The Roosevelt Atheists club attended a wonderful lecture by Dr. Michael Shermer last night as part of Birthday Week celebrations. Dr. Shermer talked about why people believe weird things. A moment of excitement came when a U. Wisconsin professor asked a question that revealed he was a “Nine Eleven Truther”. The crowd booed and muttered, but Dr. Shermer was polite as ever in his answer.

An interesting point Dr. Shermer made is that the brain’s default mechanism for handling information is to believe it. It takes more work (literally, from a neurological perspective) to think critically about and assess new information, than to just “go with it”. Seems gullibility is hard-wired. Religion may also be hard-wired in the temporal lobe.

We also learned that Michael Shermer once thought he was being harassed by aliens from an otherworldly spaceship, and that he volunteered to have his brain saturated with EM waves intended to induce altered consciousness.

Afterwards we met him for some brief chat and book-signings. He was quite personable and it was obvious that he loves thinking, discussing and chewing on ideas. In the picture, one of the aforementioned Atheists is apparently being sworn in by Dr. Shermer. He’s either promising to eat his vegetables or to always be skeptical of everything but skepticism so help him the FSM.

Personally, he’s my favorite promulgator of rationalism since Carl, though Dennett is also phenomenal.

In another affirmation of the obvious, this study says people with greater intelligence are more likely to be atheists. Raise your hand if you are surprised that people who are more curious, well-learned and better at figuring out cause-and-effect relationships are more likely to poo-poo the supernatural…

Less obviously, they’re also apparently more nocturnal. Finally, for men, more intelligence is correlated to monogamy and fidelity.

It seems the human brain is pre-wired to react strongly to inequality. I was just thinking that ants and bees have highly stratified social structures that are quite different in terms of responsibility and danger. I wonder, if humans didn’t have this brain circuitry, would we have ever claimed a universal distribution of inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

When buying “From Eternity to Here” on Amazon, two books listed at the top of the list look almost identical. The first book, “From Here to Eternity: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time” looks yummy! The next book, “From Here to Eternity: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God” is rather less so. Guess which one I bought by accident. Yuck!

According to a new CNN poll, 86% of American’s think government is “broken”, but of those, 81% think it can be fixed. A similar poll by CBS finds 70% dissatisfied. Most interesting (at least to me) is the CBS finding that ”
81 percent of Americans believe members of Congress don’t deserve re-election.”

Although the poll did not seek to determine the causes of these sentiments (though the CBS poll did show that less than 15% of Americans thought congress works “for the people”), I suspect well-publicized partisanship and obvious lack of cooperation is a significant contributor.

The two parties are, it seems, more interested in ensuring they keep the loyalty of their respective bases, than they are in swaying independents. To that end, they are becoming less likely to compromise, less likely to sway from impractical ideology, and less likely to cooperate with moderates in their own party, much less in the other party.

In difficult times, when American’s security is threatened (most often this comes in the form of lack of financial security), they expect government to help fix things. Right now, it seems Americans think government is getting in the way of fixes due to obvious intransigent internecine imbroglios.

Once again, I predict that if these poll numbers don’t change, and more to the point, if congress’ behavior doesn’t change, incumbents will see a thorough drubbing this November, as well far-left and far-right ideological candidates – which candidates I suspect the parties are most likely to field as part of their circling of the wagons.

Right now political cognoscenti should be sending wagons out to scatter among the people, gain their confidence, and provide visible help – instead they’re huddling in fear and paralysis.

The ballot box will tell.

Apparently, chickens have color-vision that’s a lot better than a human’s. RGB monitors probably look like washed-out cartoons to the bird-brain, when compared to real life.

Apparently, Senator Bayh is leaving because he sees the Senate becoming more stridently partisan – a trend others have also noted.

Consider this (reported on CNN): “Fifty-six percent of people questioned in an ABC News/Washington Post survey released this week said they are inclined to look around for someone else rather than re-elect their representative, with 36 percent saying they’re inclined to vote to re-elect their representative.”

Perhaps we centrists, which data shows constitute the majority of Americans (see http://www.independentnation.org/moderate_majority.htm), now have hope that the pendulum will swing like an axe in the coming mid-terms.

I believe the current anti-incumbent mood is really an anti-extremist mood. The irony is that the GOP and the Democrats are running and shoving each other far left and right while encouraging those in the middle to abandon ship. All the while, American voters are clearly sending warning shots over these far aft and stern elements of our ship of state and expressing deep disgust with partisanship.

The wonderful thing about democracy is that eventually our political “leaders” WILL get the message; when the myopic clusters of polarized of extremists are forced to walk the plank on election day. We can hold out hope they get a clue in advance, and start behaving like respectable pragmatists and cooperative congressmen, but if hope fails the ballot box won’t.

Bidding a terse bon-voyage to the ideological zealots can’t happen too soon.

Scientists have recently discovered that running without shoes is far easier than most people think. Not only that, it’s far less likely to cause injuries and physical stress than running with shoes. Amazing! It’s almost as if we evolved from ancestors who didn’t have Prada or Nike…

“The Yemeni parliament tried in February to pass a law, setting the minimum marriage age at 17. But the measure has not reached the president because many parliamentarians argued it violates sharia, or Islamic law, which does not stipulate a minimum age.”

This is zany from both a logical AND religious standpoint. By this logic, if a holy book doesn’t mention something specifically (say, vehicular homicide), then it must be just fine.

Text of a speech I gave at the Unitarian Universalist Temple in Hinsdale, IL on August 30, 2009.
Here’s the audio-file:
Purpose
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I have an opinion on the use of the Quran as a target for weapons practice by US personnel in Baghdad.

I was wondering what you other skeptics and/or atheists think.

I’ve found blogs that pretty much agree with the following, which is my opinion.

I view the Quaran as just another influential book. Why should I feel any differently about somebody shooting at it as opposed to, say, a Betty Crocker Cookbook? The difference as I see it, is that I highly doubt somebody just picked a random book – which happened to be the Quran – to shoot.

I suspect, that just like burning a flag is very often a political and philosophical statement, rather than a matter of practical expediency (i.e. keeping warm) or random happenstance, so is any non-random shooting or burning the Quran. I firmly support the right of free speech, even to the point where a citizen is entitled to burn a flag, fly a flag of choice, burn or shoot any book he may choose. On the other hand, I propose that when an official representative (e.g. a soldier, or other government agent) makes a political statement, it is sometimes difficult to separate the person from the role and thus may be easily misconstrued as an official statement. I cannot help but think it was intentionally inflamatory.

It also occurs to me that some may be inclined to shoot a Quran, a Bible, a Kitáb-i-Aqdas , a Mencius etc. as a general statement of antipathy toward religion in general. But in selecting to assault only one holy book, one’s intention could be easily (mis?)construed as making a specific statement against a particular religion, and implicitly in support of some other religion. Due to this easy interpretation, it is logical for an observer to infer the protester supports some kind of deep antipathy toward a particular religion commensurate perhaps even with the disposition toward religious war.

Finally, I hold that the war in Iraq (and Afghanistan, for that matter) is a secular war against the secular impacts of an autocratic and malicious regime and ideology, which regime may (or may not) be motivated by religious philosophy. It is in keeping with the Enlightenment ideals of liberty, including religious liberty, for the actions and policies of our occupation forces to completely ignore religious issues until and unless they create deleterious secular or practical impacts, and then to selectively address those issues. To cast the struggle as being generally against a particular religion is antithetical to the best ideals of respect, tolerance and liberty humanity has ever conceived.

Here’s a brief summary of topics I believe need further development with regards to the way scholars and professionals think about and approach International Relations.

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Just when I was beginning to despair about the lack of substantive debate in government chambers, we have a reprise of the fracas between Griswold and Lyon.  It’s not at the national level, but we can at least hope passion is not dead in government.

I would like to point out that in both instances, the instigator of physical violence was a conservative (e.g. Federalist / Republican).

South Carolina has this nifty idea to cut the term of prison sentences for inmates who donate organs.

Can you imagine the plea deals, “OK, I plead guilty to manslaughter and give you a kidney and half a spleen for three years plus ten probation…”

“Cruel and Unusual” anybody? Maybe trafficking in organs? Perhaps somebody simply saw Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” too often…

I suspect this will be quickly struck down as unconstitutional (if it ever gets to the point of being contested) – if not, we have a zany Supreme Court.

As Communism showed dramatically, whenever government services (or means of production) constitute a monopoly, several things happen:

1) The quality of the end-product/service deteriorates

2) Motivations tend toward maintaining the status-quo than toward innovation (CYA is more important than R&D)

3) Practitioners/workers view their roles as being entitlements rather than earned

4) The impediments to spending “other people’s money” are few.

5) Protectionist technocrats (e.g. department heads, bureau  chiefs, etc.)  develop policies (e.g. red-tape) to obscure their actions, discourage critical analysis, obliterate competition and expand their domain.

As various political science studies have determined, and as is likely clear by paying attention to the way citizens talk and behave, people tend to view government pockets as arbitrarily deep.  Thus “waste” and “deficit” are perceived more as idealogical issues than as practically important.  In most cases, a vocal minority of people will fight for the practical and tangible benefits they receive from government, while those of us who pay for such benefits view it as a trivial issue (the still kicking  bridge to nowhere, anybody?).

To rely on a solution of “competent managers” is to rely on virtuous and selfless human nature.  People who exhibit such characteristics, who behave with prudence, ethics, restraint, wisdom and selfless stewardship are rare.  I suggest they are in fact so rare, that it is unrealistic to suppose a such a virtuous horde of selfless technocrats (not to mention elected officials) will ever be found.

Competition, which lies at the heart of capitalism, is a fantastic means for motivating innovative, efficient, results-oriented processes and services.  Government, being often a monopoly, falls prey to the lethargy, lack of focus and poor results which are endemic to such entities.

True progress toward diminishing government waste will require stiff penalties, accountability, outsourcing competition to multiple providers, and perhaps inter-agency competition for project/program governance.

A classmate of mine asked an interesting question recently, and it inspired my response which follows. At root, this notion is a framework for combating the tendency of scale-free networks to coalesce into very “clumpy” distributions. Such networks, as exemplified by a completely open free-market have been shown to lead to Pareto-like distributions of wealth. Scale-free networks also characterize the growth of urban population centers.

Alternatively, this article may be viewed as proposing a way to facilitate prosperity while strongly discouraging excessive and profligate waste and over-use of natural resources.

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This is a test post from MS-Word 2007. It includes a picture from my Minnesota 2006 vacation.

The idea of the Earth’s Carrying Capacity necessarily involving more than just the amount of food we can produce can lead to some pretty depressing thoughts. I shall ramble about them a trifle.I wish people (at least a majority in democratic countries) would gain the sophisticated insight and breadth of consideration to be able to make decisions favoring sustainability. But I also recognize that most people behave in a short-term and selfish manner (and always have – there’s a surprisingly insightful book about the greed of America’s founding “Freedom Just Around the Corner“).

This idea lies at the heart of many of my current notions about government and its appropriate role: I believe a significant majority of people are kind, earnest, generous and hopeful, fully entitled to life, liberty and their pursuit of happiness. I also believe (like Hamilton, for whom I have a profound affection), that human institutions which govern by consistently supporting the free actions of the majority court peril when such majorities are energized by passion, focused only on self-interest, or bereft of wisdom.

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There’s a fun freethinker / humanist blog which collects some nice information about public policy in the U.S. as it relates to rationalism, scientific integrity and humanism.

Although I have some niggling concerns about humanism (almost identical to those expressed here), I find myself agreeing with most humanists most of the time.

In any case… Nanovirus is fun and informative.

The Internet is an impartial tool with which we can support our delusions of reality, or conversely build an objective and valid world-view.  The tendency is toward the former, it takes intention and education to pursue the latter course…

I’ve been reading “The Varieties of Scientific Experience” by the late Carl Sagan. I love Sagan’s publicly available writings, and I agree whole-heartedly with every bit of his thinking I’ve come across regarding skepticism, reason, agnosticism, scientific investigation and his recommendations for social agendas. In fact, I agree so vehemently that I wonder why I should bother reading his book. It is essentially mental masturbation; an opportunity for pounding my fist, clapping my hands and exclaiming “YEAH!!”. From my personal perspective the book is mostly bereft of new material which might persuade or inform me. But I love Carl, and the book contains some interesting anecdotes which were otherwise unknown to me. I find myself feeling guilty about “wasting time” while reading it though, since it does not really move my mind into new territory.

I often attend meetings of the Kendall County Democrats, where I am able to join folks with some similar opinions about politics, policy and candidates. So far, we have never discussed policy, theory, position or strategy. In any case, there has never been any debate which challenges me, or causes me to question my preexisting conclusions. Again, I wonder if the benefit of my attendance is limited due to the homogeneity of the experience.

My favorite websites include those which convey information about current scientific discoveries, pragmatic and rational political theory, scientifically-augmented positions on economic and social policy and environmentally sustainable conservation. I never visit sites with active dialogues about the Christian Rapture, anti-abortion, theories of politics or policy viewed as divinely sanctioned, anti-minority rants, those with unscientifically supportable contentions about global warming or the environment, theories regarding mystical “energy”, homeopathy, pseudoscience, or any of a million other perspective which are anathema to my personal preference for pragmatic, scientific and compassionate philosophies of life. I like learning new things and discovering alternative perspectives, but a vast number of my fundamental views are never likely to change – and I don’t seek to do so.

The Internet is a fantastic tool for finding information. One can find an arbitrarily large amount of argumentation, “data”, pithy quotes, personal claims and opinions and passionately held positions on pretty much anything one wishes to investigate. Certainly a similar statement can be made regarding other media – whether print, television, radio or special-interest clubs; but the Internet brings the largest quantity of information, it brings it for a trivially low price, and it can bring it to you in private.

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