognitive dissonance.

It ain't woo; it's proven scientific fact

A group of women--at least two of whom are purportedly scientists--have started what they dub The Faith of Britain. And they have marked March 6 as the Faith of Britain Day.

For exactly two minutes on March 6th at 11.00am our consortium of psychics and healers will act as a channel for the positive thoughts of the entire country.

All those positive thoughts will be just that--thoughts. It will be what these psychics, healers and participants are going to do, how they will act that'll have an impact on their lives and on those around them.

I wouldn't even have bothered blogging about this if it weren't for the following claim of theirs:

It is a proven scientific fact that thinking about something often causes it to happen. Some call this quantum physics. Others simply call it "faith."

Gee, I never knew this is already a "proven scientific fact." For decades I've been endlessly thinking/imagining/fantasizing/visualizing of being in bed with Zeus knows how many big screen actresses but, by Jove, not one of them--any of them--has come within a trillion miles, much less landed beside me naked. Ah! I probably am not thinking hard enough. I better start having sex on my mind 24/7.

I fired off this email to Faith of Britain:

Hello. According to your homepage, "It is a proven scientific fact that thinking about something often causes it to happen." Does that mean that if I think of my mom's diabetes and cardiovascular diseases going away, then it will happen? If day and night I think of being a billionaire when will I become richer than Bill Gates? How long does a person have to think of something before it comes true?

Can you please point me to the scientific evidence showing that thinking about something causes it to occur? In particular please provide the controlled experiments that were conducted and which have been replicated. In which peer-reviewed journals were these published?

Thank you.

You'd think that having two scientists on board would've prevented them from making such an untenable statement as "it's a proven scientific fact." Which makes me wonder what exactly Lisa Elmore and Isabelle Bonnaire mean when they describe themselves as "Scientists." Conspicuously, they fail to mention whether they're biologists, chemists, physicists or whatnot.

If I ever receive a reply to the email I'll post it.

Truth in advertizing

In an ad campaign by atheists in London late last year they had buses bearing the slogan "There probably is no God. So stop worrying and enjoy life." I already had reservations about its impact, and now my concern with the wording of that ad has been voiced:

Where did that "probably" come from? It doesn't suggest the sales staff is overly confident about its product. If my pilot told me "This flight to Paris probably won't crash," I'd think about taking the train.

Indeed, I share the observation that "probably" does detract from the possible maximum impact the ad could've had. The lack of resoluteness, the apparent wishy-washiness of the proclamation all but kills the message. Contrast "There probably are no ghosts" with "There are no ghosts." By including "probably" the statement comes across to believers as "Gee, there's a chance that ghosts exist after all."

Unfortunately, we atheists, skeptics, "reality-based communities" will have to live with this problem. That there probably are no sky daddies is the truth. The reality is--our current state of knowledge is--not that "there is no god" but that those who claim its existence have not provided sufficient persuasive evidence. Were we to drop "probably" we'd have to lay on the table evidence which we simply don't have. Evincing such a universal negative is, needless to say, a tall order. It would've been great to emblazon vehicles with "THERE IS NO GOD!" But that would be a lie. We just don't know with 100% certainty. We don't have enough reasons and evidence to make that leap. And indeed proclaiming "there is no god" would be a leap of faith--belief that is disproportionate to the reasons/evidence at hand.

Were we so audacious as to imply that we are certain of the nonexistence of supernatural beings, religionists would be right in slapping us with one of our own principles of clear thinking: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. (Of course the fact that there is a dearth of evidence--for any X--ought to restrain everyone from believing in X, for doing so would be irrational--why believe in X if good reasons for doing so are absent?)

Many ads mislead. I would even say it's the norm. Even preachers, pastors, priests withhold the whole picture and fail to mention to their congregation the epistemic fine print. So we're not going to make the same mistakes as the faith-heads. We are not going to commit the very errors we're exposing and critiquing. We're here to inform and shed light, not distort the picture.

It stands: There probably are no gods.

A deity-enthralled psychologist writes atheists

Months ago I came across news that psychologist David Myers was coming out with his latest book A Friendly Letter to Skeptics and Atheists: Musings on Why God Is Good and Faith Isn't Evil. After reading excerpts back then I had expressed reservations about it. Now having gone through A Friendly Letter I can say that I am hardly impressed and indeed don't consider his missive as addressing the major concern of religious skeptics.

Basically, Myer's opus is a defense of religion as a human phenomenon. He defends religion and religiosity by making an appeal to consequences. Not in the sense that he concludes his religion is the true religion and that his deity is real, rather in the sense that religion should be considered a positive force because it has in large measure produced good and made a great many people altruistic. For instance he shows through various studies and surveys that the religious have lower divorce rates, smoke less, and commit less crimes. The religious are into charities and hospital care and other pro-social activities. Towards the end of the book Myers does make it explicit that whatever comes out from religion does not validate his theistic beliefs, its consequences do not imply the existence or nonexistence of his deity.

I have no problem with the fruits of religions. It's empirically clear that various traditions (not just Christianity) have led to good (as well as evil as Myers freely admits). My primary concern is not whether belief in, say, Santa Claus produces better behaved children, but rather whether Santa is real or not, whether belief in Santa is warranted (by evidence and reasons at hand) or delusional. Other atheists may put more weight on religion's fruits but my main concern is with what's real and what's illusory. I'm concerned with the very core belief of theism, i.e., the reality of deities and the supernatural realm. Is there or is there not at least one god? Does the supernatural exist or not? Is belief in these things justified or not? Is there sufficient justification, reasons and evidence to warrant belief? Myers does not address these central, fundamental questions, which to my mind should be since he's addressing skeptics and atheists. He's more interested in showing how being religious, having a religion, having supernatural beliefs can be beneficial psychologically, emotionally, and socially. Reading Myers, I get the feeling he's telling me: Look at all the social, psychological, emotional benefits of harboring a delusion. Ain't it great! Well, feel free to climb on board. Plug into our beliefs; the Matrix is heavenly!

Very early on Myers wants to make it clear that he's one of us--a skeptic and one who espouses critical thinking.

[F]or the most part, my skeptical friends, I share your skepticism. As an appreciative longtime subscriber to The Skeptical Inquirer and to Michael Shermer’s interesting Skeptic’s Society mailings, I cheer on challenges to rampant irrationalism. Thus my Psychology (8th edition) begins with a chapter on “thinking critically with psychological science" and thereafter offers scientific analyses of alternative medicine, astrology, ESP, near-death experiences, repression, hypnosis, and lots more. I have critically examined the supposed powers of unchecked intuition (in Intuition: Its Powers and Perils). And I enjoy casting a critical eye on intriguing claims by asking “What do you mean?” and “How do you know?” (p.6)

Myers may share our skepticism vis-a-vis astrologers, sCAM, psychics, crop circles, and other extraordinary claims, but he certainly shields extraordinary claims he believes in--sectarian in this case--from the light of skeptical inquiry. Need we point out that rather than being critical he's being hypocritical? I'd really like to bounce back one of the questions he enjoys asking: How do you know that your theistic beliefs are true? How do you know that a god exists and that it is your brand that's the real McCoy? How do you know?

Myers reveals to us that "God loves us" (p.125). I'm just wondering how he knows that. And if he doesn't what makes him believe in that quaint, namby-pamby claim? Has God shown this love of his? If so what is Myers' evidence? I'm all ears. Or is it that Myers posits a nontestable claim--e.g., that God will express his love after we are with him in heaven? Or could it be that he just likes the idea and the attendant feelings that come from truly believing there is a transcendent parental figure who loves us all?

Myers is a staunch evolutionist. He will have nothing of creationism, including its latest mutation Intelligent Design. He even includes as an appendix the International Society for Science and Religion's statement on ID. Furthermore, Myers doesn't believe that prayer works. (That's an interesting revelation). He says that a lot of believers equate prayer with magic and God with some genie or heavenly Santa Claus. Myers is also well aware of the ultimate futility of God of the Gaps arguments. But mindful of how science will, given enough time, eventually shine light into every nook and cranny, he hides his god in a gap that science cannot hope to illuminate--the untestable and the unfalsifiable. Hence, Myers can keep his belief in a preternatural realm and in a nondetectable, nonphysical being.

Given that Myers is a psychologist and that he's addressing skeptics and atheists, what I didn't expect was a homily. He sprinkles his missive with such irrelevant and inappropriate sermons as::

So let us observe and experiment, believing that whatever God found worth creating, we should find worth studying. Moreover, let us do so freely, knowing that our ultimate allegiance is not to any human authority or human doctrine but to God alone. (p.18)

Myers should know better than to preach to skeptics and atheists. What could Myers have been thinking when he penned these lines? It's a mortal sin to preach to nonbelievers! They won't listen to such trash and will probably tune out. I almost did and nearly gave up reading.

Yet another thing that drives me (and I guess not a few atheists as well) up the wall is being subjected to interminable bible-quoting by faith-heads. It's like being nagged. And yet Myers does so as if he's preaching to the choir. Again, what could he have been thinking? Does he really think atheists are ignorant of his sacred text or that they'll be swayed by verses and passages?

The worst part, however, is that Myers reveals himself to be a cherry picker. He quotes from the bible, but he selects only those that affirm his beliefs, only those passages that are, shall we say, good and wholesome. Biblical teachings that are patently immoral or stories that are factually untrue and clash with science he's mum about. That a psychologist would fall into the trap of confirmation and selection bias is truly pathetic. In fact I say it's unforgivable. If one defends cherry picking as valid for one's sacred text then one has to accept that it's valid for any text. It also means calling it "sacred" is ridiculous since it's the reader who gets to pick and choose which parts s/he will hold sacred.

Myers admits that the "nasty practices" in Leviticus are not of the same ethical standing as those in Isaiah or the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament (p.15). This of course just shows that the bible is not inerrant, that it can't be the word of some perfect being. Moreover it shows that believers like Myers actively judge the bible, choosing to emphasize some parts, ignore others, and even dearly wish they could sweep the worst parts under the rug. But if cherry picking and the use of ethical discernment are valid in reading the bible then it is Myers who's creating his own god and his own religion. No longer is the bible sacred such that it as a whole dictates how Myers should think, live and eat but that Myers controls what he's going to accept as biblical in his life. He sifts through the text and highlights and heaps praises on those passages that he likes while conveniently turning a blind eye to those that he disapproves of and finds irrelevant.. Well, looks like Myers is just like most non-fundamentalist Christians--they fashion Christianity in their image.

While Myers may opt for delusion if that delusion bears sweet, succulent fruits, I on the other hand favor "reality at all costs" (a phrase by psychiatrist M. Scott Peck which he used in describing what mental health means to him). Christians are fond of saying "the truth will set you free." Which is pretty ironic and odd given how their entire belief system is predicated on beliefs for which there is no good evidence. The truth? The truth is that they merely wish and hope they have not believed in vain. Here's Myers position on truth:

If religion is, on balance, adaptive rather than toxic—if it bends us toward happiness, health, and helpfulness—that is worth knowing. But it still leaves truth up for grabs. And truth is what matters. If religious claims were shown to be untrue, though comforting and adaptive, what honest person would choose to believe? And if religious claims were shown to be true, though discomfiting, what honest person would choose to disbelieve? (p.128)

Let's emphasize that. Truth is what matters.


Thanks for trying to inform us and even tying to change our minds, Dr. Myers. But frankly I'd much rather reread Batson, Schoenrade, & Ventis' Religion and the Individual: A Social-Psychological Perspective. It's amongst the couple of psychology of religion works I loved reading cover to cover. The authors provided science, lots of it. You on the other hand brought in psychological studies alright but just as well talked from the pulpit and hosed your intended audience with theology and sectarian beliefs. The latter was a huge turn off. It mostly certainly detracted from the intention that your message be a "friendly" one.

Del Monte pineapple enema

Some months ago I came across a Del Monte pineapple juice ad that touted the product as an aid in ridding the body of toxins. Upon hearing the radio commercial I slapped my head and blurted, "Good grief! Even Del Monte has ventured into woowoo." In later versions of the ad campaign the company even hired a celebrity to get the detoxification message across. (I get a kick whenever a some star endorses woowoo--it just reinforces the stereotype that they're airheads).

I'm blogging about this just now because that Del Monte marketing inanity was the first thing that popped into my head when a friend shared this detox myth article.

There's more detox news from Dr. David Colquhoun and Ben Goldacre.

Happy not birthday to you, happy not birthday to you, ...

Hey, what do you know? Jesus' pretend birthday is coming up again. This dude is really special. The chosen one. The Son of a Gun. You see he's the only bloke who gets to celebrate his birthday on the day he wasn't born! Now that must take a miracle to pull off.

Rewinding a bit, nine months before his real birthday (whenever that was and if ever that was), Jeebus was conceived. Big problem though. No human father. No semen. No fertilization. No chromosomes except mama's. But somehow a zygote appeared which then became an embryo which eventually grew into a fetus. Ergo, Jeebus ought to be the Ever Virgin's clone. Hence, he was a she, and she was a Dolly? On the other hand since the fable says it was Sky Daddy who got Mary pregnant then ... Whoa! We've got a god screwing around with a mortal! Then again, why act surprised? The Babylonian king Sargon (c. 2300 B.C.E.) was born of an ordinary woman and a mountain god. Zoroaster, the Persian prophet who lived in the 6th century B.C.E. was God-begotten and virgin born. Cuchulain, an Irish hero, was the son of the god Lugh and the human female Deichtne. Okuninushi of Japan was one of the numerous sons of the storm god Susanowo and by the mortal woman Kishinada. The Aztec hero Quetzlcoatl was born of the virgin Chimalman, to whom the god Onteotl had appeared in a dream. The Greek god Zeus impregnated such women as Danaë resulting in the birth of Perseus; while the union of the god Apollo and Aria created Miletus. So it happens all the time, ok? Obviously the other gods have had their fill of female flesh. It was the Semitic deity's turn. It was but fair, you know--equal opportunity, no to discrimination, and all that jazz.

We can keep pedaling back all the way to the Garden where slithering reptiles had neocortices (biologists and evolutionists take note!) and so had the faculty of human speech and where an omniscient creator had not an inkling, mind you, of what was to happen next in the script he himself wrote, but then you get the point. This Bronze Age, Dark Age whackology is ten orders of magnitude more ridiculous than the worst trash Hollywood churns out. Which makes you really worry that not a few buy it as nonfiction.

How to turn anyone into a killer

Last Friday shoppers who'd been waiting outside a Wal-Mart for hours burst into the store, tragically trampling to death one of its employees.

Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault. Six to 10 workers inside tried to push back, but it was hopeless.

Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him. Others who had stood alongside Mr. Damour trying to hold the doors were also hurled back and run over, witnesses said.

...

Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like “savages.” Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

“When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ ” Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. “They kept shopping.”

The Milgram experiment among others has shown us definitively that ordinary citizens can become torturers and killers if you just nudge them inch by inch, initially asking them to do something trivially bad then gradually making them do worse things. That's how young idealistic recruits into government become bad.

In this case had the wave of shoppers been waiting only a couple of minutes I think they would in fact have become good Samaritans rather than homicidal. In fact they wouldn't have stormed the store in the first place. They would've been civil. It's the pressure of having been in line for hours, almost a full day if we are to believe the quote above, and in the cold(?) that turned these people into savages, as Cribbs describes them. Samaritan or otherwise, when under pressure, under stress, we all move closer to the edge. That said, stress and pressure may be contributing causal factors but they are not excuses. These people are guilty of having killed a person.

Since Cribbs was an observer she might've been closer to the back of the line. You'd expect people who've waited less and were less motivated to come and shop early to be among the more sober ones. Those who came earliest were the most motivated, the most "fanatical", therefore, the most dangerous, the most "savage."

In the aftermath I wouldn't be surprised if some of those shoppers directly responsible will even denigrate the deceased. They might call him stupid for putting himself in harm's way. These shoppers like all of us consider themselves decent, law abiding citizens. The psychological dissonance of having been party to a homicide demands an immediate resolution. In order to regain consonance, to maintain their self-image of being a good person, it is most likely they will pass the buck and blame--to the victim, to Wal-Mart, to the police, to circumstances. Admission of personal culpability/responsibility would be too painful a blow to their self concept. Needless to say, admission may get them incarcerated.

Is Weinberg right?

I have much respect for physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg. He's an atheist and has little qualms in calling a spade a spade when it comes to the irrationality of supernaturalism. But the following oft-quoted statement by him has had me disturbed for some time now.

Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

If I read correctly Weinberg is saying that the only way for a good person to do evil things is if s/he becomes an adherent of or a believer in some religion. To put it in another way, Weinberg is saying that without religion good people would not do evil things. I haven't been able to put my finger on it but his assertion just didn't seem right. I am leery of blanket statements such as "_____ is the root of (all) evil." Dawkins said it plainly when he objected to his producers' entitling his atheism documentary Root of All Evil? In interviews Dawkins has averred that "no one thing is the root of all anything." (Unfortunately the producers just wouldn't change the title. The only concession to Dawkins' concern was the addition of the question mark.) Be that as it may, Dawkins uses the above Weinberg quote in his The God Delusion (Bantam Press, 2007, p. 249) in a way that implicitly gives the nod to Weinberg. (You've got two very intelligent and eminent scientists here--one making the claim and the other agreeing. I should probably doubt my doubting, shut up and just listen to these giants. But illicit appeal to authority isn't in the critical thinker's toolbox.)

After reading Mistakes Were Made (but not by me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, I've finally found reason for my unease. In this important and very enthralling work for the general public (which I most highly recommend to everyone more than any book I can think of right now) the authors show us how ordinarily good people can eventually commit rather atrocious acts. What it takes is baby steps--continually rationalizing and justifying the almost trivial immoral/unethical deeds that we do. One does not commit a really bad thing overnight (unless, perhaps, in a fit of rage). That takes time. One gradually moves down the "pyramid of choice," moving further and further away from a route we would've taken had we made a different choice when we started our journey. Tavris and Aronson articulate this process:

When the person at the top of the pyramid is uncertain, when there are benefits and costs of [sic] both choices, then he or she will feel a particular urgency to justify the choice made. But by the time the person is at the bottom of the pyramid, ambivalence will have morphed into certainty, and he or she will be miles from anyone who took a different route.

This process blurs the distinction that people like to draw between "us good guys" and "those bad guys." Often, standing at the top of the pyramid, we are faced not with a black-and-white, go/no-go decision, but with a gray choice whose consequences are shrouded. The first steps along the path are morally ambiguous, and the right decision is not always clear. We make an early, apparently inconsequential decision, and then we justify it to reduce the ambiguity of the choice. This starts a process of entrapment--action, justification, further action--that increases our intensity and commitment, and may end up taking us far from our original intentions or principles. [p. 33-34]

In the very famous experiment by psychologist Stanley Milgram some four decades ago, subjects were asked to deliver an electric shock to a person whenever this individual made a mistake, under the pretext that they were participating in a study on the role of punishment in learning. The subjects were also instructed to increase the voltage level as the person made more mistakes. The subjects weren't able to see this person but could hear him/her, and thus could hear the groans and pleas and cries as the shocks were applied. This unseen "victim" was in fact a confederate of the research team, and in reality no shocks were ever delivered. In front of the subject was an electrical panel with switches. The labels indicated that the voltage ranged from 10 to 450 volts. As the experiment proceeded the confederate deliberately committed errors and feigned various reactions proportional to the voltage levels. The results of this experiment are most interesting and disturbing.

When people are asked in advance how far they imagine they would go, almost no one says they would go to 450. But when they are actually in the situation, two-thirds of them go all the way to the maximum level they believe is dangerous. They do this by justifying each step as they went along: This small shock doesn't hurt; 20 isn't much worse than 10; if I've given 20, why not 30? As they justified each step, they committed themselves further. By the time people were administering what they believed were strong shocks, most found it difficult to justify a sudden decision to quit. Participants who resisted early in the study, questioning the very validity of the procedure, were less likely to become entrapped by it and more likely to walk out. The Milgram experiment shows us how ordinary people can end up doing immoral and harmful things through a chain reaction of behavior and subsequent self-justification. [p.37]

Thus, if Weinberg is saying that religion is necessary (but insufficient)* for good people to do evil things, then I'm afraid he's wrong. It is in our psychology to justify our actions even if we are mistaken. Self-justification is hard-wired in our brains. Though we may be good we can end up doing bad things, sometimes really bad things, because we have successfully and continually convinced ourselves we have done no wrong while all the while traveling down the road to perdition. Given the findings of social psychology it is plausible if not probable that religion is not a necessary condition for good people to do evil things (even if religion--or certain characteristics thereof--can be--and has been--a causal factor in tipping good people into committing evil).

And rather obviously, we need only find one good person--a nonbeliever--who's committed one evil thing to falsify Weinberg's claim.

That would be the end of my critique were it not for the glaring lack of what "good" and "evil" actually mean operationally. What criteria are we to use in determining whether a person is good or evil, in evaluating which deeds/actions/behavior are good and which are evil? How good is "good," how bad is "evil"? There is a need for clear definitions of these terms, these classes of people and action/behavior. And depending on how these are defined, Weinberg's aphorism may yet withstand falsification. I for one certainly would be most ecstatic if Weinberg's dictum holds.


------

* in philosophy a necessary condition is one without which some event E cannot occur (but which by itself alone may or may not cause the occurrence.of E). A sufficient condition is one which is necessary and which will cause E to occur. Of course, there may be a number of necessary conditions for E to occur. Taken collectively these will be the sufficient condition that leads to E. For example, a power source is a necessary condition for a lamp to give off light, but it is not a sufficient condition. Another necessary condition is the wire to conduct the electricity to the lamp. Power source and conductor together constitute a sufficient condition for the lamp to light. Given the presence of all necessary conditions the lamp must light. If it doesn't then the sufficient condition was in fact not a sufficient one, i.e., one or more necessary conditions were absent (perhaps there is a switch and we forgot to flip it!). Given that Weinberg says that with or without religion good people will do good things but that it takes religion for good people to do evil things, he is asserting that religion is a necessary condition but not a sufficient one. This means that good people who are religious have gained the potential to do evil things, which they would not have had they not been religious.

The wave of change

I am overjoyed that America has chosen its first African-American president. Barack Obama is the man of the hour and for the hour. I'm no fan of Oprah (on the contrary) but she just put in words how I feel today. Upon hearing of Obama's victory, she said that hope has just been born. Most certainly, indeed!

That said, I'm amused to discover that among Obama's foibles is his superstiousness. Apparently he has an election day superstition --playing basketball. I presume that given the co - incidence--of having played and won by a landslide--he will carry on with this ritual in the years and decades to come. And let's not even talk about his fantasies about invisible beings in the sky, a being whom he called to bless America.

And so I still have a dream--that within my lifetime there shall be that commander-in-chief of the most powerful country, male or female, of whatever color, who is uninfected by the mind viruses we call superstitions.

Poor Nikki

I just received the following spam SMS (formatting and caps as in original):

Hi there Nikki here

There is only ONE TRUE GOD.

Christians Unity. One Name. One God.

Thanks. :)

I promptly replied:

How about first proving your God and not mine is the real one? If you can't then mine is the true god and religion.

The logical fallacy therein is intentional. I opted to use jujitsu--using the opponent's own flawed reasoning against him.

Fueled by the arrogance and thoughtlessness of texting total strangers (whose religious or nonreligious orientation s/he's totally unaware of), I followed it up with the following long missive:

If you can point to your sacred text so can I. If you underscore the 2,000 years under your tradition's belt, I will remind you mine is 3,000 years older. If you say a billion believers cant be wrong, then count the number who believed the Earth is flat and the Sun and other planets go around the Earth. If you implore me to just have faith, then I shall beseech you to have twice the faith in my god, tradition and holy book.

No jujitsu there. Just sound reasoning in literary trappings in the hopes of enlightening such a naive, parochial, unthinking soul.

When adults are no more enlightened than their kids

In a city in Mindoro, Philippines, some two dozen students mostly female have experienced "seizures" in the past two months. The Inquirer reports that the children "were crying in pain as they suffered from seizures and shortness of breath in a paranormal [emphasis mine] phenomenon that has left a public high school here petrified and perplexed." The reporter has dutifully conveyed the symptoms to us readers. But how does she know the phenomenon is paranormal? How was she able to make the leap from observed facts to causal explanation? What's her definition of paranormal anyway?

So what could have afflicted these kids? School principal Henry Tungol tells us the students have been "possessed by evil spirits." Yep, the head of the school has promptly diagnosed the children as having been the victims of invisible supernatural entities. How did he come to know this? Through the process of natural ignorance of course. If something puzzles you, if something gives you goosebumps, if you have no medical expertise, if in your omniscience you can't explain it any other way, if all you can fall back on is the tradition of superstition you were raised in, then the phenomenon must be supernatural/paranormal. And if what's before you bathes you with a warm fuzzy feeling, then it must be good spirits, otherwise it's those pesky evil ones. Simple.

The Mindoro "epidemic" reminds me of St. Vitus Dance. A search on CSICOP revealed the following on what was known as tarantism, a disease that supposedly occurred during the summer months of July and August:

Symptoms included headache, giddiness, breathlessness, fainting, trembling, twitching, appetite loss, general soreness, and delusions. Sometimes it was claimed that a sore or swelling was caused by a tarantula bite, but such assertions were difficult to verify because the bite resembled those of insects. The dance frenzy symptoms resemble typical modern episodes of epidemic hysteria, in addition to expected reactions from exhaustive physical activity and excessive alcohol consumption.

The seizures did occur in the last two months, although as to the degree of difference in seasons/climes between Europe and Mindoro I don't know. The article doesn't say anything about "dancing" or any wild frenzied behavior so this may be a totally different type of hysteria we're dealing with here.

Among the various candidate explanations, there is one which for now I don't give high points. We're told that exams were just around the bend. It's possible that some of these high school kids conspired to play a prank on their community and feigned "possession," not least to disrupt exam week.

But whatever the nature of this Mindoro event, the most prudent course of action is to check mundane, natural explanations before even entertaining notions of paranormal, demonic, supernatural, or what have you. We know that children can be mischievous, we know that medical and psychological conditions exist. We work with and from what we know, not from that which has no empirical base to support it whatsoever.

Cracker mania

The brouhaha is now all over the blogosphere. Instead of swallowing the consecrated wafer given to him by the priest, a college student took it out of his mouth and brought it home to show some nonCatholic friend of his. Reports say that Catholics are outraged and some have even sent the kid death threats. Looks like loving one's enemies and turning the other cheek have gone out of fashion.

A student at the University of Central Florida says he's now getting death threats after he stole and later returned a wafer representing the "Body of Christ" from a Catholic Mass in Orlando.

The student senator, Webster Cook, originally claimed he merely wanted to show the Eucharist to a friend who had questions about Catholicism before consuming the host.

Cook, who was raised Catholic, said he decided to bring the wafer home June 29 after a church leader tried to physically pry it from his hand. Cook broke Church rules by failing to consume it immediately during Communion and then removing it from his mouth once seated.

The part about Catholics being furious and the scuffle with the church leader is most revealing. Take a second to digest that: Catholics are angry because the host/wafer/cracker has to be eaten but was not. The piece of bread has to be literally put in one's mouth and has to be literally swallowed. Keep in mind that in Catholicism the host is said to be literally the body of Jesus Christ, a being who's both fully human and fully divine (a god). Now go ahead and add two and two together. How much more literal does it have to get to understand that the Catholic Church not only accepts but in fact demands cannibalism and theophagy (the ingestion of gods)? In Catholicism opting out of eating Jesus is, to put it mildly, frowned upon.

This is the 21st century right? Forgive me for being in a daze, but WTF is this "church rule" about cannibalism being one's duty?!