Research on Atheists and Morality

According to a study by Dr. Marc Hauser of Harvard, people with no religion know right from wrong just as well as regular worshipers.

Yawn...  Is anyone really surprised by this? 

Unfortunately, I have to assume yes, otherwise it wouldn't be news.  It's not enough for atheists to be upstanding citizens in everyday life; studies are needed to show we can be good people.  We have to defend ourselves actively, and its frustrating and unfair.  Why not study whether black people are equally capable of acting morally as whites, or if Jews are as good as Christians?  Why isn't the converse being studied?  Are religious people as capable of making moral judgments as atheists?

This is a reminder to me that my position as an atheist means that I'm suspect in the eyes of many people, right off the bat.  It's easy to shrug it off and say that people who believe atheists can't be good without god are ignorant, but those ignorant people affect most of us in one way or another.  It effected us enough to require a scientific study to show that we are equally capable of moral behavior as religious people. 

I'd like to hope that a study like this will change things for the better, but I know that's unlikely.

We Love XKCD

Recently found this brilliant video over at Boing Boing, featuring tons of famous geeks like Phil Plait, (the Bad Astronomer himself), Wil Wheaton, Lawrence Lessig and Corey Doctorow (I suspect only the computer geeks will know all of these guys).




It's based on XKCD's parody of the "I Love the Whole World" commercial (a.k.a. "The Boom De Yada song") Discovery Channel made a while back:

I love geeky things....

NPR on Vaccines

Joanne Silberner from NPR wrote an excellent piece on the benefits of vaccinating children, and of the problems with the "over-vaccinating" argument:

Some parents ask their pediatricians to space out the vaccines. But that's a bad idea, says Marcuse. "When you space out the vaccines, you leave your infant susceptible to diseases you could otherwise have prevented, particularly in the first six to eight months of life," he says. Babies can get diseases such as whooping cough or meningitis, and these can be tough on them.

Babies are going to be exposed to bacteria and viruses in one way or another — either during an outright infection, or in the vaccines, says Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Emory University.

In the vaccines, [Dr. Edgar Marcuse] says, babies are only seeing bits and pieces of the viruses or bacteria, and vaccines are much "cleaner" now than they used to be. "A lot of people say that the number of vaccines has gone up," he says. But, in reality, the number of antigens — the molecules in the viruses and bacteria that spark the immune response — hasn't gone up, it's gone down, he says.

I love that point:  babies are going to be exposed to bacteria and viruses no matter what.  Much better to be given a controlled dose via vaccine, which has been tested for safety than roll the dice on being infected out in the wild.  Saad Omer, a vaccine expert at Emory University, also makes the point that many who don't want to vaccinate don't know what these diseases are like, because of the vaccines we have today:

Omer says parents need to remember that for every type of vaccination, the disease is a bigger challenge to the baby than the vaccine. That's easy to forget today, when few can remember what polio and whooping cough and even measles look like.

"After effective control of these diseases, there's a shift in the mental calculus of parents," Omer says. They stop worrying about the disease, and start worrying about the vaccine. But the measles vaccine causes brain damage in 1 in 1 million recipients. The disease itself, which used to hit the majority of kids, killed 1 in 500 people who got it, and caused brain damage in 1 in 1,000.

The entire article is extremely well written, and should be read by anyone even considering not vaccinating their children.  

New Pages on the Blog

So Blogger has a new Pages option, so I can have a few stand-alone pages that are always available in a menu (it's over on the right side, just below my little mini-bio), as opposed to the dynamic content that gets updated and shifted down into oblivion over time.  I've created a page called Reading the Qur'an, which contains all of my posts related to my reviews of the Qur'an, so that everything related to that is easily accessible from one place.

I'll probably add an About Me page soon, since everyone seems to be doing it (damn peer pressure!), even though I hate talking about myself.  I have a basic idea about what I'll put there, but if anyone reading my blog has anything they want to know about me, I'd be happy to put it there as well.  Anyone have any questions I can answer?  (Again, I hate writing about myself without guidance, so questions will be extremely helpful...) 

Mindless Blathering

Yes of course I'm talking about Pope Benedict.

The Catholic Church has been openly opposed to the equality laws currently being discussed by Parliament in the UK.  The Guardian recently published an address by the Pope to the Bishops of England and Wales.  No surprise that its filled with nonsense:

Your country is well known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. Yet as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed.

I cannot imagine being able to say something like this and being completely unaware how bigoted and ignorant it sounds.  They are directly saying that they have to discriminate because God tells them to, then go on to talk about the love of Jesus Christ.  Absolutely astonishing.

Talking about the natural law sounds just as stupid.  This is the group that persecuted Galileo for describing what actually happens in the natural world.*  Why is it that we regularly see homosexual activity among animals, in the natural world?  Animals we evolved from (given the Catholic church loves to boast about how it accepts evolution).  And if the natural law is what equality is based on, I assume that other moral precepts come from it too.  So where exactly does God come in in this equation?

I urge you as pastors to ensure that the church's moral teaching be always presented in its entirety and convincingly defended.

I'm still waiting for the convincing defense of discrimination against anyone, including gays and lesbians.

Fidelity to the Gospel in no way restricts the freedom of others – on the contrary, it serves their freedom by offering them the truth.

Everyone thinks they know the truth, or at least thinks that given the evidence presented to them, have made the right conclusions based on that evidence.  The difference is that some of us present the evidence we believe suggests that we are right.  The Catholic Church rests on its laurels, and expects everyone to respect their opinion without question.  Yet the evidence thus far is that the Catholic Church has been massively wrong on a number of subjects in the past, suggesting we shouldn't take t for granted they know what they're talking about.

Continue to insist upon your right to participate in national debate through respectful dialogue with other elements in society.

No one is denying you your right to debate and dialogue.  But you don't get some special podium, immune to opposing viewpoints, just because you're the Catholic Church.  If your arguments are bad, we have the right to point that out.  Freedom is applied to everyone equally, including those who believe in magic.

In doing so, you are not only maintaining long-standing British traditions of freedom of expression and honest exchange of opinion, but you are actually giving voice to the convictions of many people who lack the means to express them: when so many of the population claim to be Christian, how could anyone dispute the Gospel's right to be heard?

Again, no one is denying the right for you to present your archaic beliefs.  But you're going to have to convince us that you're right before you get a free pass to treat people differently, particularly given the funding and subsidies you receive from the English government.

In a social milieu that encourages the expression of a variety of opinions on every question that arises, it is important to recognise dissent for what it is, and not to mistake it for a mature contribution to a balanced and wide-ranging debate.

This is utter horseshit.  You don't have a debate, let alone a balanced one, without dissent.  You have people blowing smoke up each others' asses.  The Catholic Church is basically saying here that only their point of view matters, because they have The Truth™, which need not be defended with your silly evidence and facts.

I know my astonishment is mostly due to the fact that I'm a former Catholic, and I know more about this church than others.  But I cannot fathom why so many people that this garbage seriously.



* There is a hilarious explanation for this by Catholic apologists here.  My favorite line: "There is little question that if Galileo had kept the discussion within the accepted boundaries of astronomy (i.e., predicting planetary motions) and had not claimed physical truth for the heliocentric theory, the issue would not have escalated to the point it did. After all, he had not proved the new theory beyond reasonable doubt."  So discuss the heliocentric theory, but not that the earth physically orbits the sun.  What does that even mean?  This is science, not magic.  We use observation and evidence to determine, to the best of our abilities, what's actually, physically happening.  It's no surprise that superstitious cooks can't comprehend that.  I'm not even going to go after the "reasonable doubt" bit, it's too easy.

The Milky Way Transit Authority

This is amazing:

 

Samuel Arbesman, a research fellow from Harvard, created this Milky Way Transit Authority map, which lays out the major points in our Milky Way galaxy in the style of a subway map.  

Here's an example of the types of trips you might plan:

So, what about that trip to Cygnus? Be sure to purchase a Day Pass ticket, take the Orion (Red) Line to the Eagle Nebula, then jump on the Sagittarius (Blue) Line to Carina. Be warned, I hear the station at Carina is expecting some demolition work soon, so jump on the Express to Cygnus as fast as you can to avoid delay (and radiation poisoning). 

This must be made into a t-shirt, ASAP.

Santa Claus vs. Tooth Fairy

Roger Ebert has been very outspoken lately about the problems with religion and other types of woo, so I've been following his Twitter (@ebertchicago) account for a while now (I'm @JeffSatterley btw, for anyone interested in my banal tweets; I'd rather follow Ebert).  He tweeted a link to this letter he received from a fan, which I thought was fantastic, responding to Ebert's review of The Tooth Fairy.  The fan tells his kid's the following story about Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, which was based on the movie Underworld:

Santa had a son who fell in love with the Tooth Fairy's daughter. Because Santa could not abide such a mixing of the species, he had the Fairy's daughter killed. The Tooth Fairy responded by killing Santa's son. So began the blood-feud. Elves and Fairies have fought and died by the thousands over the ages. But, most critical, is what happens on Xmas Eve. Should a child be unable to prevent the loss of a tooth on Xmas Eve, it's possible that the Tooth Fairy and Santa end up at that very house at the same time. When this happens, the resulting battle destroys several city blocks.

I love this.  I just picture little kids, who like explosions and the like, trying to pull their teeth out on Christmas Eve, trying to get the tooth fairy and Santa together so that they can witness the destruction.  I know the story's a bit violent, but most kids are exposed to worse normally anyway. 

The reason I'm writing about it here is because I'm still torn about whether to lie to my kids, when I have them.  Should I tell them that Santa comes on Christmas, and the tooth fairy leaves money under your pillow?  My goal is to raise kids who are skeptical thinkers, who believe things based on evidence.  What's the best way to do that? 

I initially thought that lying to my kids would be wrong.  I'm not going to tell them Jesus died for their sins, so why would I tell them Santa exists?  But then again, if I expect to tell my children only the truth, I'm sort of expecting them to never question what I tell them.  That's not the best way to raise skeptical thinkers.  I want my kids to question the things their told, including what I tell them (I know I'll probably regret this when I'm yelling "Because I said so!", but so be it).  So I think stories like Santa will be like little tests for them.  As they get older they'll start questioning the logistics of the fairy tales, and I'll encourage them to think critically about them.

Not only that, but Rebecca Watson, founder of Skepchick, said something in an interview I recently saw that resonated with me.  She said that she's going to lie to her kids about all kinds of stuff.  Santa, the tooth fairy, monsters in the closet, etc., because she has an appreciation for their imagination.  Being a scientist and skeptic isn't just about being logical, imagination is incredibly important, and it's important to allow children to express that imagination. 

But given that, where do I draw the line?  What should I let my kids believe and figure out for themselves, what what topics should I not lie about, and why?   I suspect I'll let my kids believe the fairy tales like Santa and the tooth fairy, but I won't bring religion into the picture (at least not as The Truth, perhaps in a "Some people believe this and others believe that..." sort of way), nor would I tell them bogus things like homeopathy and astrology actually work.  But why some and not others?  Things like religion and homeopathy have a worse track record than the simple fairy tales, both in terms of people outgrowing the beliefs, and in their effects when enacted (violence and bigotry for religion, illness and even death for homeopathy).  But I'm sure some other beliefs will come up that be more difficult to decide on.  I'm still not really sure how best to decide what to let my kids believe, and what to warn them about explicitly.

Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this, and it will come more naturally as I have more experience as a parent.  Anyone out there have any thoughts on the matter?