Janet Parshall's America...I'm sure glad I don't live there (click here to see why).

Dear Janet Parshell,

I sometimes force myself to listen to your show and I must confess, it never ceases to disappoint me. Whether you are falsely claiming that you hope that President Obama does well(you don't hope this), or you are engaging in histrionics over climate change, evolutionary biology or complaining about healthcare your disinterest in honest engagement seems inconsistent with the values you claim to cherish. Honesty, and integrity seem decidedly lacking at just about every level of your being. Your ill facility with logic does is also counter-productive. Those who disagree with you can never possibly be doing so simply because they see issues differently. They are always part of a larger conspiracy. I suppose if I thought that anyone who disagreed with me was a dupe for Satan (either willingly or not), it would be hard to take their opposing viewpoints very seriously too. Luckily I do not share in your delusional paranoid fantasy and can approach ideas and data as they are, and not through a warped ideological filter. I am forced to wonder if the growing pile of your inconsistencies ever alarms you, or if you even notice? Do you ever think, “I am sure to be caught today?,” or “I hope this bible quote will distract the audience from the fact I have no data, logic or even a good argument for what I am about to say?” I wonder this, because if I were you it would certainly be a matter of pressing worry. It’s a matter of credibility Janet.
You have none.

Let me make an example out of just one issue close to your heart of late, climate change. Your new fodder for denial is the recently hacked emails. But let’s leave that aside for a moment. As early as two weeks ago your gripe was about consensus among scientists. Namely you thought that the consensus wasn’t high enough to make it a national policy matter. That is since it was just a majority of climatologists who think that climate change is actually occurring and not an overwhelming majority of scientists (let’s say 90% or greater) our government should be, at the very least, reticent to act in a major way on the phenomenon. If scientific consensus, and independent corroboration were really important to you, there would be no problem (though I would be curious what said majority would have to look like before you supported any regulatory action on climate change, or even said you had to accept the current expert opinion). However you are clearly not concerned with scientific consensus and the manner in which you wield the notion is a smokescreen to cover over what is an ideological opposition which is religious, political and economic at its roots. Despite your alleged Christian commitment to honesty, you seem decidedly uncomfortable with the concept. But lying for Jesus is an old story.

Clearly though you don’t care a whit about scientific consensus. If you did you would not oppose the teaching of evolutionary biology in schools. Next to quantum mechanics, and relativity you would be hard pressed to find a more accepted, or more successful theory in all the sciences. If you actually valued scientific consensus you would not clamor for the teaching of creation “science” or its euphemistic code intelligent design alongside the teaching of evolutionary biology. You would not advocate, "teaching the controversy." No you don’t care about evidence Janet, you care about furthering your religious and political ends. There really is no controversy over evolution among working biologists (a huge overwelming majority consensus) Janet, but you don’t care. You prefer the views of William Dembski, and a minority (infinitismal)of other voices to the rest of the scientific enterprise. Clearly consensus isn’t as big on your list of concerns as you make it out to be.

If scientific consensus were as important a criterion in your mind as you make it out to be, you would not oppose ABC sex education, that is to say comprehensive education. A is for abstinence, B is for be monogamous and C is for condoms. You would not in a million years support and certainly you wouldn’t prefer Abstinence-only education because research has consistently shown abstinence only education doesn’t work. In fact it doesn’t work so well that kids who go through abstinence only programs are more not less likely to engage in sexually risky behaviors without protection. If scientific research was your guide, and the consensus of scientists a benchmark, you would certainly never support only funding AIDs/HIV programs on the continent of Africa that pledged to use only the worthless Abstinence-only approach to sex education. That would only increase the numbers of AIDS/HIV cases. But I think we see again you really don’t put much stock in scientific consensus.

Whether you are engaging in willful mendacity or you are simply so blinkered by the limits of your religious faith, and your political ideology that you are incapable of seeing a bigger more complex picture is not entirely clear. Though your histrionics about the popularity of vampires in fiction (you call them, with breathless credulity, “’undead’ instruments of the Devil) make me suspect that your religious derangement is very real. But even real religious derangement doesn’t preclude shameless dishonesty so I suppose that leaves us with an untidy open question. Whatever the case Janet, it is absolutely clear that you do a huge disservice to your listener’s comprehension of complex issues. You and your guests are simply echo chambers for one another. But beyond the disservice you do for your listeners, you do a disservice to public discourse on complex issues that cannot hope but to become political footballs. It is sad that you do not use your position in the media to elevate the debate.

Good Day,
Max Driffill II

A wonderful debate: Stephen Fry/Christopher Hitchens vs Archbishop John Onaiyekan/Ann Widdecombe MP

An amazing debate. And mostly just because Stephen Fry is so wonderfully eloquent and humane, and because Chistopher Hitchens, is so eloquent, serious and angry. It is the oratory equivalent of a one-two punch.










There is little by way of editorial comment that I could add to this.

Dan Dennett, provocative as usual.

Pascal's Wager: An argument that should never have been convincing.

As an atheist (a six on the Dawkins scale) I get to hear about Pascal's wager more often than anyone really needs to hear about it. If you find yourself in the unbelieving crowd, no doubt you hear it too often as well. This post isn't for you (well it is for you too, but I am really interested in exposing the flaws of Pascal here). This post is for those, often well meaning folks, who continue to tirelessly wheel out Pascal's rotting corpse in an effort to affect a religious conversion. I don't honestly think they've given Pascal's Wager the review it deserves. This may not be so. However, the abruptness with which the wager falls apart makes me think those who fancy it haven't thought too deeply about it. Either that or they think I'm none to bright. No doubt a few have thought the latter.

Before pressing on, let me spell out Pascal's Wager. Blaise Pascal, was a brilliant mathematician, philosopher and theologian of the 17th century. He was an innovator in mathematics and physics. He was also, perhaps not surprisingly, sick much of his life. And I don't mean mildly sick either. Much of Pascal's life seemed to involve some kind of pain. Whether this unduly influeced his theology, is not, for our purposes, germane to the argument contained in his infamous wager. It was a decidedly Christian wager, by the way, but probably has applicablity for all the Abrahamic traditions. Pascal thought all people should wager thusly: While no evidence for God exists, and proving his existance through reason was impossible (a part modern users of this argument like to leave out) one should wager as if God did exist because the costs for being wrong so outweighed the costs of being correct. That is to say, winning the wager (by believing in God) gets you heaven and whatever other poorly described rewards heave has to offer while you also avoid the eternal torments of hell (failing to believe in God if said being exists). There are no real rewards for winning the bet the other way. If the unbeliever is correct both believer and non-believer get the same reward. Nothing.

Wikipedia has a nice framing, "even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason, a person should wager as though God exists, because so living has everything to gain, and nothing to lose." So if you believe, and are correct you win the lottery, and if you are wrong you have, so Pascal claims, lost nothing.

For some reason this seems like a very brilliant gambit for many believers, but they really ought to note its many pitfalls. Lets look at what I think are three of the most obvious.

1. Pascal's Wager assumes we can choose which beliefs we adopt
I can only speak for myself here, but it seems like there are very few of our beliefs we can control. If we believe something, it is likely because we think the reasons for holding that a position is consistent with reality are strong. Not because it makes us feel good. No doubt some beliefs are better at making people feel happy than others, but that says nothing about how true they may be. For instance children believe in Santa Clause for very rational reasons. Authorities, whom they trust tell them Santa is real. For a child of a suitably young age, this kind of trust makes complete sense and constitutes reasonable evidence. But no matter where you find yourself in the belief or unbelief question you look for evidence of the veracity of position. It isn't apparent that one can choose to believe anything. They have to be compelled by evidence to adopt a position. That doesn't mean of course they will arrive at the correct position, just that some body of evidence (experience, research, etc) will have been enough to convince them that an idea (God, Aliens, Bigfoot) is consistent with reality. Whether people notice it or not they speak in terms of evidence no matter how much they use the word faith. At most all an unbeliever could do was act as if they believed if evidence didn't compel belief. Lets leave that aside for the moment.

2. Pascals Wager assumes that adopting religious belief carries no costs.
In every framing of this argument that I've heard, and indeed the way it was phrased by Pascal himself, it is assumed that faith is a cheap investment for the believer, as cheap as unbelief (hence the extreme difference in payoffs at the end of earthly life). One wonders how that part of the argument can be made with a straight face. Religious belief has obvious costs (these can vary of course, but they exist in every sect of the Abrahamic traditions). Religious faith makes its cost felt in obvious places like one's bank account (tithing, other religious donations), but also in terms of family relationships, and mental health, and simple time. The costs of religion can be felt in all these areas. Why Pascal didn't count these things as costs I don't know. Perhaps he was simply trying to bolster his case that the investment of both unbeliever and believer was equal in an effort to underscore the difference in payoffs. But think about all the time believers spend doing things for their faiths, the money spent, the relationships avoided, or broken off, and it becomes apparent that belief has costs, and sometimes they are quite serious. From here we see that these costs amount to serious, indeed utterly substantial investment. This seems like a profoundly obvious thing to have missed. Set against eternity in heaven I suppose a life time of this isn't much of an investment, but if it is the only life you get it, the wastefulness of it becomes apparent. Think about someone you know (it might be you reading this) who spends time, and considerable amounts of money on their faith, maybe they have also shunned a child for some religious infraction, or have all their life avoided same sex encounters that they deeply desire. What if that believer is wrong? Such a scenario certainly ruins Pascal's hypothesis that cost was a non-issue for the believer, but even mild costs would work to ruin the notion.

3.Pascal's Wager assumes that God will accept a lie.
I cannot make myself believe something that I think is patently false. All I can do is act like I believe something that I already believe is patently false. Sure I can fake it. And this is essentially what Pascal asks people to do with his wager. Dishonestly act as if you believe to gain a set of rewards for little cost in a future life. Firstly does this sound like the kind of action that the god of Abraham would tolerate? Secondly, is such subterfuge commensurate with moral action? It seems to me the answer to both questions is no. Pascal, and those who continue to use this argument act as if the answer is yes.

BLOG BIT: Dennis Miller and his guests are stupid.

I listen to conservative radio sometimes. Sometimes I didn't get my coffee, and need a jolt of self-righteous falsehoods being triumphantly spewed from some guy whose reasoning ablitity has been mangled by cheese bits, oxycotin and anger induced mini-strokes. That is almost like coffee, though, much more bitter. There is no amount of sugar and creamer (even irish cream creamer) that offsets the kind of vitriol generated by radio Hannity, Beck, Savage or Limbaugh. Radio brings out the worst in these characters. Though I am unsure exactly why that is. Maybe it is the tendency of the listener of these shows to be dyed-in-the-wool acolytes? Call screeners creating a fairy land of agreement, and insuring that only the most brain-dead rerpresentative of a contrary point of view ever makes it on the air (Rush, I am looking directly at you)? Maybe all the skewed positive feedback simply makes the delusion of being correct more potent? Whatever the case, radio encourages these guys to say the dumbest things, and its not that they need much encouragement.

Dennis Miller though I always thought might be a little different. Don't think I didn't notice that slide into right-wing Randian thought Dennis. I certainly did. I was sad to see it happen but I hoped that you might, in all your pop referencing glory make a reasonable, and maybe even funny case for your ideas. Dennis, I am sorry to say, disappoints. And he does this spectacularly. On top of this, his radio show seems to have the least actual content, and consists mainly of he and his co-host exchanging pseudo-witty pop-culture references and laughing (kind an unfunny Bob and Tom if you can imagine it). Oh, and then there is Miller hawking the wares of various sponsors which also eats up oodles of his air time (his shtick for some outfit called Taxmasters is the most annoying).

None of these right-wing talking point parrots sounds more ignorant than when the topic involves an element of science. And in that area climate change seems to flummox the lot of them even more profoundly than "teaching the controversy."

Today the show took a nasty turn into ignorance early, and there it remained. Of course there was the review of some terrible healthcare plan that would indeed be something about which to be alarmed if Obama was proposing anything like it. However since Obama isn't proposing the plan that have Dennis and his cohost so scared, I'm not going to bother looking at that strange analysis. Instead I will look at Miller's grasp and that of his callers on climate change. An analogy may help prepare you. Let climate represent a massive cliff face, say one of the giant cliffs found in the Valles Marineris on Mars. Let climate change science represent a hand hold at the top of the cliff saving one from a seven kilometer fall. In this scenario Dennis Miller and his audience are doing a pirouette to the tune of gravity punctuated by a very sudden stop. Terrible analogy? Probably, but my point is illustrated don't you think?

Dennis read a report that stated Chicago may have its earliest recorded snowfall sometime next week. Feeling triumphant, he laughed and said something like, "So what about global warming now? Clearly it just isn't happening." Now I don't mind an error. Everyone makes them. But to make a statement like this is reveal a level of catastrophic ignorance, and to do it proudly, that is stunning in its scope. Clearly his grasp of statistics is somewhat limited. He also seems to be missing the meaning of the global. I know, I know me and specifics. Global mean temperatures are rising, and this is completely not in dispute. A hot spell or cold spell in a specific location taken by itself is not sufficient to confirm or nullify the the climate change hypothesis. It is the broad trend that is in question. Not local variation. It is also pretty funny that Miller trusts the climate modeling that predicts snow in Chicago sometime next week.

The second major blunder came when one of his callers piped up about ozone depletion. Specifically, the caller said, "You know what I wonder, is why we never hear about the ozone layer anymore? We were all going to die, there was all the worry about UV. Now we never hear about it."
Miller responded, "Yeah its all a joke. A money making scam. Just follow the money. Look, Al Gore is worth a hundred million now. I mean good for him, I just wish he would admit it and then I could pat him on the back and say 'Way to go ya' hack!'"

If you live an area where the hole in the ozone affects you it probably seems more real I guess. Try the southern hemisphere Dennis, but take your sunscreen.

One of the reasons we do not hear as much about ozone depletion in the press is because the problem was so obviously tractable. The science was just that obvious. That didn't stop conservatives in the Reagan administration from resisting regulating the use of CFCs (chloroflourocarbons-the major culpits in the ozone depletion). Magaret Thatcher, who was no friend to regulation, but who did possess an education steeped in chemistry, did see it as an unavoidable necessity in this instance. CFCs were the problem and their broad applicablity made them quite abundant. In the lower atmosphere they were chemically inert, but stratospherically CFCs are broken down by UV light, which frees the chlorine. Chlorine is then able to amble about the stratosphere and mangle ozone molecules by the hundreds and thousands (this is a complex story but the synopsis will do for our purposes). However, CFC use has been dramatically reduced world wide and so the damage to the ozone layer has been drastically reduced. While this is all very positive problems will remain for some time. However protocols adopted by at least a 190 nations will likely allow the ozone layer to return to natural levels around 2050 according to NASA.

In the mean time, processes release excesses of chlorine into the stratosphere, especially in the Antarctic, but elsewhere too, that (combined with human released chlorine) result in depletions world wide. These depletions can result in significant and risky exposures to UV. UV warnings are not infrequent in Australia and other Southern Hemisphere hotspots (the Antarctic hole is often large enough to encompase portions of Australia). However general ozone reduction can be a threat the world over.

The reason, Dennis, that the ozone hole is not the huge problem it could've been, is because the world took note, followed the evidence and took action. Sadly adopting ridgid ideological blinders has hindered your ability to look objectively at evidence. What is even more disappointing is that you and others like you have been given such a potent microphone as a radio show.

Paul Kurtz: Stick. In. The. Mud.

Of all the personalities at CFI, I've always been the least impressed with Paul Kurtz. At the CFI World Conference in Bethesda, he did little to change my opinion of him. His latest contribution to rationalism (which can be found, undissected, by clicking on the title of this blog) has actually earned him negative points.

The celebrating of "Blasphemy Day" by the Center for Inquiry by sponsoring a contest encouraging new forms of blasphemy, I believe is most unwise. It betrays the civic virtues of democracy. I support the premise that religion should be open to the critical examination of its claims, like all other institutions in society. I do have serious reservations about the forms that these criticisms take. For example, cartoons have been recently circulated ridiculing key figures in Christianity, such as a cartoon depicting a feminine Jesus painting his "nails" with red nail polish, or the drawing of the Pope with a long nose like Pinocchio.

This could be translated, faithfully as, You know I'm all for free speech when I am arguing against religious claims, or challenging religious authority, but when the speech violates my rather prudish sensiblities I'm going to have, ahem, serious reservations.

Clearly a humourless guy, Kurtz has no need of things like satire and ridicule to punch through the thin facade of power and authority the holds many hostage in religious communities, or even those living outside religious observance. Sometimes the comics, satire and ridicule that so offends Kurtz's refined sensiblities, are exactly the prescription for cutting through the anesthetic of religious influence. Holy crap that cartoon, just said what I have been thinking for years! Out loud! Think of the importance of such experiences in some people's lives. Do you not see the power of a single satirical image? Are you so dense that you fail to see the usefulness of such images?

When we defended the right of a Danish newspaper to publish cartoons deploring the violence of Muslim suicide bombers, we were supporting freedom of the press. The right to publish dissenting critiques of religion should be accepted as basic to freedom of expression.

It was also assumed by many, the contributors to CFI, and its readers, that you were also defending the freedom of expression of the artists themselves. The cartoons, while certainly conveying the messages, were doing nothing terribly different than the pope-pinnochio-nose image you deplore. You cannot have one freedom without the other. Either you really are for freedom of the press and freedom of expression or you are simply for that which you agree with, and is framed in the way least likely to cause offense taking by some person, somewhere.

But for CFI itself to sponsor the lampooning of Christianity by encouraging anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant, or any other anti-religious cartoons goes beyond the bounds of civilized discourse in pluralistic society. It is not dissimilar to the anti-semitic cartoons of the Nazi era.

Here you make your most ridiculous blunder. It is completely dissimilar my orthodox PC friend. You will note that in both of the cartoons you mention (recent submissions I presume) it is not Catholics, or Christians generally who are being lampooned, or charcteritured, but leaders or icons of a particular faith tradition. These are attacks on ideologies and leaders in said traditions. Anti-semitism is racism, not criticism. Anti-semitism is less about Jewish ideology and much more about hating a racial identity.

Yet there are some fundamentalist atheists who have resorted to such vulgar antics to gain press attention. In doing so they have dishonored the basic ethical principles of what the Center for Inquiry has resolutely stood for until now: the toleration of opposing viewpoints.

Now you are just being silly Paul. Fundamentalist atheists? Fuck you. How is that for tolerating an opposing viewpoint? Vulgarity? Grow the fuck up. No one has dishonored, and certainly never violated (until now no less) your basic tolerance principle. The CFI, indeed all skeptical endeavors, in both small and large ways are always engaged in acts of intolerance of ideas. It is why we criticise a thing.

Now skeptics and freethinkers tend to be happy letting people believe what they want, which is certainly tolerance in the most important sense of the concept. However, it doesn't follow though that we should suddenly not be heavy handed with ideas, or utilize scorn, ridicule, satire or some other form of harsh critique. And we certainly shouldn't not do it because you are going whine about it when we do. You may want to go scowl somewhere else Paul. Sometimes bold statements are vastly more useful than the long, academic critique.

It is one thing to examine the claims of religion in a responsible way by calling attention to Biblical, Koranic or scientific criticisms, it is quite another to violate the key humanistic principle of tolerance.

Again critique is a form of intolerance. Mild to be sure, but come on. Just say what you mean here Paul. You don't want people offending the liberal believers who contribute to and support CFI. That is what all this whinging is really about isn't it?

One may disagree with contending religious beliefs, but to denigrate them by rude caricatures borders on hate speech. What would humanists and skeptics say if religious believers insulted them in the same way? We would protest the lack of respect for alternative views in a democratic society. I apologize to my fellow citizens who have suffered these barbs of indignity.

Paul anyone nattering about hate speech simply does not really support free speech and expression, nor a free press, nor liberty in general. When I see some insulting image of atheists or free thinkers (and there are certainly no shortage of these), of some bit of parody or satire I simply try to address the arguments contained therein. I do not complain overmuch about the intolerance of the other side, I begin constucting arguments against their position to lay it bare. "These barbs of indignity" that so vex you, don't matter. What matters is that I can argue against them, and am permitted the freedoms necessary to do so.

ZOMGitsChriss is my new hero: She kicks Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron in the nuts.

Solid as they say.

BLOG BIT: Obama's Olympic Gamble: This might be a good thing

While not going out for brunch the yesterday, I heard a bit of isolationist moaning on the Mike Gallager Show decrying Obama's presidential efforts to get the 2016 Olympic Games (summer) held in Chicago. A caller worried about all the potential terrorists that might be tempted to attack during the games, Galleger slammed the Olympics as too New World Order while complaining about poor treatment he felt American competitors (or was it just Americans) recieved at the Olympics. While this was going on I simply worried that the average US IQ had precipitously declined in the span of seconds or minutes. (I would later listen to NPR, and have those worries somewhat allayed, and then I was shaken again listening to New England football coverage.)

However I think this is a great overture to the international community given the isolationist policies, and generally icey international tone of the previous 8 years. No doubt the symbolism is not lost on Obama, or his advisors in the slightest. Having the Olympics here, even just campaigning for the Olympics to be held here on US soil is a bold statement to the international community, saying that we are indeed ready to be included in the international dialogue, while at the same time saying that we want to be a focal point in world affairs again.

Obama is clearly an international man (doing a little bit for his hometown too it has to be said), who wants the US to think in broader terms. What remains to be seen is whether or not the vitriolic, less than honest right wing nutter movements will hamstring this process enough to limit broader US involvement in the wider world. But that is an aside. What is very clear is that Obama is sending a clear signal to the rest of the world, in numerous ways, that the US seeks its leadership role in the world once again.
It is about damn time.

BLOG BIT: Defending Simon Singh or...:Screw the BCA

Click on the title of this blog bit for link to Olivia Judson's nice defense of Simon Singh (you should also get to visiting his site and signing his petition). Singh co-authored a book that seriously reviewed the claims of the Chiropractic practicianers, as well as other alt medicine therapies, and wrote a piece in the Guardian about chiropractic. This led to a stupid, stupid libel suit by the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). The BCA could not rebut Singh's scientific arguments (the Guardian did invite the BCA to defend, and produce science that supported their claims), so they resorted to this, potentially financially crippling, law suit. Thanks crappy English Libel laws that stifle scientific debate, and investigative journalism!