Saturday, July 25, 2009
While I'm away...
I've been on vacation all week, but while I'm away, I'd like to direct your attention to Andrew Sullivan's blog. Andrew has been away all week as well, but his stand-ins are having a great discussion about atheism. In predictable fashion, the bloggers are making all of the usual "atheists are irrational/impolite/need to get over themselves" arguments, but getting an incredible amount of pushback from readers. The latest installment is here. List of relevant posts here.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The Law of Truly Large Numbers, or Why Miracles Have to Happen
One of the most persistent, and difficult, types of arguments that atheists tend to run into is the dreaded personal anecdote. This is the story that a person of faith tells you that sums up for them why they are absolutely certain that their faith is correct. It will be a story of some incredible coincidence or miraculous recovery. It "couldn't have just happened that way." There was clearly a "greater force at work". And nothing you could ever say will convince them otherwise.
It won't help to point out that personal experience is not the same thing as observation (in the rigorous sense). No matter how many times you say, "The plural of anecdote is not data," most people don't realize a simple, fundamental fact of existence:
The least likely outcome is the one in which nothing unlikely occurs.
Think about that for a moment. I don't intend to make this a post about probability theory or anything so complex. Simply put, what the Law of Truly Large Numbers states is that any system with many outcomes will inevitably produce the unlikely (less probable) outcomes and that, more importantly, they will be noticed more because they are unusual.
As an example, consider the Jesus on a tortilla / grilled cheese sandwich / potato "miracle" that seems to occur every three years or so. The markings on these objects are essentially random. This means that there is a slim, but non-zero, possibility that these markings will resemble a face*. Say that in a year a billion tortillas are fried (the actual number is much, much higher than that. The average Mexican consumes close to 150 lbs. of corn tortilla yearly). In this scenario, assuming there's a greater than one-in-a-billion chance of a "face-like" tortilla being fried then it is statistically likely to happen. Even more, it very unlikely to not happen. Of course, because it is an unusual outcome it gets noticed more than the remaining millions of banal, faceless tortillas.
This particular failing of the human intellect happens constantly. Consider all the stories you've heard of dreams literally coming true. Your friend dreams a particular event, and then it happens! Inexplicable! Take that, science!
Well, no. Of course not. First off, your dreams have a fairly narrow set of permutative elements -- the people you know, the places you've been, and things on your mind. Therefore, your dreams must be necessarily close to your actual life -- they're populated by the same concepts. If your dreams then combine these elements in different ways (and are affected by your desires, fears, hopes for the future, etc.) then it is an inevitability that you will dream an event that will occur at a later time. There's nothing magical going on, it's just math. Looked at from the reverse, it seems obvious. How many thousands upon thousands of dreams have you had that have not come true?
Strange, coincidental, and downright spooky things have to happen. There will, inevitably, be those times when lives are saved by freak accidents. Twins will die minutes apart. Taking a detour seen in a dream will save someone's life. These are not evidence of the supernatural or the paranormal, they are just the probabilities playing out exactly as we should expect them to.
* And by "face" I mean, "maybe if I squint and assume Jesus looked like Jeff Spicoli."
It won't help to point out that personal experience is not the same thing as observation (in the rigorous sense). No matter how many times you say, "The plural of anecdote is not data," most people don't realize a simple, fundamental fact of existence:
The least likely outcome is the one in which nothing unlikely occurs.
Think about that for a moment. I don't intend to make this a post about probability theory or anything so complex. Simply put, what the Law of Truly Large Numbers states is that any system with many outcomes will inevitably produce the unlikely (less probable) outcomes and that, more importantly, they will be noticed more because they are unusual.
As an example, consider the Jesus on a tortilla / grilled cheese sandwich / potato "miracle" that seems to occur every three years or so. The markings on these objects are essentially random. This means that there is a slim, but non-zero, possibility that these markings will resemble a face*. Say that in a year a billion tortillas are fried (the actual number is much, much higher than that. The average Mexican consumes close to 150 lbs. of corn tortilla yearly). In this scenario, assuming there's a greater than one-in-a-billion chance of a "face-like" tortilla being fried then it is statistically likely to happen. Even more, it very unlikely to not happen. Of course, because it is an unusual outcome it gets noticed more than the remaining millions of banal, faceless tortillas.
This particular failing of the human intellect happens constantly. Consider all the stories you've heard of dreams literally coming true. Your friend dreams a particular event, and then it happens! Inexplicable! Take that, science!
Well, no. Of course not. First off, your dreams have a fairly narrow set of permutative elements -- the people you know, the places you've been, and things on your mind. Therefore, your dreams must be necessarily close to your actual life -- they're populated by the same concepts. If your dreams then combine these elements in different ways (and are affected by your desires, fears, hopes for the future, etc.) then it is an inevitability that you will dream an event that will occur at a later time. There's nothing magical going on, it's just math. Looked at from the reverse, it seems obvious. How many thousands upon thousands of dreams have you had that have not come true?
Strange, coincidental, and downright spooky things have to happen. There will, inevitably, be those times when lives are saved by freak accidents. Twins will die minutes apart. Taking a detour seen in a dream will save someone's life. These are not evidence of the supernatural or the paranormal, they are just the probabilities playing out exactly as we should expect them to.
* And by "face" I mean, "maybe if I squint and assume Jesus looked like Jeff Spicoli."
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Self-Awareness and an All-Loving God
One of the most common defenses of religious belief is something along the lines of "if it makes people feel good, what's the problem?" See this, for an example of this argument (scroll to Day 5 - "I know plenty of religious people who believe because it helps them in life and makes them feel better. That seems a pretty good reason to me, even if I don’t share the view"). While there are many problems with this approach, I'd like to highlight one: it encourages people to have an inflated impression of themselves. Here's some science:
Part of the appeal of most religions is that they stress the cosmic importance of the individual. The fact that there's a higher power isn't really the significant part. The significant part is that this higher power cares about YOU! Most religions artificially elevate the importance of each individual as being part of "God's plan" or something analogous.
The problem with this is that people aren't that important. People's importance comes from themselves and other people (and sometimes pets). People can be massively important in the world, but they can never be as important as religion promises that they are. Evidence of this is everywhere. It doesn't take a lot of life experience to realize that every individual is not that important to any grand scheme of the universe.
When religious people encounter enough of this evidence, it's crushing. People get used to this idea of themselves an indispensable part of a perfect plan. Once enough evidence to the contrary is amassed, people generally go one of two directions. They either get really depressed, or they embrace full irrationality, ignore the evidence, and recommit themselves to their beliefs. Readers of this blog will probably recognize that neither of these is a positive outcome.
Of course, there are a lot of other problems with the "I believe it because it feels good" argument, but we'll save those for another day.
Thomaes found that people with unrealistically inflated opinions of themselves, far from proving more resilient in the face of social rebuffs, actually suffer more because of it. Some psychologists hold that "positive illusions" provide a mental shield that buffers its bearers from the threats of rejection or criticism. But according to Thomaes, realistic self-awareness is a much healthier state of mind.
Part of the appeal of most religions is that they stress the cosmic importance of the individual. The fact that there's a higher power isn't really the significant part. The significant part is that this higher power cares about YOU! Most religions artificially elevate the importance of each individual as being part of "God's plan" or something analogous.
The problem with this is that people aren't that important. People's importance comes from themselves and other people (and sometimes pets). People can be massively important in the world, but they can never be as important as religion promises that they are. Evidence of this is everywhere. It doesn't take a lot of life experience to realize that every individual is not that important to any grand scheme of the universe.
When religious people encounter enough of this evidence, it's crushing. People get used to this idea of themselves an indispensable part of a perfect plan. Once enough evidence to the contrary is amassed, people generally go one of two directions. They either get really depressed, or they embrace full irrationality, ignore the evidence, and recommit themselves to their beliefs. Readers of this blog will probably recognize that neither of these is a positive outcome.
Of course, there are a lot of other problems with the "I believe it because it feels good" argument, but we'll save those for another day.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Atheist Camp?
Our old friend Richard Dawkins is at it again:
One one hand, it would be nice to have a place where children can go to learn the value of rational thought, and have lessons in critical thinking, as an alternative to faith-based camps (some of which I was exposed to, despite coming from a relatively secular household). On the other hand, it's still indoctrination. It's an authoritative figure giving lessons on the "proper" way to look at the world. I think I might send my [hypothetical] kids for a week, but with a stern warning about the dangers of believing something just because an authority figure tells you it's true.
What do you think? Is this a good idea? Just another church? The end of the world?
While I'm pretty firmly against the idea of mainstreaming atheism as a political force, this strikes me as actually a pretty good idea. Although I'm still somewhat conflicted about it.The author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers....
Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war. There will also be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.
One one hand, it would be nice to have a place where children can go to learn the value of rational thought, and have lessons in critical thinking, as an alternative to faith-based camps (some of which I was exposed to, despite coming from a relatively secular household). On the other hand, it's still indoctrination. It's an authoritative figure giving lessons on the "proper" way to look at the world. I think I might send my [hypothetical] kids for a week, but with a stern warning about the dangers of believing something just because an authority figure tells you it's true.
What do you think? Is this a good idea? Just another church? The end of the world?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Us and Them, and After All, We're Only Ordinary Men
It should be clear by now that a major driving force behind this blog is to point out the dangers inherent in faith-based, irrational thought. We've already covered cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias in depth. Today I'd like to talk about the third major issue that plagues people of faith, self-identification.
Self-identification is the idea that all people naturally associate themselves into larger groups as a means of establishing their own identities. We all have cultural, societal, political, and sexual groups with which we identify that make up the core of who we are. Unfortunately, for reasons I'll spell out below, most of us also have religious associations that form a portion of our identities. I feel it's vital to understand self-identification and why it can be a dangerous thing.
This process has at its root the original need for a socially organized species (us), to be able to distinguish between those who belonged to our group (family or tribe), and those who did not. This was vital, as being able to make those distinctions allowed our ancestors to identify potential threats as well as competition for food and mates. We needed a capacity to establish "us" and "them." The natural outgrowth of this is that the "them" group must be associated with fear as a means of preserving the "us" group. Were our ancestors unwary of strangers, they would have had a much higher chance of being destroyed or assimilated. Of course, the lack of a need for this ability in the modern world has yet to be rectified in our genes.
As a result, we see the outgrowth of this capability in unusual, and often detrimental, ways. The root of racism, when you get down to it, is the ability of the human brain to determine that another person is different. "They" are not "us" and are so to be treated with caution. When this natural instinct is not tempered by reason and experience, it can become hatred. Xenophobia is the exact same impulse with appearance replaced by geography. Continuing to more and more abstract concepts, you see the same difficulties between ages, genders, political parties, philosophies of all sorts, and especially religions.
Once the "us and them" mentality takes over any disputable area, we run into a major problem. That is, it is next to impossible to respect someone with whom you disagree to the level that you respect yourself. It's simple enough: if you think you're right, anyone who disagrees with you must be wrong. If they're wrong, then they must be inferior in some way. To use a rather obvious illustration, we need only look at politics. The majority of people simply identify themselves as part of a larger group. Most people choose a side like, "I'm a Republican," or, "I'm a Democrat," rather than working through all of the issues that those labels actually imply. As a result, the "other" side is simply wrong. This is why there is so little actual political discourse (anywhere, anytime -- I'm not trying to make a political point here) and so much mud-flinging. What is lost is the idea that we are all, regardless of party affiliation, worthy of the same respect and consideration.
But in politics there is at least some reasonable debate. There are those who are willing to consider other viewpoints, and there exists a framework in which to debate them. I can pick up a copy of The Wealth of Nations or The Communist Manifesto, as well as hundreds of other works of analysis on them. Because of this, there is at least a significant portion of those with political views who are willing to have them challenged, and who accept that their position is not sacrosanct. These people don't self-identify strongly enough to discredit others out of hand.
Now consider faith. When you get down to it, faith is what you believe because you believe it. It has no rational underpinnings, and therefore debate really isn't possible. Because faith is never challenged, it becomes a pillar of identity, and self-identification takes a firm hold. It is impossible to accept that another faith might be "correct" if you have already chosen one. The notion of "us" that follows includes only those who share that faith, and everyone else gets lumped into "them."
Do you see the danger in this? Faith creates a walled garden from which everyone who disagrees is excluded. And because it tells you that you are right, and more importantly righteous, because of this belief, you will never see those outside as equals. Some faiths teach pity for the unsaved, others hatred, but it all amounts to the same thing. The "us" group is better for their faith, and the "them" group is worse.
How much are you willing to miss by secluding yourself inside a comfortable faith? What other experiences, new friends, and fresh ideas are worth discounting? It is comfortable to seclude yourself in an "us," but we're all "us," and faith just drives us apart.
Be Well,
Chris.
I realize that this is another song lyric post, but it just seemed too appropriate not to use. If you're unfamiliar with Us and Them by Pink Floyd, it's a truly wonderful song, and makes the point of this post rather nicely. Empathy and the shared experience is a recurring theme throughout Floyd's middle years, and even today is a great reminder that, "we're only ordinary men."
Self-identification is the idea that all people naturally associate themselves into larger groups as a means of establishing their own identities. We all have cultural, societal, political, and sexual groups with which we identify that make up the core of who we are. Unfortunately, for reasons I'll spell out below, most of us also have religious associations that form a portion of our identities. I feel it's vital to understand self-identification and why it can be a dangerous thing.
This process has at its root the original need for a socially organized species (us), to be able to distinguish between those who belonged to our group (family or tribe), and those who did not. This was vital, as being able to make those distinctions allowed our ancestors to identify potential threats as well as competition for food and mates. We needed a capacity to establish "us" and "them." The natural outgrowth of this is that the "them" group must be associated with fear as a means of preserving the "us" group. Were our ancestors unwary of strangers, they would have had a much higher chance of being destroyed or assimilated. Of course, the lack of a need for this ability in the modern world has yet to be rectified in our genes.
As a result, we see the outgrowth of this capability in unusual, and often detrimental, ways. The root of racism, when you get down to it, is the ability of the human brain to determine that another person is different. "They" are not "us" and are so to be treated with caution. When this natural instinct is not tempered by reason and experience, it can become hatred. Xenophobia is the exact same impulse with appearance replaced by geography. Continuing to more and more abstract concepts, you see the same difficulties between ages, genders, political parties, philosophies of all sorts, and especially religions.
Once the "us and them" mentality takes over any disputable area, we run into a major problem. That is, it is next to impossible to respect someone with whom you disagree to the level that you respect yourself. It's simple enough: if you think you're right, anyone who disagrees with you must be wrong. If they're wrong, then they must be inferior in some way. To use a rather obvious illustration, we need only look at politics. The majority of people simply identify themselves as part of a larger group. Most people choose a side like, "I'm a Republican," or, "I'm a Democrat," rather than working through all of the issues that those labels actually imply. As a result, the "other" side is simply wrong. This is why there is so little actual political discourse (anywhere, anytime -- I'm not trying to make a political point here) and so much mud-flinging. What is lost is the idea that we are all, regardless of party affiliation, worthy of the same respect and consideration.
But in politics there is at least some reasonable debate. There are those who are willing to consider other viewpoints, and there exists a framework in which to debate them. I can pick up a copy of The Wealth of Nations or The Communist Manifesto, as well as hundreds of other works of analysis on them. Because of this, there is at least a significant portion of those with political views who are willing to have them challenged, and who accept that their position is not sacrosanct. These people don't self-identify strongly enough to discredit others out of hand.
Now consider faith. When you get down to it, faith is what you believe because you believe it. It has no rational underpinnings, and therefore debate really isn't possible. Because faith is never challenged, it becomes a pillar of identity, and self-identification takes a firm hold. It is impossible to accept that another faith might be "correct" if you have already chosen one. The notion of "us" that follows includes only those who share that faith, and everyone else gets lumped into "them."
Do you see the danger in this? Faith creates a walled garden from which everyone who disagrees is excluded. And because it tells you that you are right, and more importantly righteous, because of this belief, you will never see those outside as equals. Some faiths teach pity for the unsaved, others hatred, but it all amounts to the same thing. The "us" group is better for their faith, and the "them" group is worse.
How much are you willing to miss by secluding yourself inside a comfortable faith? What other experiences, new friends, and fresh ideas are worth discounting? It is comfortable to seclude yourself in an "us," but we're all "us," and faith just drives us apart.
Be Well,
Chris.
I realize that this is another song lyric post, but it just seemed too appropriate not to use. If you're unfamiliar with Us and Them by Pink Floyd, it's a truly wonderful song, and makes the point of this post rather nicely. Empathy and the shared experience is a recurring theme throughout Floyd's middle years, and even today is a great reminder that, "we're only ordinary men."
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Can Religion and Science Get Along?
Any fan of this blog should read this debate. Money quote:
All of this runs to the larger issue of intellectual honesty. Perhaps we can define “intellectual honesty” as the ratio between what a person has good reason to believe and what he will assert to be true. In the ideal case, this number would equal 1, and in science it approaches as near to 1 as it does anywhere in human discourse. It seems to me that most religions subsist, and even thrive, on values that can be brought arbitrarily close to zero for centuries on end—and, indeed, grow smaller the longer any religious authority speaks about content of the faith. This disparity between what counts for honesty in serious discourse, depending on the topic, is as strange as it is consequential.As with all Sam Harris exchanges, it's very long. But worth it.
Monday, June 22, 2009
That's the Way I Like it Baby, I don't Wanna Live Forever
All religions, it seems, are preoccupied with death. In fact, it is an explanation for death that is the most common feature of all faiths. Almost as common is the idea of an afterlife, either a place you go or a state of existence wherein your essence persists after physical death.
Does anyone else find this idea horrible?
It's understandable that people naturally fear death. We're supposed to. It's how we've survived as a species. A healthy fear of death keeps us alive long enough pass on our genes. But when we start spawning fantasies of an afterlife, I think we're working against ourselves.
First of all, I think the notion of an afterlife cheapens actual life. If our century on this planet is just a test or a rehearsal, then our motivation can not be to live it to its fullest. At best, the afterlife becomes a fall-back for the unsuccessful; at worst, it becomes the motivation for life outright. You'll never live the best life possible if you're focused on the next one.
You'll also never view the world with the healthy awe that something so complex and beautiful deserves, because afterlife ideation (especially the heaven-type afterlives) also cheapens your perspective. The world must naturally be a horrid place when compared to a perfect heaven. Even worse, it must naturally be unfixable, or it would be heaven.
Lastly, consider why I would have chosen a Motorhead lyric for this post's title. Would you really want to live forever? Think about it. The law of large numbers states (roughly) that over an infinite time line, any event that can happen will. This implies that if you were to live forever, you would experience everything. It also implies that at some point, you would have experienced everything there is. Sounds awfully boring after a while, doesn't it?
It's that life has a deadline built in that gives it purpose. I will die someday. I have a few decades to accomplish what I want to -- to create, to love, and ultimately to leave. If I thought I'd go on forever in a more powerful form than my piddling human body, why would I bother? At that point, I might as well just follow the orders of my deity and wait for the "sweet release" of death. Death isn't a sweet release, because if it were, life would have no meaning.
Be well,
Chris.
Does anyone else find this idea horrible?
It's understandable that people naturally fear death. We're supposed to. It's how we've survived as a species. A healthy fear of death keeps us alive long enough pass on our genes. But when we start spawning fantasies of an afterlife, I think we're working against ourselves.
First of all, I think the notion of an afterlife cheapens actual life. If our century on this planet is just a test or a rehearsal, then our motivation can not be to live it to its fullest. At best, the afterlife becomes a fall-back for the unsuccessful; at worst, it becomes the motivation for life outright. You'll never live the best life possible if you're focused on the next one.
You'll also never view the world with the healthy awe that something so complex and beautiful deserves, because afterlife ideation (especially the heaven-type afterlives) also cheapens your perspective. The world must naturally be a horrid place when compared to a perfect heaven. Even worse, it must naturally be unfixable, or it would be heaven.
Lastly, consider why I would have chosen a Motorhead lyric for this post's title. Would you really want to live forever? Think about it. The law of large numbers states (roughly) that over an infinite time line, any event that can happen will. This implies that if you were to live forever, you would experience everything. It also implies that at some point, you would have experienced everything there is. Sounds awfully boring after a while, doesn't it?
It's that life has a deadline built in that gives it purpose. I will die someday. I have a few decades to accomplish what I want to -- to create, to love, and ultimately to leave. If I thought I'd go on forever in a more powerful form than my piddling human body, why would I bother? At that point, I might as well just follow the orders of my deity and wait for the "sweet release" of death. Death isn't a sweet release, because if it were, life would have no meaning.
Be well,
Chris.
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