Indoctrinating Freethought

No Logo

2011-10-30T17:28:00.003+13:00

No Logo 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.

No Space.
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 acheive 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.

No Choice.
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.

No Jobs.
No Jobs is a look at the way corporations are hurting their employees by trying to pretend they don't have any! 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 hollow 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 re-hire them again for the next temp period. 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 miniscule rates of pay to make their products even more cheaply. These workers face long hours of repetitive work to produce items that retail for hundreds if not thousands of dollars when sold in branded stores. And when confronted with the facts, most of the corporations don't even care.

No Logo.
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-opted activist movements they radicalised them, by suppressing dissent they brought a spot-light to bear, and by destroying jobs they destroyed employee loyalty. No Logo tells stories of limited success, protestors 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.

Overall 7/10, the first three chapters are great but the last is much too long and repetitive.

The Nazis were wrong! (Part II)

2011-10-29T13:34:00.000+13:00

Back at Well That Was Daft Nasher has a response to my take on the nature of morality. In his original post 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 different approach 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 follow up where he clarifies his position.

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'.

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.

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.

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.

Seeds of Distrust

2011-09-09T19:44:00.001+12:00

Seeds of Distrust: The Story of a GE Cover-up 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.

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 PCR - 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.

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.

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 press release 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 Agrobacterium. 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.

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 GMO scandal that hit around the 2002 election.

2/10.

The Nazis were wrong!

2011-09-06T19:23:00.005+12:00

Over at Well that was Daft Nasher lays out his position 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.

First, let’s get clear on the distinction between objective and subjective. Following John Searle 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 to me.

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:

“Some things are absolutely, objectively true. That the Earth is round is an example of this kind of truth.”

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 was to say “apricots taste better than strawberries” the primary evidence in determining the truth of that statement would be how different fruits taste to me. Someone else who has different subjective experiences of taste could reasonably disagree with my statement.
Nasher proposes a novel test do determine whether a truth statement is objective or subjective:

“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 capacity for someone to consider it justified and it becomes subjective.”

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 capacity 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.

We could modify the subjectivity test slightly to avoid my objection. If we said that no reasonable 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:

“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.”

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".

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!

A plea to theists: well I guess it is too late for you

2011-09-03T13:58:00.001+12:00

One 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 A Plea to Atheists: Pedophilia Is Next On the Slippery Slope; Let Us Turn Back Before It Is Too Late. I’ve picked out a few of the major problems and given my response to them.

Subjectivity
Averick’s main beef with atheistic morality is that is subjective:

“For the atheist, morality is simply a word 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.”

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.

Peter Singer
Averick spends a significant chunk of the article attacking Peter Singer for his views on consequentialist utilitarianism. Which is an objective moral system. The Rabbi doesn’t seem to recognise that his criticism of moral subjectivism doesn’t apply to Singer but he continues regardless:

“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 like the consequences it’s ethical, if you don’t like the consequences it’s unethical. Thus, if you enjoy child pornography and having sex with children it’s ethical, if you dislike child pornography and having sex with children it’s unethical.”

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 harms 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.

S.P.A.G.
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.

All men are created in the image of God and are therefore inherently and intrinsically precious.

All men have been endowed by God with unalienable rights and among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thou shalt not murder.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Thou shalt not commit adultery, incest, or bestiality.

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.

Thou shall teach these laws to your children.

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 Declaration of Independence and the rules about murder, stealing, perjury, and adultery are from the Torah. 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.

Irony, it’s everywhere.

Free GE

2011-09-01T20:12:00.003+12:00

A recent story in the Dominion Post (Commercial benefits lacking in GE trials) reveals the genetic engineering trials being carried out by Crown Research institutions have lead to very few commercial gains. Plant and Food and AgResearch 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.

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. Anti-GE spokeswoman 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.

If New Zealand wants its scientific organisations to produce applied science using GE technology then it must:
1) relax the regulatory environment so that research time and money is not being consumed navigating expensive legislation
2) fund GE projects so the IP is not captured by overseas companies
3) open the New Zealand market to GMOs so that the benefits of this technology can be accrued here

There is very little risk 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!

Taxation as investment

2011-06-12T20:24:00.002+12:00

Okay 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Science vs religion: the effect of education

2011-06-01T20:30:00.000+12:00

A 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.

Students could choose between four options to describe their view on this relationship.

Conflict – I consider myself on the side of religion
Conflict – I consider myself on the side of science
Independence – they refer to different aspects of reality
Collaboration – each can be used to help support the other

Categories three and four were lumped together into a ‘non-conflict’ answer.

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.

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.

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.

SHEP is funded by the Templeton foundation; any true sceptics will now hum the Jaws theme.

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.

Pope in fallacy

2010-09-21T14:10:00.001+12:00

A recent speech by the current Pope, in Britain, where he links atheism and Nazism has caused some controversy in the blogosphere and in our own forums. 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

451°C

2010-07-29T00:28:00.000+12:00

In 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 International Burn the Koran Day. 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?

You can’t be good without sci-fi

2010-07-12T11:44:00.003+12:00

Science 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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

1. Gene Roddenberry (paraphrase).
2. Comes the inquisitor, J. Michael Straczynski

Jesus, Interupted

2010-06-03T16:09:00.002+12:00

In Jesus, Interrupted 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.

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.

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 all 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.

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.

Overall, a fascinating read into the history of the New Testament. Unfortunately, Ehrman is not the best writer so I give it 8/10.

Barbarians in the Desert

2010-05-29T23:50:00.003+12:00

I don't agree with any of the commentators, but I thought it was an interesting discussion.

Could you patent the sun?

2010-05-28T18:39:00.000+12:00

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.
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 )
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.
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;289:454-465

Ulster Museum to Promote Creationism?

2010-05-27T16:36:00.000+12:00

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. Guardian covers the story.

Buried chest high

2010-05-26T19:46:00.000+12:00

A very powerful poem written by an ex-Muslim YouTube user. Some of the images may be disturbing.

Dr. Andrew Wakefield in Comic Form

2010-05-25T19:53:00.000+12:00

A new 15 page comic 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.

I hope that information in comic form will be easy enough for vaccine deniers to digest. On second thought, perhaps not.

The failure of prayer

2010-05-24T23:07:00.000+12:00

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.

Google Pacman

2010-05-23T19:23:00.001+12:00

Best Google doodle so far is the playable Pacman logo in celebration of the 30th anniversary of the game. Sweet.

Science vs. religion: are they incompatible?

2010-05-22T20:42:00.003+12:00

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 previous blog post 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.

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, philosophical level?

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.

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 out there). 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 appeared 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 look like 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.

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.

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:

“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.”

And that is the heart of the science/religion incompatibility in a nutshell.

It's alive!

2010-05-21T18:38:00.001+12:00

Scientific paper here.

Draw Mohammed Day

2010-05-20T00:40:00.001+12:00

Mistakes Were Made

2010-05-19T17:05:00.003+12:00

"But not by me" reads the subtitle to this staple non-pology. Mistakes Were Made 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 other people make to recognising those same mistakes in myself. It turns out that everybody errs and nobody admits to it.

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.

The most illuminating example(s) in Mistakes Were Made 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.

Mistakes Were Made 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.

Overall: 9/10 fantastic read.

Science denialism

2010-05-18T19:23:00.000+12:00

One 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Humans evolve too

2010-05-17T18:44:00.000+12:00

Altitude sickness is caused as a decrease in air pressure affects the body's ability to take up oxygen (although the exact causes are not completely understood). The effects are more severe in those unacclimatised to high-altitude conditions. People who have lived all their lives in such conditions are, understandable, less affected. Mountaineers can also spend time at a high-altitude base camp to acclimatise before making the final assent.

Those who live in the mountainous regions of Earth, generation after generation, have the possibility of adapting to the conditions on a more permanent, genetic bases. Altitude sickness can be debilitating and is occasionally fatal so mutations that allow more effective delivery of oxygen will be favoured. Researchers have now found evidence of such mutations in the high-altitude populations of Tibet.

By taking genetic samples of about 30 villagers and subjecting them to single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis looking for single base changes in crucial genes. By comparing these SNPs to those from a nearby, low-altitude village 10 candidate genes were identified - including two related to haemoglobin. More work needs to be done to understand how (or if) these gene mutations contribute to survival at high-altitudes but it is certainly suggestive evidence that humans evolve too.

Genetic Evidence for High-Altitude Adaptation in Tibet Tatum. S. Simonson, Yingzhong Yang, Chad D. Huff, Haixia Yun, Ga Qin, David J. Witherspoon, et al. Science, 13 May 2010 DOI: 10.1126/science.1189406

Half the Earth too hot by 2300

2010-05-16T21:38:00.000+12:00

If anthropogenic global warming continues, over the next 300 years half of the Earth's surface may become too hot for human habitation, say scientists from Australia's University of New South Wales and Purdue University in the USA. Along with rising sea levels, biodiversity loss, and ocean acidification a major problem is the warming itself. If we are unable to stop the warming or adapt to the new conditions, global warming could be a real doomsday for human civilisation.

What's my sect? None of your business!

2010-05-15T23:30:00.000+12:00

Quick one today on the growing calls for Secularism in Lebanon. Lebanon has an interesting constitution which stipulates that 50 of it's parliament have to be Christians and the other half have to be Muslims. Furthermore, the president is to be a Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni, and the speaker a Shi'a. The youth of Lebanon are unhappy with so much empasis on the various sects and want to move to proportion voting and a secular state. What's their sect? It's none of your business!

Lizard competition drives evolution

2010-05-14T15:22:00.001+12:00

In a large manipulation of the environment two researchers have used entire islands in the Bahamas to test evolution. The biologists focused on the traits of running and body size of native lizard populations to test whether intra- or inter-specific competition was the greater driver of evolution.

On different islands these researchers alternatively used bird-proof netting to limit predation, introduced snakes to increase predation, or added more lizards to increase competition. They found that predation was essentially random with neither body size or overall speed making much difference to who would be eaten for lunch. On the other hand, when intra-specific competition increased having a larger body size and faster movement allowed certain lizards to access scare resources more effectively. It was this force, the researchers found, that drove the lizards evolution and not the predation.

While this is fascinating research and provides yet more evidence that evolution does actually occur (and within our lifetime) the biologists are quick to point out that this finding may not be replicating in other predator/prey relationships where predation could be more of an evolutionary factor.

Ryan Calsbeek, Robert M. Cox. Experimentally assessing the relative importance of predation and competition as agents of selection. Nature, 2010; DOI:10.1038/nature09020

Mohammed cartoonist attacked

2010-05-13T18:16:00.001+12:00

Lars Vilks, the cartoonist who drew Mohammed head on the body of a dog, was attacked while lecturing in Switzerland on free speech. He wasn't seriously harmed but the attacker managed to break his glasses. The security guards quickly gained control of the situation.

Several students can be heard chanting "Allah is great" (in Arabic) in the background. Violence is a totally unacceptable way to respond to satirical treatment of religious figures. Complaints and peaceful protests are the way to promote your dissatisfaction at the situation. The more certain groups of Muslims use violence to attack free speech, the more critical it becomes to continue producing depictions of Mohammed to preserve that freedom. This is going to be a hard lesson to learn about Western values, but they are going to have to learn it.

Draw Mohammed day on the 20th will be a good start.

Countering the Narrative

2010-05-12T21:43:00.004+12:00

A recurring phenomenon in the spate of Islamic terror attacks has been that the perpetrators are often citizens who turn on their own countries. Mjr. Hasan's attack on Ft. Hood in America being a prime example. A recent 60 minutes documentary purports to explain how peaceful Muslims can be turned into fanatical extremists willing to engage in suicide attacks on the very countries they live in.

Recruiters for these fundamentalist Islamic organisations rely on 'the narrative', a collection of stories, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and outright lies that claims the USA and the rest of Western civilisation is trying to eradicate Islam. This set of stories has been propagating wildly since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and appeals not to the poor and needy, but to prosperous and educated citizens who make foreign countries their home. Consider Mohamed Atta, the leader of the WTC attacks and educated at universities in Cairo and Hamburg. Mohammad Sidique Khan, leader of the London metro attacks, educated at Leeds University and prior to the attack was holding down a steady job. Or the would-be Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad. He holds double degrees from American universities, had a good job, a wife, and a nice house in the suburbs. These are the faces of Islamic terrorism in the West.

Even though there are many instances of Western governments defending or supporting Muslims in Bosnia, Somalia, Kuwait, Pakistan and Indonesia (disaster relief), Iraq and Afghanistan (overthrowing tyrannies) belief in the narrative remains strong. This set of beliefs is also being successfully exported to Western countries, with tragic results. Hatred of those who kill Muslims is encouraged yet, despite the fact that deliberate suicide bombings by Al-Qaeda kill more Muslims than drone attacks by American forces, adherants to the narrative still direct their hatred towards the West and their support towards terrorist organisations. The narrative includes the idea that the US government actually encouraged Al-Qaeda to carry out the attack on the WTC as a justification to invade Afghanistan - these fundamentalist Muslims are apparently 9/11 truthers.

Funded by the oil revenues of the Arab states, political Islamism is attempting to spread itself across the globe by going to war with any opposition. Having seized control of many regimes in the Muslim world, Islamists are enlarging the area they control. Conflicts between Muslims and other local populations in Russia, Indonesia, India, North Africa, Europe, and the USA show they have been extremely successful in spreading their ideology and bringing the fight to us. According to Maajid Nawaz of the Quilliam Foundation, countering the narrative is the most important aspect to preventing the spread of Islamism. I would add that moving away from an oil-based economy and ending the cosy relationship with Saudi leaders would also help by cutting off the economic backing of this dangerous, and deadly, movement.

Science vs. Religion

2010-05-11T19:44:00.003+12:00

A sociological survey by Elaine Howard Ecklund of Rice University has asked a sample of 1,700 scientists from top tier American universities about their view on religion. Perhaps surprisingly, a large proportion (50%) did claim a religious identity. The scientists in this survey were less religious than the general population, 52% said they had no religious affiliation compared with only 14% of the American population. A greater majority (65%) say they are interested in matters of spirituality. Ecklund has recently published a book discussing her research called, Science vs Religion: What Scientists Really Think.

Around 300 of these scientists (both religious and non-religious) were followed up in more in-depth interviews. Many scientists had the view that religion was not a topic for discussion amongst their colleagues and chose to keep their faith hidden. Others had unorthodox views of religion - not believing in God while still identifying as a catholic, for example. Only 2% identified their beliefs as 'fundamental' or 'evangelical'. The best news was that none of the interviewees though intelligent design (creationism) should be taught in classrooms.

Interestingly, the results of this survey indicate that learning about science does not seem to cause people to lose their religious beliefs. Most of these scientists had already come to their religious point of view before engaging into higher education. The biggest predictor of a scientist's religion (or lack thereof) was still the religion of their parents.

I think this survey has revealed some heartening information about the scientific community (at least in USA). Scientists that are also religious already understand the tensions between science and faith, and how to resolve them. These religious scientists are also more likely to be accepted into faith-based communities and have the best chance of imparting good scientific information. As long as they are not to scared to 'come out' to their colleagues, there is a great opportunity for some useful dialogue in the science vs. religion debate.

Ecklund, Elaine and Christopher Scheitle 2007. ‘Religion Among Academic Scientists: Distinctions, Disciplines, and Demographics.’ Social Problems 54: 289–307.

Ban the Burqa

2010-05-10T18:18:00.000+12:00

This story aired on a current affairs program last night. It talks about France's possible ban on the burqa and niqab - clothing which is designed to cover the wearer's face. This is a very contentious issue so I liked the programs approach of interviewing a Muslim woman who chooses to wear the burqa. She, and others like her, will be the ones who have their rights infringed if this new law is passed.

Banning the burqa has been done before in certain public buildings in both Egypt and Turkey but France and Belgium are going further in implementing a ban in all public places. The burqa itself is like a mobile prison that traps the woman and prevents her from properly interacting with the rest of society. It is a symbol of female submission and is often forced upon wives by their controlling husbands. I can see why many people, including many Muslims, come down on the side of a ban.

On the other hand, banning a form of clothing seems like a fairly big imposition on personal freedom. In modern Western civilisations wives are free to leave their controlling husbands at any time. Perhaps more focus needs to go on promoting women's shelters and prosecuting domestic violence incidences. Another argument that could be made is that by banning the burqa, these women won't even go outside and will become even more isolated from society. This result is the opposite of the intended goal.

As much as I sympathise with Muslim women's rights groups and Islamic religious leaders who want to see and end to this Saudi and Talibani practice the way to deal with the problem in a free civilisation that values both equality and liberty is not through a restrictive ban. Empowering these women through education and example will allow them to choose liberty for themselves. Our laws should support them when they decide to make that choice, not force that choice upon them.

Separatist sect and schooling

2010-05-09T22:57:00.002+12:00

The New Zealand Herald has investigated further into the practices of schooling by the Exclusive Brethren. This church is a separatist sect who receive government money to teach their children a very narrow curriculum. After banning King Lear, the NZ Herald has also revealed that missing or blacked out from Exclusive Brethren textbooks are central components of a well rounded education including evolution and human sexuality.

The NZ government should not be funding these stultifying centres of religious indoctrination.

Neanderthal genes in human genome

2010-05-08T15:30:00.002+12:00

DNA sequencing of Neanderthal genome has provided evidence that Neanderthals and humans may have interbred. The 40,000 year old DNA was was decoded by Svante Pääbo, a palaeogeneticist at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. The researchers manged to decode about two thirds of the genome in duplicate.

The team also compared the Neanderthal DNA to genomes form various human populations including French, Chinese, Papua New Guinean, and San. They found fragments of Neanderthal DNA in all modern human populations except those descended from African populations. As Neanderthals only lived in Europe and the Middle East this finding suggests that Neanderthals and human interbred some 45,000 years in the past.

Although none of the Neanderthal DNA contributed to expressed genes in modern humans comparison of the two Homo genomes with those of chimpanzees may reveal uniquely human traits that arose after the human/Neanderthal split and provided an evolutionary advantage to early humans. This was a crucial time in the evolution of humans and any discoveries in this area will be fascinating.

So with everyone of European, Asian, American, or Polynesian descent having 1-4% Neanderthal DNA in their genomes, this means that Africans are now the most racially 'pure' population. I wonder what white supremacists would have to say about that?

Richard E. Green, Johannes Krause, Adrian W. Briggs, Tomislav Maricic, Udo Stenzel, Martin Kircher, et al. A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome. Science, 2010; 328 (5979): 710-722 DOI: 10.1126/science.1188021

Free speech in the UK?

2010-05-07T19:40:00.001+12:00

Not if the topic is religion.

In this first case, Harry Taylor (59) left leaflets satirising aspects of the Christian and Islamic religions at Liverpool John Lennon Airport. For leaving these cartoons in a public place, Mr Taylor was convicted of causing religiously aggravated harassment, alarm, or distress. Mr Taylor has been convicted on similar charges in the past and is being treated for depression.

The second case involves a Christian preacher, Dale McAlpine (42) who was arrested after allegedly speaking out against sins listed in the Bible - including homosexuality. Mr McAlpine also faces a charge of causing harassment, alarm, or distress.

While the majority of Christians or atheist probably would not support the actions of either Mr Taylor or Mr McAlpine, the overuse of the public order act in Britain is something both sides of the theological debate can agree on. If we want to have these discussions then it is important that even the most extreme speech is protected. Dropping leaflet or holding an impromptu sermon hardly seem like matters that should involve the police.

Reason Prevails

2010-05-06T16:19:00.001+12:00

May 6th is the international day of reason. Unfortunately,this is not yet an official holiday but merely a facebook group dedicated to promoting reason. The day of reason is to be celebrated on the first Thursday of every May by engaging in rational discourse and freethought. If you're at a loss for what to do today I've found a couple of activities which will force you to think, at least until you get back to work.

The Wason test. An easy question that's hard to get right when the context is abstract shapes and numbers, but give make it a social situation and the solution will pop out at you.

Optical illusions trick your brain by containing something unexpected. These five should get you started, I especially like the Thatcher effect on Obama.

The Monty Hall dilemma. An oldy but a goody. Stick or switch? If you already know the answer for three choices, what's the best strategy for four or five doors?

Finally, ExtantDodo provide a great run down of logical fallacies which can muck up clear thinking. Enjoy!

Did atheism cause the atrocities of the 20th century?

2010-05-05T20:20:00.003+12:00

An argument that often comes up in the religion debate is whether atheism can be responsible for the crimes committed by atheists. In response to the claims that Christianity lead to the inquisition, witch-hunts, the crusades, and slavery Christians regularly respond that atheism does not have a perfect record. If these crimes can be blamed on Christianity then surely the crimes of atheists such as Stalin, Hitler, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot can be blamed on atheism.

There are multiple problems with this argument. The first is that it is fallacious, being both an argumentum ad consequentiam and a tu quoque response all in one. Although the atheist argument that Christianity leads to atrocities is also an argumentum ad consequentiam, I've only ever seen it brought up in response to the Christian claim that religion always results in positive outcomes. Even if the argument that atheism lead to the atrocities of the 20th century is true, we can still disregard it as an attempt to show atheism as a faulty position.

So, what is atheism and how could it motivate someone to commit a horrendous act? Atheism is the rejection of the claim that god exists. That's it. There is no dogma or ideology that logically flows from this position. Any other beliefs that an atheist has are separate from their atheism. An atheist could hold related ideas, such as secular humanism, but there is no direct line from atheism to any ideology. Indeed an atheist could be anti-clerical and hate everything about all religions, or they could be religious themselves as many Buddhist or Raelians are. But both positions are separate from their atheist. They is nothing implicit in atheism that could motivate anyone to action and so the argument on the evils of atheism fails here.

The next question to consider is whether religion is a motivating factor in behaviour. Perhaps the Crusades were not fought because of religion but because of some other ideology. This is clearly false. Many knights joined the Crusades specifically because the church offered them forgiveness from their sins and the Crusades themselves were fought to convert heathens to Christianity. Religion itself was the ideology and dogma that motivated people to action. Theism (the acceptance of god's existence) is the equivalent of atheism and cannot drive behaviour. However, add in a religious motivator like Christianity and the result can be great good or great evil.

What really motivated the communist and fascist dictators of the 20th century was an adherence to the ideology of their respective parties. The fascist dictators - Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler - were all closely intertwined with the Catholic church. Franco was a Catholic and made Catholicism the official religion of Spain. Both Mussolini and Hitler were probably atheists but used Catholicism to achieve their goals and motivate their followers. Both signed concordats with the Vatican and promoted their own piety in public. The fault here clearly lies with religion rather than atheism.

Turning to communism the picture is slightly different. Communist regimes are officially atheist but that does not mean their atrocities were committed because of their atheism (that would be to confuse correlation with causation). In the case of Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot what drove their crimes was an adherence to the communist ideology. By far the biggest killer in each of their regimes was starvation due to the collectivisation of agricultural land - a direct result of communism. The second leading cause of death was murder of the property owning class in order that their property revert to the communist state. Finally, any dissenters or intellectuals were also killed as any opposition to the communist doctrine was seen as evil. At no point does atheism take a staring role in these human tragedies. Rather, a reliance and blind acceptance of communist ideology was to blame.

Any attempt to blame atheism for crimes committed by atheists necessary falls at the first step. Atheism is not and ideology, dogma, or even an -ism. It cannot inspire anyone to do anything, good or bad. Something extra must always be added. The same can be said for theism. Before theism becomes a problem, the dogma of a religion must be added. In the case of Hitler, a religious mix of Catholicism and paganism was what drove him to commit the holocaust. In the case of Stalin adherence to the ideology of communism led him to murder and starve his people. Atheism is guiltless.

The end of religion

2010-05-04T16:42:00.004+12:00

The most interesting idea to me was that, on a world-wide scale, the non-religious (myself included) make up a substantial portion of the population. At a local level a particular religion may be followed by the majority but that does not translate into a wider acceptance. In Spain the dominant religion is Catholicism, in Greece it is Greek Orthodox, in India it is Hindu, and in Turkey it is Sunni Islam. But in each of these countries there is a substantial minority of the non-religious and their lack of belief is shared by millions around the world. When we are brought together by the communication technology of the 21st century, we truly are legion. No matter which faith you pick, at most only a billion people think you are right, billions more think you are wrong. I hope the internet can help hammer that point home for those with delusions of grandeur.

In defense of secular law

2010-05-03T20:00:00.001+12:00

Recently, Evangelical guidance counselor Gary McFarlane lost his job due to his unwillingness to receive and council gay couples. The UK's anti-discrimination laws meant that his employer, Relate Avon, was able to terminated his employment with them. This part of the case is relatively straight forward, Mr McFarlane refused to perform his therapy services in a non-discriminatory manner and thus his termination was justified. However, Mr McFarlane appealed the dismissal on the grounds that his Christian beliefs meant that he had to discriminate between homosexual and heterosexual couples and that firing him for his beliefs was, itself, discriminatory.

Lord Justice Laws dismissed this argument in no uncertain terms saying that "The precepts of any one religion - any belief system - cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of any other. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens, and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic." The question facing Justice Laws was whether an exception should be made for a certain religious belief when secular law is supposed to be applied equally. In this case Justice Laws was correct that Relate Avon applied an identical standard to all its employees (be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist) and that making an exception for Christianity would have itself been discriminatory against the other religious positions. After all, if the exception can be made for Christianity it ought to be made for Jews, Muslims, and atheists and then there would be no point to having the law in the first place. No religious belief, said the judge, can be protected under the law "however long its tradition, however rich its culture."

Justice Laws also dismissed as "mistaken" former archbishop of Canterbury George Carey's warning that so-called discrimination against Christians may result in attacks in Britain. Carey described the High Court ruling as "deeply worrying," heralding "a 'secular state' rather than a 'neutral' one." What Mr Carey doesn't understand is that a secular state is neutral on the matter of religion, by definition. Secularism is the compromise between the religious and non-religious and under secular law everyone is treated equally regardless of their beliefs.

Rubbing a little salt in the wound, Justice Laws added "religious faith is necessarily subjective, being incommunicable by any kind of proof or evidence." and that using the law to protect "a position held purely on religious grounds cannot therefore be justified." Amen.

King Lear too risqué for Christian students

2010-05-02T18:08:00.001+12:00

A Christian high-school in Kerikeri, New Zealand has sacked one of their teachers for providing her class with a copy of Shakespeare's King Lear. Suzette Martin was fired from the private Westmount School for teaching her Year 13 students the play. King Lear is commonly studied in New Zealand public schools in preparation for the NCEA English exam.

However, Westmount school is run by the Exclusive Brethren, a reclusive religious sect that pass for the local religious kooks in this country. This Christian organisation receives around $2.5 million from the government to run 15 schools nationwide, for about 1600 students. Ms Martin, who is a Christian herself, elected to fight the dismissal. Unfortunately, due to a clause in her contract that states she must clear teaching material with the school board, the school's decision to terminate her employment was upheld. As much as I dislike the situation, I have to agree that Ms Martin did violate the terms of her contract and her dismissal was perfectly legal.

The trustees of Westmount school only wanted to permit materials that “reflected Bible values” such as genocide, human sacrifice, and infinite torture but found the "embarrassing, corrupting and morally defiling" text of King Lear too risqué for their Christian students to handle. Ms Martin identified the words "whores" and "prostitutes" of particular concern to the trustees. These words appear multiple times in the Bible. In one of the more well known Biblical stories, a prostitute named Rahab helps Joshua's spies escape from the city of Jericho right before it is destroyed and its inhabitants slaughtered. As a result of her obedience, Rahab and her family were rewarded and blessed (Joshua 2:1; 6:17-25). If the school board was to apply their standards consistently, the Bible would be the first book banned from this Christian school.

The problem with this story is not the unfortunate firing of Ms Martin but that these schools receive government funding. Westmount school has a clear policy to censure great works of literature so that their students are not exposed to potentially corrupting ideas. Worse, another clause in teachers' contracts means that they are prevented from encouraging their students to attend university. If the school's goal is not to expose children to new ideas and encourage further study, then they are not engaging in education. The best outcome would be for these children to be placed in a proper schooling environment. Failing that, let's at least stop the public funding of religious indoctrination and censorship.

Jumping genes

2010-05-01T21:04:00.004+12:00

The transfer of genetic material is well known to occur in a vertical orientation. Parents pass their genes on to their children, and their children pass those genes on to the next generation. This fact allows scientists to analyse particular genes and to use the pattern of inheritance to build the tree of life.

It is also well known that the bacteria at the base of this tree form more of a fuzzy bush. This is because bacteria are much more promiscuous than their mammalian counter-parts. While invertebrates stick exclusively to members of their own tribe, bacteria are happy to have sex with a completely different species and will even engage in necrophilia if the occasion arises. This swapping of genes between species is called horizontal gene transfer and was thought to be the purview of bacteria (and some fungi) only.

But now scientists have discovered that transposons (jumping genes) can be transmitted from parasite to host - at least in some special cases. The parasite in this case is the blood-sucking triatomine, a parasite which regularly bites humans and can carry Chagas disease. Researchers found the invertebrate had transposon DNA which was also found in some vertebrate hosts, namely the opossum and the squirrel monkey (but not humans - yet). These jumping genes were 98% identical between the different hosts.

Although this is a clearly a rare and special case, it does demonstrate that genetic transfer between different species is possible. This finding increases the risk associated with genetic engineering and emphasises that once a gene is released into the ecosystem total control of the set of instructions cannot be guaranteed. On the other hand, what scientists do when genes are artificially transferred from one species to another is not much different to this newly discovered natural process. Perhaps this finding may help to ease the environmentalists' fear that genetic engineering is bringing Dr Frankenstein's monster to life.

Clément Gilbert, Sarah Schaack, John K. Pace II, Paul J. Brindley, Cédric Feschotte. A role for host-parasite interactions in the horizontal transfer of transposons across phyla. Nature, 2010; 464

Class, take out your pencils

2010-04-30T21:40:00.001+12:00

After the recent kerfuffle with the (non)depiction of the Islamic prophet Muhammed on (lame) TV show South Park, a couple of web-based initiatives to draw Muhammad have sprung up.

The first is being promoted by YouTube user NonStampCollector. Every YouTuber is being encouraged to draw a non-offensive stick figure and call him Muhammed. The campaign is called Have You Seen This Man? and I hope all those with YouTube accounts get into it.

The second is being promoted by a group calling themselves Citizens Against Citizens Against Humor. They are also encouraging posting of non-offensive Muhammad drawings to sites all across the internet. The cartoonist behind this movement is Molly Norris, and she has declared May 20th Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.

I love this idea and will be doing my own drawing closer to the 20th. In order to show as much deference as possible to Muhammed and his modern followers I'll be copying an old piece of Islamic art which depicts Muhammed preaching to some of his earlier converts. The prohibition against drawing Muhammed didn't arise until the 16th century and has only been sporadically enforced since then. There is actually quite a rich history of Islamic medieval art which shows Muhammed with a full view of his facial features. Claims that drawing Muhammed has always been considered offensive are completely false.

I can imagine one objection to these campaigns might be that we ought not cause offense to our muslim brethren. In normal situations I would agree that it's better to play it safe rather than to set out to deliberately annoy someone. However, Islam has repeatedly demonstrated that it will over-react to even mild satire in a completely unacceptable way. Consider the riots and race-based pogroms that occurred after Jyllands-Posten printed 12 Muhammed cartoons in 2005. Secularists dragged Christianity, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century and now it's time to give Islam a little remedial schooling. A creative arts lesson should be an easy place to start.

The day God hit reset

2010-04-29T19:42:00.004+12:00

In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth, the seas and the skies, the animals and even mankind. Everything was good. Until man learned of his nakedness, he learned how to take pleasure in the company of woman and soon the new world was populated with those who sinned against God's desire.

God decided that the wicked could no longer be saved so he planned to flood his creation and drown the unrighteous who would not listen to his word. But God did not wish to destroy all of his creation and so sent for our hero to build an ark. And our hero did built a great ark. On this ark was loaded all the beasts and birds needed to repopulate the Earth after the flood. Our hero brought his family aboard and sealed the ark shut.

It rained for many days and many nights, long and deep enough to lift the ark from the ground and float it along in the flood waters. Eventually all wickedness had been drowned and God allowed the flood-waters to recede. Our hero and his ark came to rest on the side of a mountain, in a strange land where the remnants of the ark may still be today. But where exactly is the location that the ark's residents finally came ashore to repopulate the Earth?

It turns out the answer to that question depends on which sacred text you read and which god you believe in. If you believe that the hero of the story is a man named Noah and the world was flooded by the god Yahweh, you would expect to find the ark somewhere around Mt Ararat in Turkey. Alternatively, if your hero is called Nuh and your god Allah, the ark should be located on Mt Judi in Iraq. But if you happen to be one of the Iraqi Mandaeans the resting place of the ark is in Egypt.

In the Greek flood myth, Zeus puts an end to the Bronze age (1500 BCE) by flooding the world. However, the hero Deucalion builds an ark which saves him and his family (but he does not take any animals). The location of his ark has been suggested as Mt Parnassus or Mt Etna. Going back even further (to 2000 BCE), the Sumerian hero Atrahasis is told by the god Enki that another god, Enlil, plans to flood the world to prevent overpopulation. Atrahasis builds an ark to save himself, his family, and his animals from destruction. The landing site of this ark was Bahrain.

With all these arks supposedly floating around it seems surprising that we haven't yet uncovered some archeological trace of any of them. Or have we? Well this week ABC carries the story of a potential ark find on Mt Ararat.

Exciting stuff, unfortunately it turns out to be a fake. Randall Price who was the arkaeologist with the Chinese team has denounced the find saying "In the late summer of 2008 ten Kurdish workers hired by Parasut ... are said to have planted large wood beams taken from an old structure in the Black Sea area ... at the Mt. Ararat site. ... During the summer of 2009 more wood was planted inside a cave at the site. The Chinese team went in the late summer of 2009 (I was there at the time and knew about the hoax) and was shown the cave with the wood and made their film." (Read his full account here.)

Ah well, the arkaeologists will have to keep searching and they've got a lot of ground to cover. According to ancient scriptures, almost every mountain range in, and around, the fertile crescent, the Mediterranean, and Bahrain could have the remains of one ark or another. Good luck!

The Vaccine War

2010-04-28T19:32:00.001+12:00

I've just finished watching a new PBS Frontline documentary called The Vaccine War. The documentary covered the current dispute between parents and medical professionals over whether vaccines are safe to give to children.

Both sides of the question were given ample time to present their respective cases, including plenty of screen time for anti-vax cheerleader Jenny McCarthy. Frontline did an excellent job of hearing out the claims made by the anti-vaccine advocates and then debunking them by presenting the scientific evidence and credible explanations by experts in the field.

The documentary also made exposed the major tactic of pseudoscientific proponents which is to shift the goalposts once the scientific facts on their previous claim have been gathered. Led by Andrew Wakefield, the vaccine denialists first pronounced that the MMR vaccine caused detrimental effects in young children who received immunisation. This was shown by epidemiological studies in Denmark, Japan, and the US to be false. Furthermore, it was explained that Dr Wakefield's flawed study had been retracted by the prestigious medical journal in which it was originally published. The anti-vaccine advocates then switched to blaming mercury present in the thiomersal preservative for the autism their children developed after receiving multiple vaccinations. The claim was once again shown to be false by epidemiological evidence. It was also made clear by the scientific experts that the correlation between vaccination and autism was only due to the coincidence in timing between the onset of autism and childhood vaccination schedule and causation should not be assumed (a post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy). Finally, the vaccine denialists were left calling for more studies and generic testing even in the face of overwhelming evidence that vaccines are safe and efficacious.

The last segment of the program focused on the harm that anti-vaccine advocates are causing. The first and most obvious problem is that the children who are not vaccinated get sick with these deadly diseases. I some cases, such as polio and measles, anti-vaccination movements have actually prevented these diseases from being eliminated from our planet. Every year people get sick and die from vaccine-preventable diseases, yet vaccine denialists still promote the non-use of these life-saving measures (see the Jenny McCarthy body count - 509 deaths at the time of writing). The second issue is that of lost herd immunity. Some, because of age or ill-health, cannot safely be vaccinated and rely on those around them not to pass on diseases. With the lower levels of vaccinations, this herd immunity is lost. The Vaccine War included the story of one little girl who almost died from Pertussis (whooping cough) a disease many young doctors have never even seen in their patients. The final problem is that of distraction. The money and time spent on eliminating the MMR vaccine and thiomersal as a potential cause of autism could have been better spent studying the actual causes of autism and providing real results to desperate parents who have so many unanswered questions.

One final point that Frontline touched on but did not provide a definitive answer for, was that of requiring parents to vaccinate their children. After all, we expect parents to take reasonable care of their children, to prevent injury and sickness as best they can. Since vaccines are such a success, perhaps parents should have no say in the matter and vaccination should be mandated by the government. Although the ideal situation would be for informed parents to make the right choice and get their children vaccinated, I think it the importance of preserving herd immunity and wiping out these deadly diseases outweighs the slight loss of parental freedom. Ironically, if every parent had their children properly vaccinated, these diseases would disappear and there would be no need for a continued vaccination program. Smallpox is currently the only virus which has been eradicated and other diseases could be eliminated if only people would listen to the experts and get immunised. Overriding the parents' choice is not the perfect system but as long as vaccine denialists continue to spread their misinformation, it may be a necessary one.