Fire and Knowledge

Focus on the Family has an entire website dedicated to what retailers are “Christmas-friendly” — that is, retailers who say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

Does Focus on the Family not realize there are multiple religions and holidays in America? There’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, the Winter Solstice, and the New Year. What’s the problem with wishing people a general happy holiday season, instead of just one specific day that not everyone celebrates? There’s nothing sinister behind it, even if they want that to be true to fuel their persecution complex.

Seems to me that people who think this is a big deal are being self-centered and don’t want to think about anyone besides themselves.

So on that note, happy holidays everyone!

For human beings the spiritual and the practical are, and should be, inseparable. Alone, practicality becomes dangerous; spirituality, alone, becomes feeble and pointless. Alone, either becomes dull. Each is the other’s discipline, in a sense, and in good work the two are joined.

—Wendell Berry, “Preserving Wilderness” in Home Economics (1986), p. 145.

Put yourself in this situation.

You are at a train track and see five people tied to the track ahead. A switch is in front of you which will divert the train, but as you look down you see a man is strapped to that track and will be killed. Is it permissible to flip the switch and save the five people at the expense of one?

If you are like most people, you said yes.

Now imagine in order to save the five people, you have to push a stranger in front of the train to stop it. You know for certain it would stop the train in time to save the five people tied to the tracks. Is it permissible to push the man and save the five people at the expense of one?

You probably said no. But the results are the same — the only difference is the method (passive vs. impassive). But in both cases you sacrifice one life to save five.

So why do we see one as moral and the other as immoral?

Here’s the answer Michael Shermer gives:

In the first one the subject is emotionally detached by being one step removed from the killing process—to save five lives by killing one person, one has only to flip a switch to detrail the trolley car. The trolley killed the individual, not the subject. In the second scenario the subject is emotionally involved—to save five lives by killing one person, one has to be directly and viscerally responsible for killing another person.

Moral judgment is not calculatingly rational. It is intuitively emotional. (The Science of Good & Evil, p. 177)

Do you agree?

Jesus told us to be like the Good Samaritan, yet how many of you here today could afford to pay for a stranger’s hospital treatment and housing for a week? The Samaritan was able to help because he had the financial means to do so. Without it he could only have offered minor assistance.

—Kerry Heinz, as quoted in Richard Evans, The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me (2006), p. 3

This is almost unbelievable, except it’s Ben Stein and associated with that Expelled movie, so it’s not quite so unbelievable:

Stein (speaking about the Holocaust): …that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

Stein: … Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.

It’s almost like he doesn’t know any religious history. Even in this century, over 800 million people have died due to religious conflict.

(via Friendly Atheist)

We can believe weird things, from ghosts to alien abductions to ESP to young-earth creationism. Have you ever wondered how smart people can believe such things? These answers are adapted from Michael Shermer’s excellent Why People Believe Weird Things:

Problems in Scientific Thinking

1. Theory Influences Observations — When you have a theory of something, you interpret the results inside your theory. So when Columbus arrived in the New World, he saw Asian spices and roots. His theory said he should be in Asia.

2. The Observer Changes the Observed — The act of studying an event can change it. This can happen with anthropologists studying tribes to physicists studying electrons. This is why psychologists use blind and double-blind controls. Science tries to minimize this, pseudoscience does not.

3. Equipment Constructs Results — The equipment used often determines the results. The size of the telescope shaped and reshaped the size of the universe. The kind of fish net determines what fish it can catch.

4. Anecdotes != Science — Stories that people pass on is not the same as controlled experiments. Pseudoscience points to anecdotes; science points to reputable studies.

Problems in Pseudoscientific Thinking

5. Scientific Language Doesn’t Make It Scientific — Dressing up a belief in scientific language doesn’t make it science. This is easily seen with “creation science” and New Age pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo.

6. Bold Statements Do Not Make Claims True — L. Ron Hubbard called Dianetics “a milestone for man comparable to his discovery of fire and superior to his invention of the wheel and the arch.” But it wasn’t. The more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary well-tested the evidence must be.

7. Heresy Does Not Equal Correctness — Copernicus and Galileo and the Wright Brothers were rebels. But just because someone is a rebel doesn’t make them right. Holocaust deniers are rebels, but they need historical evidence for their position. It’s heresy to say Bush planned the 9/11 attack, but that isn’t evidence of the government suppressing the truth.

8. Burden of Proof — The person making the extraordinary claim has the burden of proving their claim is true and better than the commonly accepted position. If a man claims he moved a mountain with his mind, the burden of proof is on him.

9. Rumors Do Not Equal Reality — Rumors begin with “I read somewhere that…” or “I heard from someone that….” Before long, the rumor becomes reality, as “I know that…” passes from person to person. These stories are often false. For instance, everyone knows George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and couldn’t lie about it. He also had wooden teeth. Both stories are false.

10. Unexplained Is Not Inexplicable — Just because you can’t explain something doesn’t mean it can’t be explained. Firewalking seems inexplicable, but once you know the explanation it seems obvious. The same goes for all magic tricks. And even if an expert can’t explain it doesn’t mean it can’t be explained someday. Think of how many things — from germs to atoms to evolution — couldn’t be explained two hundred years ago!

11. Failures Are Rationalized — Scientists acknowledge failures and reformulate theories. Pseudoscientists ignore or rationalize failures.

12. After-the-Fact Reasoning — Also known as, “post hoc, ergo propter hoc,” literally, “after this, therefore because of this.” It’s superstition. Because I carried a rabbit’s foot, I sold more products today. Because I have blonde hair, I’m ditzy. Because I used a dowsing stick, I struck water. All superstition. Correlation does not mean causation.

13. Coincidence — Most people have a very poor understanding of the law of probability. Say you are about to make a call and as your hand touches the phone they call you. How could that be a coincidence? It must be ESP. We forget about the other thousand times we call someone and they don’t call us first. You make 5 baskets in a row, and you’re “on fire.” But statistically your chances are the same as a coin-flip. The human mind looks for patterns and often finds them when there are none.

Logical Problems in Thinking

14. Representativeness — Something may seem unusual when it’s not. Baselines must be established. For instance, tapping and scratching sounds in your house may be ghosts, but it’s probably just pipes and rats. Many ships are lost at the Bermuda Triangle, but only because there are more shipping lanes there than in surrounding areas. When that is factored in, the accident rate is actually lower in the Bermuda Triangle.

15. Emotive Words and False Analogies — Loaded language can be used to provoke emotion and obscure rationality. Industry can be called “raping the environment” or abortion “murdering innocent children” or a political opponent a “communist.” Rarely does this further rational thought, but clouds the issue with emotion and rhetoric.

16. Appeal to Ignorance — This claims if you can’t disprove something, it must be true. So if you can’t disprove psychic power or ESP or ghosts, they must be real. The problem is you can’t disprove Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, either. Belief should come from positive evidence in support of a claim, not a lack of evidence.

17. Attacking the man —Redirect the focus from thinking about the idea to thinking about the person holding the idea. Calling Darwin a racist or a politician a communist or past figure a slaveholder does not discredit their ideas.

18. Hasty Generalization — Also known as prejudice, or drawing conclusions before the facts warrant. A couple of bad teachers and it’s a bad school. A couple of bad cars and that brand of automobile is unreliable.

19. Overreliance on Authorities — We must be careful not to accept a wrong idea from someone we respect, nor write off a good idea because of a supporter we disrespect. Examining the evidence ourselves helps us avoid these errors.

20. Either-Or — This is the argument that when one position is wrong, another must be accepted. For instance, creationists spend much of their time attacking evolution because they think if evolution is wrong, then creationism must be right. But for a theory to be accepted, it must be superior to the old theory. A new theory needs evidence in favor of it, not just against the opposition.

21. Circular Reasoning — Also known as begging the question, this is when the conclusion or claim is merely a restatement of one of the premises. For instance in religion: Is there a God? Yes. How do you know? Because my holy book says so. How do you know your holy book is correct? Because it was inspired by God. Or in science: What is gravity? The tendency for objects to be attracted to one another. Why are objects attracted to one another? Gravity. While these definitions can at times be useful, we need to try and construct operational definitions that can be tested, falsified, and refuted.

22. Reductio ad Absurdum and the Slippery Slope — Reductio ad absurdum is the refutation of an argument by carrying the argument to its logical end and so reducing it to absurd conclusion. For instance: Eating ice cream will cause you to gain weight. Gaining weight makes you overweight. Overweight people die of heart disease. Thus eating ice cream leads to death. A creationist might argue: Evolution doesn’t need God. If you don’t need God, you reject him. Without God, there is no morality. Therefore, people who believe in evolution reject God and have no morals.

Psychological Problems in Thinking

23. Effort Inadequacies and the Need for Certainty, Control, and Simplicity — Most of us want certainty, want to control our environment, and want nice, neat simple explanations. But it doesn’t always work like that. Solutions are sometimes simple, but other times they are complex. We must be willing to make an effort to understand complex theories instead of rejecting them out of laziness.

24. Problem-Solving Inadequacies — When solving problems, we often form a hypothesis and then look only for examples to confirm it. When our hypothesis is wrong, we are slow to change our hypothesis. We also gravitate towards simple solutions even when they don’t explain everything.

25. Ideological Immunity — We all resist changing fundamental beliefs. We build up “immunity” against new ideas that do not fit within our paradigm. The higher the intelligence, the greater the potential for ideological immunity. This can be the greatest barrier to changing our weird beliefs.

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Part of The Reading Interviews series.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?

By day, I’m a high school math teacher completing my first full year on the job.

By night, I’m a blogger at Friendly Atheist, chair of the Board of Directors of the Secular Student Alliance, author of I Sold My Soul on eBay, soon-to-be calendar model (!), and someone who will crush you in Scrabble.

What are your favorite books? What do you like about them and how have they influenced you?

I don’t read many classics, but I love The Count of Monte Cristo. As for current books, I tend to read popular math and science books. I’m currently in the middle of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Death By Black Hole. There’s a stack of “atheist literature” I can’t wait to get to. My Amazon wishlist includes more of those kind of books (and some teaching supplies). :)

I love when the books teach me a little bit more about the subjects I am so passionate about. They make me want to work harder to educate people so they know about this material. Every now and then, a book will come along and completely revamp everything I knew about a topic. Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale did that in terms of evolution, and it got me reading his other books (The God Delusion is good, but it’s not at the top of my Dawkins list).

Who are your favorite writers?

A few need no explanation: J.K. Rowling, Richard Dawkins, Malcolm Gladwell.

I love any writer who can take a subject that’s both interesting and complicated (Astronomy, Biology, Number Theory, etc.) and write about it in a way that makes sense to me so that I get a rudimentary understanding of it. Brian Greene is one example. Jared Diamond, another. Carl Sagan was incredible.

What is the best non-fiction and fiction book you have read recently?

Non-fiction: The Big Bang by Simon Singh (loved it!)
Fiction: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Why do you think reading is important? What has led you to make it a priority in your life?

There’s no better way to get a thorough understanding of complicated subjects. With the right tone, helpful visuals, and a conversational explanation, I’m willing to sit through just about any subject.

Personally, I became an atheist on my own, but it was through reading essays and stories by other atheists online that my newfound beliefs were validated and strengthened. (If only the New Atheist books were out back then!)

I took several Biology classes in high school and college, but it was through reading Richard Dawkins’ books that I gained a fuller understanding of evolution.

And I have yet to form an interest in any girl who isn’t well read. :)

Are there any other books you would like to recommend?

Besides the ones I’ve already mentioned (all of which you should read), All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren is fantastic. So is Jon Stewart’s America (the Book). And (cough) I Sold My Soul on eBay.

How many books do you normally read at a time?

I’d like to say one… but if it doesn’t capture my interest completely, it’ll get to two. I can’t do more than that at once!

Do you mark and take notes while you read? If so, how?

Sometimes. I feel like I’m doing something wrong if I write in a book, but a friend of mine persuaded me to do it. My own notes just consist of underlines and bracketing (for passages I like) or smiley faces. :) If I’m reading a book by a Christian apologist, I tend to write little notes to myself as to why they’re wrong.

When you finish a book, how do you decide what to read next?

If it’s a writer I really like, I’ll pick up more books by the author. If that’s not an option, I try to switch it up completely. If I just read a fiction book, I need to follow it up with something math or science-y.

Do you have any advice about reading that others might find helpful?

Do it. A lot. Read everything. Blogs, magazines, cereal boxes, etc. Especially blogs; they’re much more current and relevant than many books and most allow for a dialogue to take place about the topic.

I am angry about policies that consistently favor the wealthy and powerful over average Americans, and insist that government has an important role in opening up opportunity to all. I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or not, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs—including my own—on nonbelievers.

Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can’t help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.

I also think that my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised. I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.

I think America has often been a force for good than for ill in the world. I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.

—Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope (2006), p. 10-11