tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15715951287876655492024-03-13T15:06:40.740+13:00Indoctrinating FreethoughtThose who do not use freethought demand free speech as compensation.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.comBlogger45125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-48266983641118502242013-05-26T14:48:00.000+12:002013-05-26T14:50:07.347+12:00P/PC balanceOne of the most important ideas in Steve Covey's <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Habits-Highly-Effective-People-Powerful/dp/0743269519/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369536514&sr=1-1&keywords=seven+habits+of+highly+effective+people">The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People</a></i> is that of P/PC balance. The P stands for production, the amount of output you create. Production is the goal you are trying to meet and can often seem like the most important aspect of your career, financial, or personal aspirations. However, production capacity or PC is equally as important for without this capacity nothing will be produced and no goals will be met. Sometimes work on PC can be temporarily put aside to focus on output, but this time needs to be made up be working on PC until it is back to full capacity. Ideally, you strive to keep work on P and PC in balance at all times.
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Many different activities count as PC building. Organisation and planning are a big part of the equation. Being prepared to produce is just as important as producing itself. Looking after your mental and physical health is also a PC activity. Suffering from mental burn-out or even physical exhaustion will prevent you from getting things done. Although it is possible to put these considerations aside for a short-term deadline, long-term neglect will lead to a complete loss of production capability and thus a loss of production. Certain routine tasks also maintain our ability to produce. Making sure the materials are available, procedure written up for review, and notes recorded makes it easier for us to continue production. Finally, it is not just about maintaining PC but improving it. Learning new practical and organisational techniques help to improve PC as well as enhancing or stream-lining old ones is a critical aspect of PC.
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My P/PC balance had lately gotten very far out of balance. I was capable of large efforts on the production side putting in long hours, working all week, and spending time thinking about how to produce more. But over the long-term this ability has faded as I have not spent enough time maintaining and improving my PC. I even feel that I have become worse at some activities I used to be more skilled at and have not advanced as far as I would have liked by this point in my project. As part of getting P and PC back into balance I have committed to more scheduling of routine tasks so they require less mental effort to complete. Additional planning of the papers I want to write and the experiments I want to have done. These two activities go towards the planning and organisational side of the P/PC balance. In terms of exercise I am biking every weekday to and from work as well as a ride on Saturday when I am home. I play squash with friends once a week and will go for a short bush-walk every Wednesday. Other activities include reading a lot more about organisational habits such as the book discussed above and keeping a website on my work procedures to make it easier to complete experiments. I am also attempting to tackle one PC activity per day as part of my three daily 'big rocks'. I know there are many more things I could be doing on PC but these things are enough for now. So far I am feeling really positive about these changes and they seem to be helping a lot. I will endeavor to keep them going.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-76980036892275135002011-10-30T17:28:00.003+13:002013-05-27T16:06:33.797+12:00No Logo<a href="http://www.amazon.com/No-Logo-Space-Choice-Jobs/dp/0312421435">No Logo</a> by Naomi Klein is a detailed critique of our branded world and the corporations behind it. Klein examines the takeover of public culture by private companies, their suppression of variety, and their destruction of stable employment conditions. Finally, she explores what people are doing to try and reclaim what has been lost. For anyone wondering what the anti-globilisation protests are about, this is the book that will explain it to you.<br />
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No Space.<br />
No space covers the rise of the brand as a new form of marketing. Rather than making anything useful, corporations have moved towards leveraging consumers' perceptions of their brand to sell products with large mark-ups. To achieve this goal, banded corporations have taken over public space, public culture, and public style. Advertisements have become ubiquitous from the TV commercial, to billboards, to product placements. Corporations have even resorted to planting people on the street to drum up hype about new products (called bro-ing, "hey, bro, check out these new shoes"). In a modern city you can't see the forest for the ads. Cultural movements are also being co-opted by brands. The company 'Body Shop' sells itself as part of the environmental movement taking over the language and approach associated with this social cause. Clothing corporation are even managing to adopt the cultural styles associated with various groups. This process ends in the absurd situation of Nike selling black lower-class style to white upper-class teens and Tommy Hilfiger selling white-upper class style to black lower-class teens. The rapacious appetite of corporations for new public space to exploit has left very little free of their influence. Even school and universities are being squeezed by the mindless expansion of these hollow corporations.<br />
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No Choice.<br />
No choice deals with the tendency of large corporations to merge and expand. The quintessential business model in this case is 'Wal-mart'. The idea is to move to the outskirts of a town buy up a large parcel of land at a relatively cheap price and build a huge mega-store. This store is filled with inventory bought at bulk rates and the management then proceeds to undercut all the local stores. These smaller stores have to close down as they can't compete and the previously vibrant town centre becomes a shadow of its former self. People are then left with no option but to shop at the large chain-stores like Blockbuster, Starbucks, or McDonalds. The other way corporations curtail choice is by mergers and acquisitions. When all the content is being provided by a few large media conglomerates it's hard to find sources outside the mainstream and dissenting information becomes suppressed. <br />
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No Jobs.<br />
No Jobs is a look at the way corporations are hurting their employees by trying to pretend they don't have any workers! Since corporations sell brands and not products, they don't need to make anything - which requires less workers. By outsourcing all of their activities, corporations empty themselves out and start to focus on their core competency of brand management. Unfortunately this has resulted in a marked decrease in job security and a stagnation of wage levels for the average worker. Corporations are taking advantage of this, offering increasingly worse jobs with less benefits, fewer hours, and lower pay. In one example, Microsoft hires around half its employees as temp workers making sure to fire them before reaching the full-time threshold, only to <i>re-hire</i> them again for the next temporary period. In another example, hours worked by employees at Starbucks have become so random it's impossible to fit scheduled class time or a second job around it. Finally Klein takes a look at the desperate situation in third-world countries where corporations are taking advantage of sub-standard labour laws and minuscule rates of pay to make their products even more cheaply. These employees face long hours of repetitive work to produce items that retail for hundreds if not thousands of dollars more than cost when sold in branded stores. And when confronted with the facts about their indirect employees in third-world countries, most of the corporations don't even care. <br />
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No Logo.<br />
No logo tells the story of what anti-corporate protesters are doing to show their opposition to the take-over of public space, the lack of consumer choice, and the worsening conditions of employment. Actions range from ad-busting the latest marketing campaign to a world-wide co-ordinated protest on Shell's (and others) support for brutal dictatorial regimes. Klein's thesis is that the corporations have done this to themselves. By co-opting activist movements they radicalised them, by suppressing dissent they brought a spot-light to bear on their own role in the problem, and by destroying jobs they destroyed employee loyalty. No Logo tells stories of limited success, protesters have made a small amount of difference to the way corporations run their operations. The book ends on a hopeful tone. The more activists around the world connect and co-ordinate, the more they become like the sprawling multinationals they oppose, and the better able they are to resist their protean growth.<br />
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Overall 7/10, the first three chapters are great but the last is much too long and repetitive.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-52396717086019326072011-10-29T13:34:00.000+13:002011-10-29T13:34:51.430+13:00The Nazis were wrong! (Part II)Back at <a href="http://wellthatwasdaft.blogspot.com/">Well That Was Daft</a> Nasher has a response to my take on the nature of morality. In his <a href="http://wellthatwasdaft.blogspot.com/2011/08/philosolosophy-time-absolute-truth.html">original post</a> he took the position that morality was subjective stating that even the rightness or wrongness of the Holocaust is just a matter of opinion. I took a <a href="http://indoctrinatingfreethought.blogspot.com/2011/09/over-at-well-that-was-daft-nasher-lays.html">different approach</a> explaining while I don't think moral truths are determined the same way as scientific truths, they are not on the same level as matters of taste and are actually epistemologically objective. Now Nasher has a <a href="http://wellthatwasdaft.blogspot.com/2011/10/i-really-aught-to-respond.html">follow up</a> where he clarifies his position.<br />
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Nasher agrees that my example "apricots taste better than strawberries" is an example of a subjective truth. Something that is true for me but not necessarily true for anyone else. However, he goes further saying "sugar tastes better than elephant dung" is also an example of a subjective truth. I would disagree, if there was someone who maintained they found elephant dung more tasty than sugar I would assume they either haven't tasted each one or they are confused about which is which. If someone told me "sugar tastes better than elephant dung" my response would be 'well, of course' and not 'that's just your opinion'.<br />
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Nasher seems to partially agree with me but also wants to broaden the area of concern to other species, even hypothetical ones. I am suspicious of the value of this move. Perhaps dung beetle larva do find elephant dung more tasty than sugar (although, do they even taste?) but what if I change the original statement to "sugar tastes better than elephant dung to humans"? Does this make the question suddenly objective rather than subjective? I think Nasher would still insist this statement is subjective even though other species are now excluded. A further issue I have is that I don't really think dung beetle larva have anything to add to discussions on morality. As far as we know, humans are the only species capable of engaging in advanced moral reasoning. Perhaps this will change in the future but it seems fairly pointless to speculate.<br />
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Nasher then brings it back to a realistic example saying that people raised in different environments can be more or less prone to bigotry and homophobia without considering themselves immoral. But my response to these people is to explain why they are wrong. Often it is a case of correcting facts like demonstrating the folk concept of race does not match up to the modern biological understanding of the human species or showing studies refuting the idea that homosexuals are bad parents. To dig a little further into the homophobia example, these people already agree with the basic moral principle that raising children in a stable household with loving parents is a good thing. Often the objections revolve around concerns that homosexual parents can't provide the same nurturing environment as heterosexual parents. If the homophobes still insist on their point of view after being shown studies on child performance outcomes that dispute their claim, then they are like the flat-earther, simply denying reality. Importantly what I am not saying is that everyone will agree with every moral judgement. There is scope for reasonable disagreement, especially around the fringes where new arguments appear frequently. A good example of this is animal rights. Perhaps in the future we will look back and see eating animals as immoral similar to the way we look back and realise how wrong scientists were to believe in the ether theory of light. Our morality, like our science, can update itself - but this doesn't make either source of knowledge any less objective.<br />
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To be honest I don't fully understand Nasher's last paragraph. He says we must have a "clear, immovable frame of reference to which we can compare and contrast the viewpoint". There is a broad inter-cultural agreement about what constitutes a good person and what sort of activities are prohibited. Surely we can compare the results of our moral reasoning to that? This doesn't rule out the possibility of being wrong about a moral judgement nor updating as new information comes in. But it does give us a frame of reference from which to start our (objective) moral reasoning.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-30839135704181851192011-09-09T19:44:00.001+12:002011-09-09T19:58:20.703+12:00Seeds of Distrust<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Distrust-Nicky-Hager/dp/0908802927/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315553138&sr=1-1">Seeds of Distrust: The Story of a GE Cover-up</a> explores the potential release of genetically modified (GM) corn in New Zealand in 2000 and alleged attempts by the government to cover it up. As New Zealand has very strict controls on the presence of GE organisms, the publishing of this book made genetic engineering (GE) a hot topic in the 2002 elections. Although Nicky Hager describes some dubious practices from the Labour government, the story in Seeds of Distrust is let down by a lack of science and ultimately loses sense of all proportion.<br />
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In late 2000 the Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) were notified by seed company Novartis of the possible presence of a transgene in a sweet corn seed shipment. Initially Helen Clark took the position that the planted crops needed to all be pulled out and destroyed. Legislation was quickly rushed through in order to give the relevant government agencies the necessary authority. However, after meeting with representatives from the industry, the government became less convinced of any significant transgene presence and moved to adopt new rules allowing seed shipments containing up to 0.5% trangenes to be labelled GE free. The rational for this is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction">PCR</a> - the technique used to detect transegenes - has a certain lower limit of detection (for practical reasons). Additionally, some doubt was cast on the accuracy of the positive results which could have been due to sample contamination or a PCR artifact. Given the positive tests were less than the newly adopted 0.5% threshold, the government allowed the sweet corn to mature and enter the food chain. The Labour government kept the whole situation relatively low key in order to avoid spooking the public as a royal inquiry into GE was currently underway. This is the basic story that emerged for me after reading the facts presented in Seeds of Distrust - and it is a well documented book - however Hager has a different take.<br />
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Hager makes a big deal of the government meeting with industry to talk about the possible release of a GMO. Although I share his unease with the influence of corporations on government, in this case it was Novartis who initial detected possible transgene presence and it was their corn seed shipment which may have been recalled or destroyed, they needed to be involved in the early stages. Hager also focuses on the threshold level being set at 0.5%, he says the practical limits of PCR detection were actually 0.1%. Although, in principle, this meant the government was allowing up to fives times more GMOs into the country than was necessary, the overall level of transgene presence in the shipment of seeds was 0.04 - 0.08% and therefore below either measure. There was one test which reported a 0.5% transgene level but here his lack of science really lets Hager down as the rigour of the test is not defended at all. The story then continues with Hager doing everything he can to spin the downplay of the possible GMO release by the government into a deliberate cover-up of a definite GE food contamination. This is the weakest part of the book and I was not convinced anything particularly sinister was being perpetrated by the New Zealand government.<br />
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After reading this book I wanted to find out more about the science of the PCR tests that had gone on during this process. I found this <a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0207/S00161.htm">press release</a> by Dr Russell Poulter (now a professor of genetics at Otago University) who explains where the positive results came from. The ‘transgene’ detected was actually the nos terminator which can be associated with the actual transgene but can also be found in the common soil bacteria <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrobacterium">Agrobacterium</a>. If this was an actual case of transgene presence then a 35S promoter sequence should have also been found by PCR as it is associated with the transgene but is not present in soil bacteria. It wasn’t. Given that Hager notes two of the samples were opened in the field, it seems likely these positive results were from contamination of the sample rather than due to a GMO. Removing these as false positives brings the presence of transgene down to an undetectable amount and eliminates most of the force in Seeds of Distrust.<br />
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Overall, Hager has written a book detailing behind-the-scenes decision making when governments behave in a less than exemplary manner. But given that the major premise of his book - GMOs were knowingly released by the government - is not well defended and likely false the whole thing reads like a storm in a teacup. Only worth reading if you are interested in the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dET78Z5b5s">GMO scandal</a> that hit around the 2002 election.<br />
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2/10.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-82284542133760731712011-09-06T19:23:00.005+12:002011-09-07T11:49:53.159+12:00The Nazis were wrong!Over at <a href="http://wellthatwasdaft.blogspot.com/">Well that was Daft</a> Nasher lays out <a href="http://indoctrinatingfreethought.blogspot.com/b/post-preview?token=ZFtNPzIBAAA.8CDskc2XYtioBF6ZlH-xEw.MscR4bpTU6r--nr4FAOHow&postId=8228454213376073171&type=POST">his position</a> on objective and subjective truths. I have a different take on this subject to him and one critique of his post that may make him rethink things a little.<br />
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First, let’s get clear on the distinction between objective and subjective. Following <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Searle">John Searle</a> I’ll distinguish between two types of questions: metaphysical and epistemological. Metaphysical questions concern “what exists?” Something exists objectively if its existence doesn’t depend on it being experienced. For example, the Earth exists whether or not there is someone here to experience it. On the other hand, subjective existence depends on being experienced. The feeling of a stubbed toe or the aroma of a nice Sauvignon Blanc are metaphysically subjective and their existence depends on me experiencing them. The experience is unique to me, you could never find out the way stubbing my toe felt <i>to me</i>.<br />
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However, Nasher is more concerned with epistemological questions. These are questions regarding “what is true?” Epistemologically objective statements can be true or false but the methods used to determine their truth value have to be publicly available and generally agreed upon. By ‘publicly available’ I mean not reliant on personal subjective experience and ‘generally agreed upon’ means that reasonable people, when presented with the same evidence, would come to the same conclusion. To take Nasher’s example:<br />
<blockquote>“Some things are absolutely, objectively true. That the Earth is round is an example of this kind of truth.”</blockquote>This is indeed an objective statement. We can take a publicly available observation – departing ships sink below the horizon – and draw the reasonable conclusion that the Earth is round. Epistemologically subjective statements are those whose truth value is determined by metaphysically subjective evidence. If <i>I</i> was to say “apricots taste better than strawberries” the primary evidence in determining the truth of that statement would be how different fruits taste <i>to me</i>. Someone else who has different subjective experiences of taste could reasonably disagree with my statement. <br />
Nasher proposes a novel test do determine whether a truth statement is objective or subjective:<br />
<blockquote>“Did the Nazis themselves think they were justified [in the systematic extermination of six million Jews]? If the answer is "yes", if even a single Nazi considered the holocaust justified, then the answer to this moral question is subjective. In fact, all it takes is the <i>capacity</i> for someone to consider it justified and it becomes subjective.” </blockquote>But is this test sufficient? What if we change the topic and consider a flat-Earther? Surely there is a single flat-Earther who considers their position on the shape of the Earth to be justified, or - if not - we can at least agree there is the <i>capacity</i> for someone to consider the flat Earth position justified. According to Nasher’s test this makes the issue of the planet’s shape subjective, but earlier we agreed that this was an objective question. I would submit to Nasher that his central test for subjectivity leads to outcomes that he would reject.<br />
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We could modify the subjectivity test slightly to avoid my objection. If we said that no <i>reasonable</i> person could find flat-Earth justified then we have a second criteria that would eliminate the problem. But now we have to apply the new criteria to the moral question, could a reasonable person find the Nazi holocaust justifiable? Nasher seems to think not:<br />
<blockquote>“Obviously, your answer is "no". I share your sentiments. I consider the Holocaust to be one of the worst crimes committed in human history. If you do not feel the same way, I invite you to jump off a skyscraper and rid the rest of the world of your barbaric views.”</blockquote>I agree. Someone who thinks the holocaust was justified, even if they are Nazi, is either lacking certain information or is just not thinking in a reasonable way - a "barbarian". <br />
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Since morality is based on certain objective facts about the world and a need for clear and rational thinking, it seems morality is much closer to the realm of epistemological objectivism than subjectivism. Hence why am a moral objectivist and can confidently say that the Nazis were wrong!Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-76139995260353368322011-09-03T13:58:00.001+12:002011-09-05T13:25:01.790+12:00A plea to theists: well I guess it is too late for youOne of the greatest ironies in life is watching theists try to reason about moral philosophy. The mess of contradictions produced makes for some laugh-out-loud reading and can be terrific fun to unpack. Working through this kind of fractal wrongness can also help us to clarify our own moral reasoning and shows us why secular morality is superior to that of the religious.Exhibit A is Rabbi Moshe Averick’s <em><a title="Permanent Link to A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late" href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/08/29/a-plea-to-atheists-pedophilia-is-next-on-the-slippery-slope-let-us-turn-back-before-it-is-too-late/">A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late</a></em>. I’ve picked out a few of the major problems and given my response to them.<br />
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Subjectivity</strong></span><br />
Averick’s main beef with atheistic morality is that is subjective:<br />
<blockquote>“For the atheist, morality is simply a <em>word</em> that is used to describe the type of system that an individual or society subjectively prefers. Each society establishes, maintains, and modifies its values to suit its own needs.”</blockquote>While some atheists do see morality as subjective there are also moral philosophies based on facts and a shared understanding of reality (i.e., objective). Rabbi Averick also thinks it is a problem that moral philosophy can update itself as new arguments are made and accepted. As someone who works in the sciences I am comfortable with knowledge improving as new facts are discovered and new ideas developed. There will be setbacks, aberrant paths that are found to be wrong, but on the long view a gradual improvement is continuously made. In modern social democracies can we really doubt that we are better off today than in the past? We have more freedoms and more rights than ever before. This is not the result of mere subjective whims that happened to go the right way, but a recognition that some actions of the past (e.g., slavery) were wrong and should no longer be permitted in our society. Dogmas, on the other hand, do not update and are stuck in our less enlightened past.<br />
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Peter Singer</strong></span><br />
Averick spends a significant chunk of the article attacking Peter Singer for his views on consequentialist utilitarianism. Which is an <em>objective</em> moral system. The Rabbi doesn’t seem to recognise that his criticism of moral subjectivism doesn’t apply to Singer but he continues regardless:<br />
<blockquote>“Singer went on to explain that he is a “consequentialist.” For the benefit of the philosophically challenged let me explain “consequentialism” in a nutshell: If you <em>like</em> the consequences it’s ethical<em>, </em>if you <em>don’t like</em> the consequences it’s unethical<em>.</em> Thus, if you enjoy child pornography and having sex with children it’s <em>ethical,</em> if you dislike child pornography and having sex with children it’s <em>unethical.</em><em>”</em></blockquote>What Singer’s philosophy actually entails is the evaluation of harm that results from an action. Utilitarianism considers happiness to be desirable and harm to be deleterious. This means that when assessing an action for its morality you should look at the consequences in terms of the people harmed and the people helped. So if enjoying child pornography and having sex with children <em>harms</em> someone then it is unethical. Since paedophilia often has traumatic effects on the child involved, their parents, and the wider community Singer would most likely find most cases of paedophilia morally wrong. So much for the slippery slope argument.<br />
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>S.P.A.G.</strong></span><br />
Averick claims that since we resulted from slime (or from dust if you are Jewish, I guess that’s better?) that means we are morally bereft. The fact that we evolved from primates does not degrade humanity. It is thrilling to think that all species on this planet are interrelated though the process of evolution. What makes humans different, more significant than our jungle dwelling relatives, is our ability to reason. When we exercise our unique intelligence we get to make our own decisions about meaning, value, and morality. Atheists aren’t handed their morality from on high, we have to think about it, and thanks to evolution we have that ability. After spending most of the article decrying the ability of secular philosophers to reason about ethics, Averick engages in the most dishonest part of the article. He simply throws out a bunch of ethical rules without giving any justification for his claims.<br />
<blockquote><ul><li>All men are created in the image of God and are therefore inherently and intrinsically precious.</li>
<li>All men have been endowed by God with unalienable rights and among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.</li>
<li>Thou shalt not murder.</li>
<li>Thou shalt not steal.</li>
<li>Thou shalt not bear false witness.</li>
<li>Thou shalt not commit adultery, incest, or bestiality.</li>
<li>Thou shalt not have sex with children, and if you do you will be looked upon as a disgusting and contemptible criminal and will be treated as such.</li>
<li>Thou shall teach these laws to your children.</li>
</ul></blockquote>Fortunately, we can recognise the source for some of these claims, and they don't come from a god. The ones about unalienable rights are from the American <em>Declaration of Independence</em> and the rules about murder, stealing, perjury, and adultery are from the <em>Torah</em>. These moral rules aren’t from God but from the men who wrote the documents. But where do the other bits and pieces come from? Since Averick hasn't demonstrated God is the moral author, we have to conclude they come from Averick himself. The Rabbi simply prefers it to be the case that paedophilia is immoral and so claims that it is a divine command. This is merely Self-Projection As God. After spending an entire article railing against subjective morality we find that the only justification Averick has is that he just feels paedophilia is wrong (and God agrees with me!) Unfortunately for Averick the main point of his article is that atheism leads to paedophilia. It is rather easily countered by the mention to two religions: Catholicism and Islam. Both of these theistic beliefs have managed to rationalise and accept (respectively) the sexual molestation of children. If theistic societies are also capable of accepting paedophilia then Averick’s point is moot and it seems that God does not totally agree with our hapless Rabbi on the immorality of pedophilia.<br />
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Irony, it’s everywhere.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-52205345458810775932011-09-01T20:12:00.003+12:002011-09-01T20:33:45.841+12:00Free GEA recent story in the Dominion Post (<a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/science/5521596/Commercial-benefits-lacking-in-GE-trials">Commercial benefits lacking in GE trials</a>) reveals the genetic engineering trials being carried out by Crown Research institutions have lead to very few commercial gains. <a href="http://www.plantandfood.co.nz/">Plant and Food</a> and <a href="http://www.agresearch.co.nz/Pages/default.aspx">AgResearch</a> have paid over half a million dollars in application fees to ERMA and only one of the trials has resulted in royalty generating IP. To those familiar with New Zealand's restrictive requirements for GE research, this outcome is hardly a surprise.<br />
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Despite decades of safe use around the world, GE and GMOs remain contentious issues in New Zealand. The regulatory environment alone makes it difficult to carry out even basic research, let alone the commercial research which scientists are now being criticised for not producing. <a href="http://www.gefree.org.nz/">Anti-GE spokeswoman</a> Claire Bleakley decries that the benefit of GE research being completed in New Zealand is lost to the overseas companies. But if private companies are the only ones paying for the research to be carried out then it makes sense they are the ones who reap the economic benefit. Basic funding for GE research is simply not available in New Zealand, the funding bodies know there is little chance any innovation made will be allowed to be used.<br />
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If New Zealand wants its scientific organisations to produce applied science using GE technology then it must:<br />
1) relax the regulatory environment so that research time and money is not being consumed navigating expensive legislation<br />
2) fund GE projects so the IP is not captured by overseas companies<br />
3) open the New Zealand market to GMOs so that the benefits of this technology can be accrued here<br />
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There is <a href="http://jrsm.rsmjournals.com/cgi/content/full/101/6/290">very little risk</a> and huge benefits to allowing GE research to be conducted more freely. The longer New Zealand clings to the anti-GE label, the more we miss out on the exciting commercial opportunities. Rather than be GE-free, let's free GE!<br />
Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-16828797132280622722011-06-12T20:24:00.002+12:002011-09-01T20:31:24.599+12:00Taxation as investmentOkay let’s face it, nobody really likes paying taxes. Taxes mean goods and services cost more and we see less in our pocket at the end of the day. But rather than viewing taxes as a negative, we should view them as a positive investment in the current and future state of our country. While savings and investments can hurt us in the short term, over a longer period of time they bring us many positive and important benefits.<br />
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Let’s start with an easy one: excise taxes. These are taxes on specific goods usually with the aim of discouraging use. They help overcome the problem of market failure caused by negative externalities. One example is petrol. When a buyer and seller agree to a price for this good they are taking into account the personal cost and benefit of exchanging a certain volume of fuel for a certain price. What they are not taking into account is their negative impacts of the rest of society. Using more petrol means the buyer and seller are contributing to pollution, global warming, traffic congestion, and negative health effects like higher asthma rates. By leveling an excise tax, the government makes sure more transaction costs are paid for and not passed on to unwilling third parties, including future generations. Even better, the government can take this revenue stream and use it to help mitigate the effect of excise taxes of poor citizens and to start developing alternatives so the negative consequences of the market are eliminated entirely.<br />
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So what about property taxes? This will depend on your view of property rights. I find it rather difficult to believe in absolute property rights because I do not see how a legitimate ownership assertion can be made over a non-owned resource in the first place. If the original ownership claim is illegitimate then any sale or inheritance of that resource is insufficient to continue asserting absolute ownership. On the other hand, it would very be difficult to run a functional economy without the convenient fiction of property rights. These rights allow stability and development, taking them away completely would allow resources to change hands so many times that nothing could get done. But the cost of allowing these property rights has to be paid by the people who gain the advantages. Property taxes are the compensation owed to the wider community who are giving up their claim to your resources in order to allow you to benefit. These taxes can then be used to support others who missed out on the appropriation of resources or to develop public property such as roads and parks that benefit everyone who wishes to use them.<br />
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Finally, income taxes. Wealth is not earned in a vacuum; it is instead the result of a well developed and functioning society. Taxes pay for education, health services, transport networks, safety inspections, police, fire-fighters, and the justice system – all the things that keep a modern nation a vibrant place to do business. An income tax is a fundamental part of this system allowing the provision of all these services – it is the cost of earning a living in this type of society. If you are not paying for the services you use, then you are not doing your fair share. Income taxes are not imposed, but are agreed as part of taking on employment. They are part of your employment agreement and, as everyone knows a priori income will be taxed, there’s no excuse for calling it coercion. Further, income taxes can be made highly progressive helping to increase equality within a society. Benefits can even be given to those with low pay packets boosting their incomes. With higher wage equality comes higher levels of employment and a sustained demand for goods and services in what is called ‘wage-led growth’. This is the Scandinavian model of development and has proven itself to be one of the fairest ways to organise a growing economy while maintaining a healthy, happy population.<br />
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The results of a sensible tax investment can be seen in more efficient markets that take account of externalities, as compensation for allowing some unequal access to resources, and producing a vibrant and egalitarian economy with a happy population. I for one am happy to invest in this kind of future.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-31694330661611600682011-06-01T20:30:00.000+12:002011-09-01T20:30:31.639+12:00Science vs religion: the effect of educationA new sociological study of UCLA undergraduate students has been getting some play in the sceptical blogosphere. Since it relates to some previous blog posts I have written on the LoR I thought I would go through it. Basically, a UCLA organisation called the Spirituality in Higher Education Project (SHEP)1 surveyed the religious opinions of the first-year population on campus. They then followed up with another survey of juniors to identify opinions influenced by several years of higher eduction. The study in question (Scheitle, 2011) focuses on the students’ perception of the relationship between religion and science.<br />
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Students could choose between four options to describe their view on this relationship.<br />
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Conflict – I consider myself on the side of religion<br />
Conflict – I consider myself on the side of science<br />
Independence – they refer to different aspects of reality<br />
Collaboration – each can be used to help support the other<br />
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Categories three and four were lumped together into a ‘non-conflict’ answer.<br />
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Of this sample 83% of the students were religious. Unsurprisingly then, this means that 86% of the respondents went with non-conflict (69%) or sided with religion (17%). That leaves 17% non-religious students, 14% of whom sided exclusively with science. Given the large proportion of Christians in the US and that most are not of the fundamental variety, meaning they will have their science and eat it too, this seems a fairly straight-forward result.<br />
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Interestingly by their junior year, 73% of those who had originally sided with religion had come to adopt a non-conflict or pro-science position. This shift perhaps reflects the secularising effect of education. However, 47% of those who had originally picked science had also shifted their position. Not as large of a percentage of those who changed from a pro-religion stand-point but a substantial proportion of students. Even when the researcher looked into the data for only science students, the moderating effect of education was still present. Apparently, learning more about science decreased the view that science and religion were in conflict.<br />
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What I would have liked to be able to look at is the detailed data for both the independence and collaboration viewpoints instead of having them lumped together in a single category. If it’s correct that more education promotes a more secular viewpoint I would expect to see the ‘independence’ category increase. Whereas if education was actually supporting religion, I would expect to see a growth in the number of students picking ‘collaboration’. With the data in their current form, it’s impossible to make such judgements.<br />
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SHEP is funded by the Templeton foundation; any true sceptics will now hum the Jaws theme.<br />
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Scheitle, C. P. (2011) U.S. College Students’ Perception of Religion and Science: Conflict, Collaboration, or Independence? A Research Note. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 50(1), 175-186.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-44924539351181942302010-09-21T14:10:00.001+12:002010-09-21T14:10:55.784+12:00Pope in fallacy<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11332515">A recent speech</a> by the current Pope, in Britain, where he links atheism and Nazism has caused some controversy in the <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/09/the_pope_has_landed_immediatel.php">blogosphere</a> and in <a href="http://forums.leagueofreason.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5784">our own forums</a>. The Pope spoke of “a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society” and went on to express concerns over “aggressive forms of secularism”. This is such a common trope in debates that I wanted to take an entire blog post to explain what I see as the gaping flaw in this form of argument. What I want to discuss is the way atheism and theism should be properly related to religion and ideology and why it is incorrect to set up atheism as the counter-position to religion.<br />
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Atheism, at its most inclusive, describes anyone who has no belief in gods. From even this basic understanding, it is remarkably difficult to see how atheism could be expected to produce any action from an individual atheist. There is no causal line from the absence of a single belief to any other belief or action, be it good or bad. Even explicit atheism (the denial of gods) does not imply any further belief or action. If we say this for atheism, in order to be consistent, we must also say this for theism. Theism (the belief in gods), as a single belief, does not entail any other beliefs or actions by the individual theist. A theist may believe in the philosopher’s god, a non-interventionist god, Allah, the trinity, or a whole pantheon of pagan gods. But even these basic beliefs about the nature of gods are additional to the initial claim of theism, not derived from it. Taking the example of the Thirty Years war, the Pope would have us blame theism for the conflict. However, given both sides of the conflict were theists this conclusion makes little sense. The true dividing factor was the different religions, Catholicism and Protestantism, which each side maintained. My contention is that while atheism and theism are blameless in the great atrocities of history, ideology and religion should be held to account.<br />
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Ideologies and religions are not single beliefs but whole belief systems and as such can serve as powerful motivators for individuals. While each belief in the system may not be cause for action, the combination of various beliefs produces stimulus for the individual. A single belief in the existence of Hell does little to motivate a person unless further beliefs such as the nature of sin, the possibility of salvation, and a divine overseer are part of the overall belief system. Nazi Ideology, to take the Pope’s example, is a powerfully motivating belief system. What gave the Nazi party its appeal in post WWI Germany was its staunch conservatism and a resistance to the liberal direction of the Wiemar republic. The Nazi’s were anti-communistic, anti-atheist, anti-homosexual, anti-immigrant, and anti-semetic. While not necessary a Christian movement, the Nazi party endorsed Christianity and, in turn, received support from the more conservative Catholic and Lutheran churches. The Catholic church even assisted in tracking down those of Jewish descent by opening its records on marriages and births to the Nazi party. While there were Christians who opposed Nazism the record of Christianity in Germany is one of acquiescence and support rather opposition or resistance.<br />
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Taking the historical record of Christianity in Hitler’s Germany and applying the Pope’s recent “reasoning” we should conclude that theism is to blame for Nazism. Note that this would not only include the denominations of Christianity that supported Hitler but also those who objected to Nazism. It would also include Muslim and Hindu theists who had nothing to do with the atrocities. The Pope’s “logic” would also have us blaming the Jewish theists who were aggressively persecuted by the Nazi regime! This conclusion is rightly considered ludicrous as it lacks all subtlety by failing to distinguish between those guilty of the crime and those victimised by it. This is the gaping flaw I wanted to identify. It is not theism or atheism that is to blame for Nazi Germany but primarily the ideology of Nazism and secondarily the religions of Catholicism and Lutheranism.<br />
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What we all should realise is it religions and ideologies that are to blame in these historical atrocities not individual beliefs. In the case of the Soviet Union it was a type of Marxism, not atheism, which was the problem. During the Thirty Years war it was types of Christianity which were the problem, not theism. In Hitler’s Germany it was a type of political movement and on 9/11 it was a type of Islam. In no way is either atheism or theism to blame for these devastating events. One final point, I think we atheists contribute to this misperception by setting up atheism in opposition to religion – this is a mistake. Theism is the opposite of atheism and we should make this point clear in all our communication on the subject. We should also reserve our criticism of the historical record for the ideologies and religions that are at fault, and not try to extend this critique to cover all types of theism.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-42871114040370719442010-07-29T00:28:00.000+12:002010-07-29T00:28:13.262+12:00451°CIn a futuristic American city, Firemen no longer put out blazes – they start them – and the prime target for their arson are the great works of literary history. In the society of Fahrenheit 451 people fill their days by driving recklessly, watching wall-to-wall television, and listening to music through their portable iShell…er…Seashell radio sets. The pervasive nature of vacuous entertainment is such that the citizens of this dystopian city have become wholly apathetic to the literal holocaust of the great authors carried out by Firemen. Book-burning is a repellent act and ought to be opposed by every civilised person. Not only is it a public display of censorship, something we all find offensive, but it also represents the destruction of ideas – an attempt to erase important concepts from public knowledge. No one who claims the inheritance of the enlightenment could support such an act.<br />
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Books, and their content, can challenge our political, religious, and moral sensibilities. Well written literature can change the ethical zeitgeist, inspire a revolution, and even start a new faith – 26 lead soldiers can indeed conquer the world. Because of this, books are often seen by current authorities as divisive and dangerous. If they cannot dispute or counter the ideas contained within, they will resort to destroying the method of propagation in order to prevent the spread of such thoughts. One of the earliest notable book-burning was carried out by the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who ordered all philosophy and history books from states other than Qin to be burned. Soon, dissenting scholars who refused to carry out the orders to destroy these important works were being buried alive. The main effect of this book-burning was the loss of the Hundred Schools of Thought which influenced Chinese life. After the persecution ended only the School of Scholars (Confucianism) and the School of Law retained a prominent position. Lost were the schools that focussed on empiricism, reason, and logic – potentially a great setback for the development of Chinese culture.<br />
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In 1478 the Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, also known as the Spanish inquisition, was established. The aim of this inquisition was to hold trials for adherents of other faiths (Jews and Muslims) and attempt to convert them to Christianity. If they would not convert or agreed to conversion but were later caught taking part in religious rituals from their original faith, they were put to death. Eventually, the suspicion that Muslims were secretly practicing religious rituals led to the majority of them to be expelled from Spain. During the persecution, several religious books including the Koran were burned en masse. In this case, it was the competition of religious sensibilities which led to the attempted extermination of Muslim ideas. The German playwright Heinrich Heine wrote about the Spanish inquisition in the tragedy Almansor, in the mouth of a persecuted Muslim he puts the words “Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings." As burning books cannot completely eliminate an idea , authorities will eventually have to burn people to completely purge the threatening idea from society – and so it was during the inquisition of Spain. In a bit of black irony, Heine’s works were including amongst the Jewish, socialist, and dissident books burned by the Nazi’s in 1933. His quote from Almansor above is engraved on the ground at the site of the burning.<br />
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In the category of censorship in the name of moral outrage, nothing comes close to the bonfires of vanities which were especially common in Italy during the fifteenth century. In the most famous fire - lit by Savonarola in Florence - mirrors, statues, cosmetics, art, chess pieces, and lewd books were all burned to ashes. One book in particular was the Art of Love (Ars Amatoria) written by the Roman poet Ovid. The book contains advice on how to find women, seduce them, and then keep them from being stolen away. Savonarola, the theocratic ruler of Florence, decided that this work was too lascivious to be available to the public and so had Ovid’s book consigned to the flames. The bodies soon followed as acts of homosexuality, previously tolerated, became a crime punishable by execution. Many others were sent to the flames for their own acts of immorality. Savonarola was eventually burned to death himself after being excommunicated by the Pope. Ovid’s Art of Love must be particularly bad because further censorship occurred when US customs seized an English translation in the 1930s, almost two thousands years after it was originally written. <br />
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In modern times the 451° threat appears less menacing. With the advent of mass printing and the spread of ebooks online eliminating ideas is much more difficult. However, book-burnings are still a powerful symbol in which various groups declare certain ideas are off-limits to society. Today I learned that a Christian group, the Dove World Outreach Center in Florida, is promoting September 11 as <a href="http://pewforum.org/Religion-News/Fla-church-plans-to-burn-Qurans-on-9-11-anniversary.aspx">International Burn the Koran Day</a>. Led by Fireman Terry Jones, the evangelical church plans to build a pyre of Korans and they hope their example will be copied around the world. Not much offends me, but I find book-burnings to be completely unacceptable no matter what book is being torched. Even more galling is the pastor’s comments that burning the Koran will give Muslims a chance to convert! This church is so bigoted that they see the Koran as a dangerous book that it needs to be destroyed before people have a chance to read it and are willing to use tactics reminiscent of the Spanish inquisition. They are the latest incarnation of a dangerous movement which seeks the destruction of our cultural and intellectual heritage, and as such they must be opposed. So this September 11, rather than burn a Koran I’m going to read one. Rather than attempting to eliminate certain ideas, I’m going to integrate them a little further into our collective society. Anyone interested in joining me?Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-76173687995712152432010-07-12T11:44:00.003+12:002010-07-12T11:46:30.474+12:00You can’t be good without sci-fiScience fiction provides the perfect backdrop for exploration on the borders of morality because it creates alternate realities which are limited only by the depth of our imagination. Promising technologies can be created, controlled, and finally be seen to unexpectedly turn on their former masters. New planets can be discovered and explored for ancient civilisations or exploited for basic resources. Alien species can threaten our planet with annihilation or they can teach us what it means to be human. In the world of science fiction all these possibilities can occur; new worlds, galaxies, and alien species can be created and destroyed over and over in myriad combinations - then it can all be written again. The remoteness of these new galaxies and the unfamiliar forms of alien species allows for an ethical discussion of current events in a way that does not threaten the personal identity of those directly involved. Science fiction allows a lot of nonsense to be bypassed and lets the viewer to look directly into the heart of important subjects1. <br />
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Star trek provides many clear examples of morality portrayed through the lens of science fiction. The most prominent ethical instruction which permeates many episodes is the ‘Prime Directive’ which constrains the actions of Starfleet personnel. Simply put, the Prime Directive prevents intervention into pre-warp alien societies so as not to interfere with the natural course of their cultural development. In principle the Prime Directive is an absolute rule to be obeyed even when the inhabitants of a primitive planet are about to be wiped out. In practice, the crew sometimes engage in exceptions to prevent genocides (e.g., Patterns of Force) or stop devastating asteroid impacts (e.g., For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky). Although these violations are not without consequences for both crew and captain, the interventions are usually portrayed as the right action given the circumstances. The real-world political doctrine of non-intervention can be seen as the contemporary equivalent of the Prime Directive. Based on the principles of state sovereignty and self-determination it says that states cannot and should not interfere in the domestic affairs of others. This doctrine is also supposed to be absolute, frowning upon alliances and wars on foreign soil; it instead opts for the containment of problems within local regions. However, just like the Prime Directive, non-interventionism has been violated in recent history by several prominent countries. One clear example is the UN intervention in Kosovo which was carried out under dubious legal authority. The justification given was the prevention of a humanitarian crisis, similar to the reason in Patterns of Force. States will also rush to provide humanitarian aid in countries, like Haiti, which have been hit with natural disasters. Star Trek managed to give us a discussion of non-interventionism, covering both the reasons for it and the horrid situations that result from pursing it to the limit. All this was done in a neutral setting where the idea could be freely discussed away from any real-world political divides which hamper proper dialogue. Star Trek also gave us the moral reasons for breaking the Prime Directive long before humanitarian concerns motivated us on Earth to get involved in the domestic crises of others.<br />
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Although science-fiction regularly deals with broad, societal-scale ethics there is also a deep theme of personal morality promoted through the hero or heroine of each series. They are the ones faced with tough decisions and regularly have to balance competing interests when confronted with moral dilemmas. Because they are our heroes they usually make the decision that result in the best outcome in every situation, but sci-fi asks whether merely doing the right thing is enough. If the hero does the right thing but acts for the wrong reasons they will lose our respect and we will begin to question their ethical status. Delenn, our heroine of Babylon 5, has to face this additional layer of complexity for her moral decisions. In Comes the Inquisitor she enters a crucible designed to force out the motivations for her actions. Over and over the inquisitor asks who she is. Is she someone filled with pride, puffed up with her own self-importance, and desperate for the glory that will come should she save the universe from destruction? Or is she someone motivated solely by the desire to preserve life and even willing to pay the ultimate price “For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know, or see”2? According to consequentialist moral theories, what determines the rightness of an act is the outcome alone. No consideration is given to the intentions that the actor was trying to put into practice. Babylon 5 asks whether the outcomes are enough to determine the morally of a given situation and the answers given is a resounding “No!” As is said in the episode, “If you do the right thing for the wrong reasons, the work becomes corrupt, impure, and ultimately self-destructive.”2 Consider the war in Iraq, there’s no question that Saddam Hussein was a cruel and corrupt dictator and that removing him was a good thing for the Iraqi people. However, it would be hard to maintain that the political leaders at the time were acting with the intension of helping Iraq rather than for the wrong reasons which included political and strategic gain. These intensions corrupted the entire exercise and, quite rightly, leave a foul taste in many a mouth. This example shows that a person who performs a kind deed for another solely because of a selfish benefit is not truly acting in an altruistic manner. Without the right intentions, the moral actor is not really moral at all. Furthermore, good intentions are more likely to lead to good outcomes, while the cases of bad intentions leading to good outcomes are rare. Promoting good intentions as morally necessary is one way to improve the consequences of our ethical decision making in the real world.<br />
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Speaking of wartime conflict, science-fiction offers a way to discuss the morality of war without getting bogged down in the politics of more local events. We Earthers have a saying: in war, all things are permitted. This statement is explored and taken to its logical conclusion in Battlestar Galactica. In this alternate reality, humanity has built an army of advanced robots and employed them as slaves to perform the menial work necessary to keep a civilisation running. But the Cylons became something greater than their original design and have reached the point where they think and feel so much like their human counterparts it is difficult to tell them apart. The Cylons then turn on their former masters, determined to conquer all humankind. As the show progresses and most of the human military is destroyed, the remaining resistance turns to increasingly brutal acts in order to prevent the Cylons from achieving a complete victory. If the Cylons were merely mindless robots, the actions of the humans would not be morally questionable but because the Cylons share many of the same properties as humans the tactics used by the resistance are open to scrutiny. Even in the context of war, some lines should not be crossed. In the episode Flesh and Bone, a Cylon operative convinces the crew that he has planted a nuclear bomb aboard one of their ships. In this clear case of a ‘ticking bomb’ the interrogation turns to torture in order to learn its location. The bomb scenario is brought up ad nausem in the debates on torture and is usually seen as a trump card. However, Battlestar Galactica highlights a big problem with its use because, as it turns out, there is no bomb and the torture was ultimately pointless. The problem with all ticking bomb scenarios is that, in a real-life situation, the interrogator cannot know that there is a bomb, that the bomber will give up its whereabouts, or that the bomb can actually be stopped. It might be said that the Cylon should not have lied about the existence of the bomb in the first place and so the torture was justified, but this literally makes torture the punishment for lying, a completely unacceptable situation. The second wartime issue conveyed to us by Battlestar Galactica is that of suicide bombing civilian targets in the name of resisting occupation. In the episode rightly called Occupation, members of the human resistance start suicide bombing Cylon and, more controversially, Cylon-friendly human targets. Most people would consider any such act to be morally abominable but set in an alternate universe with humanity on the brink of extinction, Battlestar Galatica manages to make us sympathise with the beleaguered resistance and perhaps even elicits some approval for their actions. Although, by itself, the episode is not enough to change our minds on the tactic of suicide bombing, it is enough to give us pause when we hear of similar instances on this planet and ask ourselves whether we would do the same if under occupation by foreign forces.<br />
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We have now seen how science fiction can enlighten us on issues as broad ranging as non-interventionism, intention/consequence approaches to ethics, and the morality of war. By removing the cultural and political barriers that exist in everyday life, science fiction allows for an unprejudiced discussion of moral dilemmas. The fantastic tales provide a narrative that lets us approach ethics in an indirect manner but, as I’ve shown, the results are very much applicable in the terrestrial world. Science fiction is a moral thought experiment performed at the cosmic scale. Ultimately, science fiction gives us an external standard and a common frame of reference to draw upon when faced with our own ethical decisions. If you’ve never considered the problematic aspects of the Prime Directive, never understood why the Vorlons require pure intentions, or never felt pity for a robot in agony then you haven’t grasped the full range of ethical lessons that science fiction has to offer. Without an appreciation of scifi, how can you be moral?<br />
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1. Gene Roddenberry (paraphrase).<br />
2. Comes the inquisitor, J. Michael StraczynskiAught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-63561475562434072552010-06-03T16:09:00.002+12:002011-09-13T20:59:19.921+12:00Jesus, InteruptedIn <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Interrupted-Revealing-Hidden-Contradictions/dp/0061173940/indoctrifreet-20">Jesus, Interrupted</a></i> Bart Ehrman lays bare many contradictions in the New Testament and explains why they exist. Although many people are familiar with the stories that make up the Bible, a historical perspective of the text is one only found in academia. Ehrman presents an understanding of the Bible based on the historical-critical method. This view of the Bible is accepted by a wide variety of scholars and taught in seminaries yet it is not communicated to Christian communities or the public at large.<br />
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The starting point for Jesus, Interrupted is for Ehrman to highlight some of the key contradictions found in the New Testament. He then uses the discrepant accounts to tell us something interesting about the motivations and beliefs of the various authors. For example, the birth of Jesus is only described in two of the Gospels – Luke and Matthew but the accounts diverge. Luke has the more familiar story; Mary and Joseph are living in Nazareth when Mary finds herself pregnant. Before she gives birth a census is ordered and every man has to return to his ancestor’s town - Bethlehem for Joseph. They can’t find a place to stay and Jesus ends up being born in a stable. Later, the new family returns to Nazareth where Jesus grows up. Matthew has a different take; Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem where Jesus is born. Visiting wise men that followed a star from the East come to see the new King of the Jews. King Herod then orders a mass slaughter of all infant boys but Joseph is forewarned and flees with Mary and Jesus to Egypt. After Herod has died they return but this time to live in Nazareth where Jesus is raised. Apart from the historical difficulties (there was no such census or infanticide), both accounts are clearly contradictory. They also tell their virgin birth story for different reasons, the Gospel of Matthew is trying to fulfill prophecy while the Gospel of Luke is trying to emphasise that Jesus is the son of God. <br />
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After explaining several more significant contradictions between the New Testament writers Ehrman then details the different viewpoints that each author had and their varying approaches to the Christian faith. Paul, writing first, emphasises that salvation is through belief in the resurrection of Jesus not works. Paul goes so far as to say that those following the Jewish laws may be putting themselves at risk by believing in alternate paths to God. Paul believes that the apocalypse will soon occur and everyone should be on the side of Jesus if they want to be rewarded by God. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus preaches an imminent apocalypse where God’s kingdom will come to Earth and overthrow all evil. Jesus is not divine but is the ‘Son of Man’ who will play an important role in the Utopian theocracy. Jesus dies to pay for everyone’s sins and to bring God to the masses. In the Gospel of Luke the emphasis of Jesus’ death is not on atonement but on innocence. Jesus, the literal son of God (not Man), is completely innocent and his unwarranted execution is symbolic of all human sin. The only way to God is to repent for your sins, not by paying for them by sacrifice, but by asking God for forgiveness. This is a judgment against the Jewish system of worship. In contrast, the Gospel of Matthew argues that Christians must follow <i>all</i> the Jewish laws if they want to be accepted by God. This gospel contains the story of the goats and sheep where the righteous but unbelieving sheep are allowed into heaven whereas the believing goats are barred from entering (sorry, couldn’t help myself). Matthew is also terribly keen to use prophecy to show Jesus had been sent by God. In this Gospel Jesus refuses to do miracles which might offer proof of his divine nature. The last Gospel written is John’s and by this time it was clear that the ‘immanent apocalypse’ predicted by Jesus was not going to occur. The interpretation given in this Gospel is that Jesus was a pre-existing divine being, ‘the word made flesh’. There is no virgin birth or baptism; instead Jesus does miracles to prove he is God (signs, so-called). His message is not that the Kingdom of God is coming to Earth, but that we must get to the Kingdom by being ‘born from above’. If we accept God and are ‘born again’ we will get to heaven after death. As can be seen the narratives in the New Testament vary widely in their messages. Ehrman does a great job of explaining all the contradictions between the different accounts and the reasons why the authors thought the way they did.<br />
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The most interesting chapter for me was the one on the historical Jesus; Ehrman starts off by talking about the sources. The Gospels are the best sources as there are multiple accounts of the same story, unfortunately they were written by neither eyewitnesses, nor contemporaries (35 – 65 years after Jesus’ death). They are also wildly inconsistent, not independent, and not averse to making up stories (e.g., the virgin narrative). Paul never met Jesus and claimed only to see him in a vision, his writings also vary with the Gospel accounts significantly. When we look outside the New Testament we find that Jesus appeared to be completely insignificant in his time. In the century after his death Ehrman finds two compelling sources that mention Jesus. One is a Roman source from 115CE where Tacitus explains that the troublesome Christians take their name from “Christus” and the other is the Jewish historian Josephus who in 90CE wrote a passage about Jesus and the Christian movement that occurred after his crucifixion. After considering all this Erhman thinks that we can build a realistic picture of the historical Jesus. Jesus was most likely a Jewish apocalyptic prophet who preached the imminent arrival of the kingdom of God and the removal of all evil. Upon arriving in Jerusalem with a small band of followers he annoyed the local Jewish authorities (possibly causing a ruckus at the temple and/or blasphemy) and was handed over to the Roman authorities for execution. I found Ehrmen to be compelling enough of these points to be convinced of this part of his case. He does stretch it a bit further getting into some details about what Jesus probably taught, but given that I’d just read the previous chapters about how the Gospel authors were using the story of Jesus to make their own theological points this part of the book rings a bit hollow.<br />
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Overall, a fascinating read into the history of the New Testament. Unfortunately, Ehrman is not the best writer so I give it 8/10.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-17670278238208793172010-05-29T23:50:00.003+12:002010-05-29T23:51:00.218+12:00Barbarians in the Desert<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YaKIh7vaOFY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YaKIh7vaOFY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br />
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I don't agree with any of the commentators, but I thought it was an interesting discussion.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-57886479506523391082010-05-28T18:39:00.000+12:002010-05-28T18:39:29.851+12:00Could you patent the sun?One of the biggest enemies facing critical thinking and scepticism is that of personal bias. Bias is extremely easy to spot in other people, but notoriously difficult to spot in yourself. No one likes to think that they may be biased but everyone is, in one way or another. Bias often appears in science denialism where someone may be religiously biased towards a Biblical interpretation of the fossil evidence (for example) rather than towards the scientific explanation. The best we can do about our biases is recognise them and be extra vigilant when we come across evidence that conforms to our biased pre-judgements. Because bias has such an affect on our interpretation of evidence, scientists especially should try to limit the influence of such outside factors on their impartial research. Yet we see precisely the opposite occurring. As research and industry snuggle into a cosy relationship, scientists have become enamoured with their commercial partners.<br />
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The commercialisation of research has exploded in the fields of biomedical science and biotechnology, with industry poised to make millions, scientists are all too happy to take a cut of the action. However, money is a powerful motivator and researchers now have an added incentive to find certain result. The result which favours whatever corporation provides the funding. If scientists are being influenced by their source of funding, then it should be apparent in their results. Industry funded projects should find positive results more often than non-profit funding. Indeed, taking the example of pharmaceutical research, that is what we find.<br />
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Many scientific journals require the submitting authors to declare any conflicts of interest, for example being funded by the same company who owns the patent on the drug in question. Several statistical analyses have been done on the outcomes of these studies and the results should not be surprising to anyone who understands the effects of bias. In 2001 an analysis of 314 drug trials found that non-profit funded research was 3.5 times more likely to find a negative result than industry sponsored trials1. A 2002 study of 159 articles in the British Medical Journal, which requires that funding be declared, found that the authors' conclusions were significantly more positive in trials funded by for profit organisations compared with trials without competing interests (mean difference 0.48, P=0.014)2. A 2004 study showed that in 158 drug trials published in five leading medical journals results favoured industry funded studies by an odds ratio of 1.93. Finally, in 2003 a review selected 37 of the most rigorous studies and pooled their data. They found a statistically significant odds ratio of 3.6 favouring industry funded research4. This review also found that industry funding was associated with restriction on publication and data sharing if the results were negative.<br />
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One point to make about these analyses is that they are correlative only, causation could not be determined. Although the quality of the studies was controlled for (often poorer quality in industry funded trials) one possible explanation is that industry interests somehow pick pharmaceuticals that are more likely to succeed in trials. I can’t imagine how they would know beforehand which drugs have better prospects, but it is a possibility. More likely, however, is that the scientists performing these studies are influenced by the commercial factors at play in their research. These results are very reminiscent of ‘tobacco science’ where, for example, 94% of industry funded inquiry found no harm from second-hand smoke compared to just 13% of non-profit funded research. If correct, this interpretation is quite troubling. First, it means that consumers are being bombarded by new pharmaceuticals which are of questionable value over the old versions and in some cases, downright dangerous. Second, the reputation of science for impartiality and following evidence is being ruined by commercial interest by both outside companies and the scientists themselves. When the commercial bias of scientists is revealed, say through a drug recall or hidden financial contributions, the public starts becoming suspicious of these intellectual elites. In fact, the commercialisation of research could be contributing to the distrust of science, the growing interest in alternative medicine, and the rejection of genetic engineering. <br />
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Believe it or not there was a time when industry and academia where more or less separate. Scientists with relevant expertise might be given an honorarium to help overcome a particular problem or speak on a certain topic, but that was about it. Funding was largely provided by governments and scientists were free to explore myriad lines of inquiry, whether it might lead to a practical application or not. Even when there research could be commercialised, the scientists themselves would rarely have much to do with it. Their results were given away into the public domain. In 1954, Jonas Salk developed his vaccine against polio, when asked whether he would patent it he found the idea ridiculous replying, “Could you patent the sun?” Unfortunately, this attitude is found rarely in the field of biotechnology. Many exotic genes and interesting methods are often patented by the researchers who first discover them either preventing further inquiry or driving the cost of research even higher. This also makes the funding of science less attractive to the public sector that now sees less return for its investment.<br />
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Unfortunately, I don’t have any solutions for the problem. I just think the commercialisation of research makes an important contribution to the growth of science denialism and was worth highlighting. Patent law clearly needs a complete overall. I dislike attempts to own parts of nature - “to patent the sun” - but companies do need protection for their intellectual property. Similarly, industry funding research is having a negative impact on the impartiality of science, but there is no denying the benefits that have emerged from such partnerships. Perhaps blinding individual scientists to the source of their funding and preventing patents on natural products could go some way to removing this troubling commercial bias from academic scientists.<br />
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1. Yaphe J, Edman R, Knishkowy B, Herman J. The association between funding by commercial interests and study outcome in randomized controlled drug trials. Fam Pract. 2001 Dec;18(6):565-8.<br />
2. Lise L Kjaergard & Bodil Als-Nielsen. Association between competing interests and authors' conclusions: epidemiological study of randomised clinical trials published in the BMJ. BMJ 2002;325:249 ( 3 August )<br />
3. Bhandari M, Busse JW, Jackowski D, Montori VM, Schünemann H, Sprague S, Mears D, Schemitsch EH, Heels-Ansdell D, Devereaux PJ. Association between industry funding and statistically significant pro-industry findings in medical and surgical randomized trials. CMAJ. 2004 Feb 17;170(4):477-80.<br />
4. Justin E. Bekelman, AB; Yan Li, MPhil; Cary P. Gross, MD Scope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research: A Systematic Review JAMA. 2003;289:454-465Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-40139446484597237152010-05-27T16:36:00.000+12:002010-05-27T16:36:44.140+12:00Ulster Museum to Promote Creationism?Nelson McCausland, culture minister for Norhtern Ireland has asked Ulster Museum to put up displays on Creationism. Creationism is the Biblical based view that the Earth was created October 23rd, 4004 BCE. It is anti-science in the extreme and not something a museum ought to be promoting. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/26/northern-ireland-ulster-museum-creationism">Guardian covers the story</a>.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-34624366487280470192010-05-26T19:46:00.000+12:002010-05-26T19:46:52.703+12:00Buried chest highA very powerful poem written by an ex-Muslim YouTube user. Some of the images may be disturbing.<br />
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<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FbuxJieyFxg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FbuxJieyFxg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-91302287808257977412010-05-25T19:53:00.000+12:002010-05-25T19:53:46.695+12:00Dr. Andrew Wakefield in Comic FormA <a href="http://tallguywrites.livejournal.com/148012.html">new 15 page comic</a> covers the MMR vaccine controversy caused by the unscrupulous Dr Wakefield. The comic documents the ethics violations and undeclared conflicts of interest that caused the Lancet to retract Wakefield's paper and the Medical Council to strike him off their register. <br />
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I hope that information in comic form will be easy enough for vaccine deniers to digest. On second thought, perhaps not.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-26370596757635341152010-05-24T23:07:00.000+12:002010-05-24T23:07:20.725+12:00The failure of prayer<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/VpazP0k-U18&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/VpazP0k-U18&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br />
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Five heart attacks since they started praying? God certainly has a morbid sense of humour. Faith healing and alternative medicine don't work and just lead to more deaths. This is a tragedy just waiting to happen.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-89248028295201079392010-05-23T19:23:00.001+12:002010-05-23T19:25:06.183+12:00Google Pacman<div style='text-align:center;margin:0px auto 10px;'><a href='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x_tcF0Ui8R4/S_jYBFUiIAI/AAAAAAAAALU/zp_JJFxMKu0/s1600/google-doodle-pac-man-game-300x101.jpg'><img src='http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_x_tcF0Ui8R4/S_jYBFUiIAI/AAAAAAAAALU/zp_JJFxMKu0/s320/google-doodle-pac-man-game-300x101.jpg' border='0' alt='' /></a> </div><br />
Best Google doodle so far is the playable Pacman logo in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the game. Sweet.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-47117450861963686412010-05-22T20:42:00.003+12:002010-05-22T20:46:58.093+12:00Science vs. religion: are they incompatible?One question that frequently confronts the New Atheists (especially those with a scientific background) is whether a religion and science are incompatible. The stock answer is that many religious leaders accept science as a good way to understand the natural world and conversely, many scientists have a religious faith (Ken Miller and Francis Collins come to mind). In a <a href="http://indoctrinatingfreethought.blogspot.com/2010/05/science-vs-religion.html">previous blog post</a> I talked about how sociological research had revealed that about half of American scientists are able to both perform cutting-edge science and maintain a religious identity. An even larger proportion is still interested in matters of spirituality despite daily engaging in rational, empirical inquiry. <br />
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These facts show there is, at least, a kind of ‘brute compatibility’ between science and religion; a single person can hold both ideas simultaneously. However, the obvious counter to ‘brute compatibility’ is to point out that in certain cases the findings of science to conflict with specific claims about how the nature of the world. For example, if you claim that the world is 6,000 years old, science says you are wrong. According to empirical data, the world is more like 4.5 billion years old and anyone who says the scientific evidence shows otherwise is simply mistaken. Because science can only conflict with specifically defined religious claims, I call this ‘specific incompatibility’. Although this type of incompatibility is important, and probably accounts for a large proportion of science’s moderating impact on religion, it does not completely contradict all types of religious claims. Again, this answer is too superficial; the original question is asking something more fundamental - are religion and science incompatible at the deeper, <i>philosophical</i> level?<br />
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Here we must start with a rigorous understanding of the exact nature of science, its epistemological limits, and the assumptions it makes. First science assumes that the universe exists and is, broadly speaking, observer independent. This assumption avoids the problem of solipsism, where I could construct an argument based on the idea that the universe is simply a figment of my (hyperactive) imagination. The second assumption brings in causality, scientists must assume that causes and effects are empirical (observable and measurable) and, more importantly, natural. That these causes must be empirical is fairly self-explanatory. If we cannot observe and measure we cannot draw any inferences, offer any explanations, or say anything at all about them! Basically, we would not be able to do science. Less clear might be why science can only approach natural causes rather than supernatural ones. <br />
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Let’s use an example to help highlight the problem of supernatural causes. A nice set of evidence for evolution is that of the fossil record. Without going into too much detail, the arrangement and transitions of different fossil types is empirical evidence for evolution occurring in the real world (the universe <i>out there</i>). However, along comes a supernaturalist, and he to us “yes, I agree with your observations and measurements of the fossil evidence, however God (or other supernatural cause) made it so the fossil record <i>appeared</i> to support evolution but in reality the theory is wrong.” This is a serious and unsolvable problem for science and it can be applied to any other explanation or conclusion derived from methods based on the two assumptions above. If supernatural causes are allowed the best of real, verifiable, and empirical science will frequently give the wrong answer. If God (et al) always makes the observed and measured evidence <i>look like</i> it is supporting the wrong conclusion no appeal to empiricism can save a scientific theory – by definition. This is why science must reject supernatural causation and become methodologically naturalist at the outset. Without this assumption we would not be able to do science.<br />
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Methodological naturalism, therefore, means that science cannot ever make a judgement on supernatural claims. Science assumes that supernatural causes don’t exist and gets on with its job of figuring out the observable universe. As religion, for the large part, is based on such supernatural claims (God caused the universe, Karma causes ill luck, Boobs cause earthquakes) science has very little to do with the majority of religious assertions. I call this ‘philosophical compatibility’, as an understanding of the philosophy of science shows that science and religion are not in conflict. I accept that in specific cases religious claims may contradict with the findings of science and in those cases religion is wrong, but we can always take the step back to the philosophical level and show that such ‘contradictions’ may not be problematic if we allow for supernatural causes.<br />
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There’s one last level I want to discuss and that is ‘metaphysical incompatibility’. Working from science and its assumption of methodological naturalism one might take the eminently reasonable position of philosophical naturalism – supernatural forces positively do not exist in the real world. Note that this is not a scientific position but a metaphysical one, albeit one informed by scientific understanding. Science is insufficient to get us to philosophical naturalism, the move also requires reason and logical arguments (examples would include the argument from suffering of which I am fond). Philosophical naturalism is in clear contradiction with a metaphysic infused with religious supernaturalism. There is also a secondary incompatibility at this level but Feynman said it best so I’m going to turn the last word over to him:<br />
<blockquote>“As a matter of fact, the conflict is doubly difficult in this metaphysical region. Firstly, the facts may be in conflict, but even if the facts were not in conflict, the attitude is different. The spirit of uncertainty in science is an attitude toward the metaphysical questions that is quite different from the certainty and faith that is demanded in religion. There is definitely a conflict, I believe – both in fact and in spirit – over the metaphysical aspects of religion.”</blockquote><br />
And that is the heart of the science/religion incompatibility in a nutshell.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-46283929900482695772010-05-21T18:38:00.001+12:002010-05-21T18:39:11.625+12:00It's alive!<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qPE2CnThito&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qPE2CnThito&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br />
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<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/science.1190719v1.pdf">Scientific paper here.</a>Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-73385408886285840642010-05-20T00:40:00.001+12:002010-05-20T00:40:36.682+12:00Draw Mohammed Day<div style='text-align:center;margin:0px auto 10px;'><a href='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x_tcF0Ui8R4/S_PcLqGCSUI/AAAAAAAAALM/HS2NfNPqoPE/s1600/Mohammed+preaching+to+converts.jpg'><img src='http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_x_tcF0Ui8R4/S_PcLqGCSUI/AAAAAAAAALM/HS2NfNPqoPE/s320/Mohammed+preaching+to+converts.jpg' border='0' alt='' /></a> </div><div style='clear:both; text-align:CENTER'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-77455694471850250902010-05-19T17:05:00.003+12:002011-09-04T14:54:45.035+12:00Mistakes Were Made"But not by <i>me</i>" reads the subtitle to this staple non-pology. <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mistakes-Were-Made-But-Not/dp/0156033909/indoctrifreet-20">Mistakes Were Made</a></i> by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson is a fascinating look into the psychology of being wrong. Examples range from psychiatrists, scientists, politicians, TV hosts, all the way to regular people on the street. The focus of this book is not that people are wrong, but that they refuse to admit they are wrong even to themselves and thus confound the error. As I read this book there was a disconcerting transition from recognising the mistakes <i>other people</i> make to recognising those same mistakes in myself. It turns out that everybody errs and nobody admits to it.<br />
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The major driver behind our inability to admit mistakes is the need to reduce cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is the uncomfortable feeling of simultaneously holding two contradictory beliefs. In this case the belief that 'I am a good person' conflicts with the belief 'I made a mistake' and rationalisation kicks in to try and eliminate one of these two beliefs. The easiest one to avoid is 'I made a mistake' and that is often the one to go. The authors talk about the numerous ways in which we all try and reduce dissonance. We blame other people, we come up with justifications for our actions, and we ignore evidence that shows we are wrong. Interestingly, we also rewrite our very memories of events to make them seem more favourable to our point of view. This chapter really made me question how accurate anyone (including myself) could be when trying to recall past events.<br />
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The most illuminating example(s) in <i>Mistakes Were Made</i> were those that dealt with recovered memories. Recovering memories used to be a legitimate psychiatric practice and helped thousands of people 'remember' child abuse, sexual assaults, satanic rituals, and even alien abductions. You'd think by the time aliens came up, the accuracy of the technique might be called into question but the authors do a great job of explaining how accepting small steps can lead to ending at ludicrous (even criminal) outcomes that would not have been accepted in the beginning. The allegations of parental sexual abuse had devastating impacts of real families and some of those involved still can't admit they were wrong.<br />
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<i>Mistakes Were Made</i> contains numerous lessons that anyone could apply to their own lives. I learned a lot from this book and it changed the way I think about how other think and act. The central message from this book is that we all would be better off admitting to each other (and ourselves) when we are wrong.<br />
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Overall: 9/10 fantastic read.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1571595128787665549.post-34320985488444762732010-05-18T19:23:00.000+12:002010-05-18T19:23:04.839+12:00Science denialismOne of the most serious problems facing science communication is that of well funded and well organised movements of science denialism. The adherents of these movements completely reject certain aspects of mainstream science and no amount of persuasive evidence or reasoned argument will help them change there mind. Some examples of science denialism include creationism (aka intelligent design), anti-vaccination (aka Jenny McCarthyism), AIDS denial, and climate denial.<br />
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Proponents of science denial often defend their views with great zeal and effort. Yet apart from the one or two areas where they refuse to trust mainstream science, they are often logical and rational people. It is not hard to explain why someone who begins down the path of science denialism often finds it difficult to claw their way back to reality. Once a denialist has made a commitment to a particular anti-science idea, self-justification will allow them to overlook bias and ignore disconfirming evidence. These cognitive processes can quickly lead to an entrenched opinion which is fundamentally anti-scientific and almost impossible to dislodge. The problematic outcome is compounded by the availability of flagrantly false material over the internet and a sense of entitlement, that ones opinions should be valued at the same rate as an expert’s. However, this does not explain why a denialist would take that first false step, even when they appeared to have every opportunity to do otherwise.<br />
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I think there are two factors at play, pre-judgements and logical mis-steps. Pre-judgements occur due to our pre-existing biases and beliefs. They can take the form of ideologies, religions, or simply prior attitudes and assumptions. These biases cloud our judgement making us more likely to take our first step in the wrong direction, away from science and towards denialism. Creationism/Intelligent Design is a prime example of pre-judgement over-ruling the scientific approach. When a Christian approaches the evidence for evolution with “Biblical glasses” they’ve already closed their minds to disconfirming facts. The choice to go against the evidence was, in effect, already made when they chose to approach the question from their religious viewpoint. It is impossible to eliminate bias or to completely step outside your ideology/religion but the point is to be aware of what they are and be prepared to accept findings that contradict your previous ideas. This is what it means to have an open mind.<br />
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The second factor that sends someone onto the denial path is a logical mis-step. These occur because our brains are wired to take short-cuts in thinking, these short-cuts can be convenient but they frequently give us the wrong answer. A prominent example of this type of thinking is to confuse correlation with causation. This error frequently occurs in the vaccine denialist movement where the childhood vaccination schedule correlates with the onset of autism. Despite the total lack of evidence that vaccinations actually cause autism, for many parents the correlation is sufficient to take the first step towards denialism. Another frequent mis-step is to consider the consequences of a scientific point of view rather than considering the evidence. If evolution is true then we are related to monkeys, if HIV causes AIDS then I’m seriously ill, if global warming is true then the Earth is FUBAR. Because each of the consequences is detrimental (to our health or civilisation or concept of self) we will be sorely tempted to deny the science behind these facts. If we choose to disbelieve science based solely on the unpleasant consequences, then we have made a logical mis-step. The good news is that just being aware of logical errors helps to guard against making them. Learning critical thinking skills will prevent people from becoming denialists.<br />
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Once self-justification sets in, getting someone to give up their form of science denial is almost impossible. It will usually require a great deal of time, effort, and patience – with no guarantee of success. By contrast, preventing people from entering the denailism path is much easier and much more likely to succeed. As sceptics, freethinkers, and scientists this is where our energy should be going. Countering nonsense is unlikely to change any minds, but it is likely to prevent further minds from rejecting reality.Aught3http://www.blogger.com/profile/10300782949517851431noreply@blogger.com0