YourMorals.org

22 09 2008

YourMorals.org is a website produced by a group of social psychologists researching the interplay between morality and politics. In their own words:

Our goal was to create a site that would be useful and interesting to users, particularly ethics classes and seminars, and that would also allow us to test a variety of theories about moral psychology. One of our main goals is to foster understanding across the political spectrum. Almost everyone cares about morality, and we want to understand –and to help others understand — the many different ways that people care.

This is a laudable project, although all it tells us essentially is that which we should already know: that conservatives and progressives not only can have different ideas about right and wrong on at least some moral questions, but will also differ on what morality itself is all about. (Progressives emphasise the harm principle; for conservatives, emotion and disgust are also important.) Still, the culture wars can only benefit by the promotion of a more widespread understanding of where the opposition is coming from.

YourMorals.org is not a single test but rather a series of tests, with more tests being added to and subtracted from the list in accordance with the needs of the researchers. You have to register with an email address in order to take the tests, but I think this kind of research is worth supporting.

Also worth a read is an Edge article by one of the researchers, Jonathan Haidt. In “What Makes People Vote Republican?” Haidt argues that Republicans have been successful because they have a better grasp of the “full specrum of American moral concerns,” and if the Democrats wish to replicate that success they should look for ways to appeal to those concerns—ingroup/loyalty, purity/sanctity and authority/respect (the three Durkheimian foundations, as Haidt puts it).

HT: The Barefoot Bum.


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Categories : Critical thinking, ethics, Magical Thinking, Politics, Psychology, science

Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXVII

21 09 2008

The week in fundie . . .

Hello! Im HPV. Vaccinating your daughter against me makes baby Jesus cry!

Hello! I'm HPV. Vaccinating your daughter against me makes baby Jesus cry!

  1. Religious woo-woo is now being incorporated into the treatment of US military service veterans, the Washington Post reports. Patients are now undergoing routine “spiritual assessments,” and according to Annie-Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion Foundation are being evaluated on how many times a day they admit to praying. “If you don’t pass the test,” says Gaylor, “the answer is to give you more religion.” More alarmingly, the Post recounts the tale of an orthodox Jew who in 2005 was denied treatment for his kidney stones after he filed complaints against an Iowa veteran’s hospital. Despite telling hospital staff repeatedly that he did not want a chaplain visit, a Protestant pastor continued to enter his room and preach, warning him that he would go to Hell if he did not accept Jesus Christ as his saviour. This kind of thing has been perfectly kosher, of course, since the US Supreme Court ruled that US taxpayers “lack standing in challenging the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.”
  2. Shorter Pope Benedict: Catholics are a persecuted minority in Europe because European governments are secular and pass laws the Vatican doesn’t like. (New York Times)
  3. In a recent survey in a particular Western country, it has been discovered that more than one quarter of teachers believe creationism should be taught in the classroom. Which country? The US? No. The UK. (Telegraph)
  4. Call me a militant atheist fundamentalist bigot, but it is my view that when parents or schools for dogmatic reasons decide to opt out of medical treatment for the children in their care that could prevent them from contracting a potentially fatal disease later in life, these bullies should be charged with criminal negligence. In the Canadian province of Winnipeg, four private religious schools have opted out of a human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination programme aimed at Grade 6 girls across the province. HPV, by the way, is a cause of nearly all forms of cervical cancer. The schools in question named “religious reasons[: . . .] Some parent groups worry the vaccine sends the wrong message and may encourage preteen girls to engage in sexual activity.” And there’s apparently nothing that health authorities in Winnipeg can do about it. Let’s not choke each other’s chickens, here. This is about dirty old men getting positively giddy over the prospect of female genital disfigurement and womens’ suffering, absolving themselves at the same time with a sanctimonious appeal to the notion that they deserve what they get because sluttery makes Sky-Daddy mad. (The “She was asking for it, Your Honour” defence.) It’s also about so-called secular liberal democracies bending over backwards to pander to such rank sociopathy, even when it endangers the lives of those who are not allowed to choose for themselves. Any legal system which does not treat religion-inspired negligence in the same way it would treat any other kind of negligence constitutes the state sponsorship of religious dogma—the particular dogma in question being that it is more important to save souls (the existence of which has never been demonstrated) than to save lives. (Vancouver Sun)
  5. 55% of Americans are insane. Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories : Democracy, Education, ethics, Human rights, Magical Thinking, Morons, proto-fascism, Psychology, Religion, science

Dogma makes you believe stupid things

18 09 2008

. . . such as the existence of a “Divine Force Law” and that the Earth has “stretch marks.” Via the comments at Pharyngula, here’s some vintage pwnage of Liar for Jesus Charles W. Lucas, Jr, of the creationist organisation Common Sense Science. That organisation’s goal, apparently, is to “correct what they perceived as deficiencies in modern physics [. . .],” hoping to “bring ‘common sense’ back to the field” by rejecting quantum physics and building on “the older classical work that had largely been abandoned” at the beginning of the 20th century. What does “common sense science” look like, you’re wondering? This:

Lucas claims that the Earth radiates energy and so loses mass and gravity, while at the same time expanding. So, Lucas claims that the Earth loses energy and so loses mass. This is a prediction his “Divine Force” makes and he made several statements to back it up. One of them that was people in Biblical times lived so long because the intense gravity of the Earth kept more oxygen close to the surface, and said that the gravity now when a maximum life expectancy is 100 years is 1/9th that of in Biblical times when ages of 900 years are reported in the Bible. He also used this very bad geology: [. . .] Lucas’ view is that the Earth started out only as large as land surface would allow, and has been expanding ever since, causing all of the continents to break apart and all move away from each other, causing these cracks, stretch marks, in the surface.

As you can see at Defending Science, Scientists and Non-scientists, Lucas actually used the term “stretch marks” superimposed over a map of Europe and Africa on one of his slides; the image in question, he claimed, is “top secret so the Navy can hide subs in the rock formations of these ‘stretch marks.’” He also claimed that the same phenomenon is occurring on the Moon (which he claims has “continents”) and other bodies in the Solar System.

In attendance at the conference at which Lucas presented these ideas was the author of the aformentioned Defending Science blog. As Silkworm tells it, he put the first question to Lucas, and then proceeded to blind hm with science. Silkworm also exposed Lucas as a credential-padding fraud, after email correspondence revealed that Lucas’ claim to have spoken before the American Association for the Advancement of Science was patently false. It never happened. There’s a commandment against lying, right? Why do fundamentalist Christians tell lies?


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Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXVI

15 09 2008

The past few weeks in fundie . . .

  1. Minister aids and abetts the breaking of a Commandment. Fundie JoAn Karlos took it upon herself to decide what other members of the public can read by stealing a sex education book from the public library on the grounds that she deemed it “obscene.” A local clergyman decided to pay the $100 fine, to which the fundie responded: “I’m blessed. I’m very blessed. It’s extremely generous because I know they don’t have a lot of money.” Larceny for Jesus . . . what a great moral example to be setting your children. The fundamentalist brain strikes again! (Boston Globe)
  2. “Who are the British creationists?”: according to ths BBC report, the neurological virus known as Biblical creationism has spread across the Atlantic and is now infecting the UK. Think 28 Days Later, only this time with glossolaliating zombies. Much, much scarier.
  3. A senior Saudi official has “qualified” his remarks that it is permissible to kill broadcasters of “immoral” television content. Moderating his views significantly, he believes they should be put to death only “in the due process of law.” (Scotsman)
  4. Eleven people were killed in a Congo soccer stadium riot after a soccer player tried to use “witchcraft” to win a match. I’m not making this up. And don’t laugh: the offering of prayers to magic sky fairies are routine in American football. (Reuters)
  5. In Canada, a 42-year-old man used a “witchcraft club” to groom two teenage boys whom he subsequently molested. (Canada.com)
  6. In Zimbabwe, Dolores Umbridge of the Ministry of Magic sentenced four people to 18 months each in jail under the Suppression of Witchcraft Act. It is not known if any Dementors were involved in the capture of the offenders. (allAfrica.com)
  7. According to the governor of Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom State, loving Christian pastors have been lovingly throwing children into the street, suspecting them of witchcraft. Says the governor: “They even attempted to [lovingly] burn some children alive in the state. We’ve rescued children who have been [lovingly] almost burnt to death on the basis that they are into witchcraft.” (The Sun News On-line)
  8. In Papua New Guinea, an elderly woman was beaten by local villagers after they accused of her using witchcraft to cause flash floods. (The Australian)
  9. In that hotbed of liberal pluralist democracy known as Camden, New South Wales, a residents’ group that had only recently rejected an application to build a Muslim school has welcomed a proposal to build a Catholic school. Spokesman Emil Sremchevich explains: “It’s very simple: people like some things but don’t like other things. Some of us like blondes, some of us like brunettes. Some of us like Fords, some of us like Holdens. Why is it xenophobic just because I want to make a choice? If I want to like some people and not like other people, that’s the nature of the beast.” The English, Mr Sremchevich: you’re doing it wrong. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
  10. Nice try, dickhead. A US man tried to get out of paying his taxes by declaring himself a citizen of heaven rather than the United States. Wait a minute . . . where have I seen this before? (DesMoines Register, via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
  11. Hindu fundamentalists gang-raped one nun and burnt another alive as they stormed an orphanage in the Indian state of Orissa. (AsiaNews.it)
  12. According to fundie news outlet OneNewsNow, there is “shock and sadness in the Christian community over word that famed Christian music singer Ray Boltz has publicly announced he’s living a homosexual lifestyle.” There’s a lump in my throat, too.

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Categories : Magical Thinking, Religion, proto-fascism, Human rights, Morons, GLBTI, ethics, science

Australian PM proves God’s existence

29 08 2008

From National Nine News:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the ordered nature of the cosmos convinces him of the existence of God.

Mr Rudd, a regularly practising Anglican, was on Friday asked on Fairfax Radio in Brisbane to give his single biggest argument in favour of the existence of God.

“As you know I’m a believer and I’ve never pretended not to be and I respect those who have no religious belief – it’s a free country,” Mr Rudd said.

“For me, it’s ultimately the order of the cosmos or what I describe as the creation.

“You can’t simply have, in my own judgment, creation simply being a random event because it is so inherently ordered, and the fact that the natural environment is being ordered where it can properly coexist over time. [Emphasis added]

“If you were simply reducing that to mathematically probabilities I’ve got to say it probably wouldn’t have happened.

“So I think there is an intelligent mind at work.”

Mr Rudd said in his entire political life he had never been asked in a media interview to prove the existence of God.

“You … have a world first,” Mr Rudd said.

Rudd’s position towards non-believers is a refreshing reminder that Australia is still not as deep in the mire of religious lunacy as the US, and he deserves kudos for being vocal about it. He also deserves praise, I think, for at least attempting to justify his theism in a public forum, rather than the “Look at me I haz teh jeezus” rubbish we would usually expect from god-soaked politicians.

And to be fair, the wording I chose for the title of this post was more a blatant grab for your attention than anything else. His argument for theism—a reiteration of the cosmological argument from design—is his argument, the reason (or one reason) he personally is a theist. Still, it must be said—as you can see from the section in boldface—it is an argument which suffers from a circularity so obvious that you could float a Collins-class sub through it. How can “creation be a random event”? By using the term “creation” he’s assuming precisely that which he is seeking to establish: that the universe had a “creator.” (The physicist and skeptic Victor Stenger’s response to the appeal to improbability is worth noting also: “If we properly compute, based on our actual knowledge rather than speculation, the probability for the universe’s existing with human life, the result is unity! We have only one datum, our universe, and it has human life.”) I don’t know if it bodes well that someone of Rudd’s intelligence can make such a basic error of reasoning, but then he can’t be a clear thinker on every topic.

But this is a man whose faith is central to his political philosophy, or so he tells us. And what he’s given us here is a very mediocre and pat defence of his faith.


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Categories : Australian Politics, Critical thinking, Democracy, Magical Thinking, Politics, Religion, science

Things they’d have difficulty believing in Salt Lake City XXV

20 08 2008

The week in fundie . . .

  1. In a “family values” forum in Mexico City, a Catholic priest justified rape thusly: “When we show our body without prudence, without modesty, we are prostituting ourselves.” (Chicago Tribune)
  2. Bill Donahue, professional whiner and president for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, fresh from trying to get a university student disciplined and a university professor fired for insulting his precious little disc of unleavened bread, has launched a campaign to have gay bloggers barred from the Democratic National Convention. (Edge Boston)
  3. Following in the footsteps of Random House in the United States, the Serbian publisher of Sherry Jones’ The Jewel of Medina has pulled the book from the shelves after members of the local Islamic community complained that the novel, depicting the life of Muhammad’s child bride Aisha, “offended their feelings.” (Reuters) Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories : Democracy, ethics, GLBTI, Human rights, Magical Thinking, Morons, proto-fascism, Religion, science

In the armchair with Gerry Rzeppa

19 08 2008

If you’ve been following the book-spammer thread, you’ll have noticed my conversation with one Gerry Rzeppa, whom I’ve blogged about previously. Given my policy on off-topic discussions, and given that my exchange with Rzeppa is beginning to stray from the topic of book-spammers and authoritarianism, and towards the topic of Rzeppa’s opinions on life, the universe and everything else, I thought I’d continue it here. And of course, you’re welcome to participate, too.

Here is Rzeppa’s most recent contribution, with my own responses:

You say, “…at least [I] haven’t sunk to lying.” Is lying a bad thing? How do you know? Exactly what do you mean by “bad?” Apparently you think lying is worse than other things. What do you mean by “worse”?

Gerry, why do you put words in my mouth? I don’t recall using the words “bad” or “worse.” I do find it ironic, however, that those who seek to promote a biblical worldview do so by means of violating what we are told is one of its central tenets (the 8th Commandment if you’re Roman Catholic, the 9th Commandment if you’re Protestant).

I don’t know if would go so far as claiming that lying is in all circumstances something to be avoided. What I am prepared to tentatively propose, and I am willing to stand corrected upon the production of evidence to the contrary, is that given that humans are social animals, a society in which lying is deemed acceptable in all circumstances, and whose members would therefore exist in a state of mutual distrust, would be untenable, and would not survive for long against competitor societies in which it is held that lying, as a rule of thumb, is something to be avoided. I don’t see why anyone would need a “commandment” to figure this out; all you need to do is conduct a simple thought experiment: what would it be like to live in a society whose members exist in a state of mutual distrust, how stable would that society be, and how long is a society like that likely to survive? I also find intriguing what cognitive psychologists such as Marc Hauser are discovering about this issue: the possibility that certain of our moral ideas are hardwired, that we evolved with the belief, for example, that lying is (as a general rule) wrong, and that being animals in possession of such a belief gave us a reproductive advantage. Of course, simply having the belief that lying is wrong is not proof that lying is wrong, and if the possession of such a belief is endemic to our species this would not explain why lying might be wrong. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Atheism, Critical thinking, Magical Thinking, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, science

Quote of the week: Biology for Christian Schools

14 08 2008

If the conclusions contradict the Word of God, the conclusions are wrong, no matter how many scientific facts may appear to back them.

From Biology for Christian Schools, a publication of Bob Jones University Press, also responsible for the Christian Student Dictionary. It was the inclusion of this and similar textbooks on the syllabus of several fundamentalist Christian schools in California which prompted the University of California to reject their faith-based biology courses as inadequate preparation for the, you know, reality-based courses offered at the university. The schools wailed “viewpoint discrimination!” and filed a federal lawsuit against UC in 2005; Biology for Christian Schools played a key role in the recent ruling in favour of UC and science education.

Rejecting claims of religious discrimination and stifling of free expression, U.S. District Judge James Otero of Los Angeles said UC’s review committees cited legitimate reasons for rejecting the texts – not because they contained religious viewpoints, but because they omitted important topics in science and history and failed to teach critical thinking. [. . .] UC denies credit to courses that rely largely or entirely on material stressing supernatural over historic or scientific explanations, though it has approved such texts as supplemental reading, the judge said. (San Francisco Chronicle)

The plaintiffs, who are appealing the decision, accuse UC of “attempting to secularize public schools.” The university replies that the plaintiffs are simply seeking a “religious exemption from regular admissions standards.”

Via Friendly Atheist


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Tasering Leia: The Science of Star Wars

12 08 2008


Scientific American has a great feature on Star Wars, coinciding with the imminent release in US theatres of the animated Clone Wars film. There is also an interview with Jeanne Cavelos, author of The Science of Star Wars, canvassing xenobiology, cloning, robotics, human survival on a range of exoplanets with varying conditions, intergalactic travel, and laser weaponry:

What about laser weapons? Are we any closer to having those, and are they realistic?Who wouldn’t want to have a blaster? They are so cool. Right now we have low-powered lasers than can blind people, or higher power ones that burn skin or clothing—kind of like a long-distance flamethrower. The most powerful lasers we have that I know of have about 2.2 megawatts of power, which can destroy enemy missiles from thousands of miles away. These are rather similar to what we see in Star Wars.

But for these lasers we need enough equipment to fill up a truck or even a building. We can’t exactly fit this laser technology into a holster just yet. The best lasers are still only 30 percent efficient and the rest of their energy is lost as heat. You also have to cool the laser down to keep it working properly, plus you need to put a lot of power in to get a lot of power out.

There are wireless TASERs now about the size of a flashlight. They send out an ultraviolet laser beam that breaks up air molecules between them and the target. This releases ions, and then electricity can be sent through the air to knock someone out, or even give them a heart attack if you’re not careful. It’s kind of similar to when Princess Leia was stunned by the storm troopers near the beginning of the first movie [Episode IV: A New Hope]. There are also prototypes of stun grenades that superheat moisture in the air, which makes an explosive flash and bang that can stun people.

Cavelos also sheds light on The Force and the logistics of light sabers. You can read excerpts from The Science of Star Wars here.


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Was I dodging a bullet, or being dismissive?

12 08 2008

Here’s the scenario. I was travelling on a subway carriage in Japan with a group of friends, one of whom iwas soon to return to Australia, another of whom is a (I presume) born-again Christian. For weeks I had been raving about Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale, boring my girlfriend to tears with a panoply of zoological “Did you knows” (e.g. did you know that the cicada produces its distinctive and loud song not by the rubbing together of wings/limbs that is associated with crickets and grasshoppers, but by buckling parts of its thorax as one would an aluminium can?). It was my girlfriend who dropped The Ancestor’s Tale into the conversation. “What’s it about?” asked a member of our group. “It’s about evolution,” she replied.

This elicited a roll of the eyes and a derisive “Oh, evolution,” from my Christian friend, at which point I panicked, and immediately changed the subject. My intentions were honourable: we had gathered together that night to have a good time and to give the girl returning to Australia a good send-off. I didn’t want the occasion soured by a religious debate, nor did I want my Christian friend to feel uncomfortable.

In hindsight, however, I wonder how my intervention must have seemed to her. Would she have appreciated what I was trying to do, or would she have felt as if I was simply dismissing her views, patronisingly attempting to rescue the night from her embarrassing Christian otherness? (She’s not the stereotypical born-again Christian: she’ll cuss and drink with the best of us, and doesn’t seem comfortable being “out” about her beliefs around her secular friends. Indeed, I wasn’t aware of her religious affiliation until I came across her blog.)

Or, did I perhaps miss an opportunity to take one for the team, as it were, by engaging her in frank debate and discussion on the topic of evolution? Would this in fact have been the more respectful thing to do?


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