Herding Cats

That's what organizing the atheist community is often compared to. Given that PZ's going to be part of a rather large crowd at that Creationist "Museum," I thought it might be appropriate to have a thread about how to make sure everyone in an atheist group behaves themselves. We're not magically immune to attracting the odd troublemakers, after all.

The Other Problem of Evil

Given my experience with apologetics, I can safely say that many apologists don't know much of anything about your typical atheist. Or at least those like me. I've seen a LOT of them listing the primary suspected reason for atheism as the Problem of Evil: If their deity's good and all powerful, why is there still evil? Though this is a legitimate question, it is pretty much independent of my belief in gods.

Given relatively literal readings of the Bible and a number of common beliefs, God is very much evil. Human sacrifices, genocide, slavery, strange and arbitrary rules, purposeless torment in a lake of fire, and so on: Some things are simply inexcusable. Though many atheists will often give a stock answer that they don't hate God because he's fictional, I will say I have no trouble hating fictional characters who deserve the emotion for the actions they perform in their fictional world. Or would perform if they were in the real world.

That, however, is not what I base my disbelief on. I do not disbelieve out of spite, but out of a lack of evidence, or even a decent definition of evidence to look for. If I had evidence of the typical fundie's god, I wouldn't be an atheist anymore. I'd be looking for the gates of Heaven and an army of concerned and morally upright citizens to storm them and overthrow the sadist, regardless of power differences.

I don't believe in gods because they're a slippery concept. Some are chimeric mishmashes of contradicting characteristics. Some are described as chiseled stone idols carrying thunderbolts and hopping around on clouds, and are only disbelieved because they've mastered the art of hiding where we aren't looking at any given moment. Others are so amorphous, described with words like "transcendental" and "infinite" that they can hardly be described as the vapor of a germ of an idea. If they can't even get consistent with what they're talking about, how can we expect to know what evidence to look for? If we can't figure out what to look for, how can we find it? If we can find no evidence, how are we supposed to believe in any version whatsoever, much less a particular one?

Caaaaake!

Last night, I picked up Fat Princess for PS3. Essentially a fun little CTF game, where you make your "flag" heavier and harder to carry by feeding her cake. Of course, you've got some standard stuff: Capturing outposts, collecting resources for upgrades, and organizing assaults to capture/rescue princesses.

The AI substitutes are pretty stupid, in my experience, though they have a few funny names. In one match, I saw "Solid Cake," "Liquid Cake," and "Cake Eater." I'm on PSN as BronzeDog, in case anyone's interested in forming a team or clan or guild, or whatever online gamers are calling it these days.

The Prince of Egypt: Alternate Interpretation

A while back, an animated movie came out called "The Prince of Egypt". I mostly went for what I thought was some good animation, rather than the story. (And looking at IMDB, probably Patrick Stewart, too.) I was in a vague "spiritual but not religious" spot at the time, so I was a bit on the cynical side in regards to the religion angle. I didn't expect for the story to strike a chord with me, though it's probably one the producers didn't intend. Note that I only saw it once in the theater, so my memories are likely colored by time and personal biases. I may post an update if I end up seeing it again. So, with that background, on with the alternate character interpretations.

Seti, Moses's adoptive (grand?)father, older Pharoh: He was prompted to perform the mass infanticide Moses escaped by a fear of rebellion: If the Hebrews grew too numerous, they could tear apart Egypt. When Moses asked for a justification, he characterized it as a sacrifice for the "greater good," meaning, in his case, a stable civilization where his family could continue. The tone of voice he spoke in told me that he knew it was wrong, but a justified hard decision for the sake of civilization. I could hate him because he was too cowardly, too afraid of the risks to consider pushing for equal rights between Hebrews and Egyptians. He was resigned to the violence inherent in the system and lacked the will for reform.

Rameses, Moses's adoptive brother, inherits the title of Pharoh after Seti's death: Unlike Seti, Rameses is essentially too innocent to do evil by intention. He cares deeply for his brother, and doesn't understand his behavior: Moses feels guilt after killing one of the whip-cracking slavemasters, but Rameses only thinks to use his power in the royal family for a pardon, initially thinking Moses was afraid of being punished, and is confused when Moses reacts negatively to the suggestion. For Rameses, his friends and family are the only real people. Those in the lower stations are just the things that prop them up in their privileged lifestyle. Having wealth and political power since birth served to make him compartmentalize his morality to just those he cares about. He is a villain not for amusement or ambition, but out of thoughtless habit. We can sympathize with him for his fraternal love, which shows some fundamental goodness in his character. Mostly, we can pity him for the fear, stubbornness, and confusion he experiences when Moses's actions undermine his way of life in the ivory tower.

Cthulhu God: An amoral, alien force who uses Moses as a symbol and focus of its power. It sends forth horrible plagues to get Rameses to allow the Hebrews to leave. It does this not because it cares about the suffering they experience, but for it's own amusement. If suffering were a concern for God, it would have done something along the lines of teleporting the Hebrews to a nice, peaceful location where they could live. Instead, it torments the Egyptian people, innocent or otherwise, to push Rameses's buttons. This god doesn't care about morality, only "winning" and humiliating its helpless, chosen opponent.

Moses: Much like Rameses, Moses was adopted into the wealthy royal family and grew up in a life of ease and leisure. The critical difference was that Moses didn't have a complete mental block preventing his moral myopia: He saw past class lines and recognized that the little people had their own lives, worries, and people to care about. Once he saw that, he recognized that he was bound to be moral towards everyone. When his actions resulted in a death, he felt obligated to be punished for his actions. He was eventually able to forgive himself and find the resolve Seti lacked: An end to the cycle of violence. For this, he made an alliance with a being that appeared to share his goals, and would grant him the power to see it through. Unfortunately, this devil he made a deal with was far worse than anything he could imagine, sending forth plagues to kill innocents. Unable to hold back the force he unwittingly unleashed, he pleaded with his brother to let the Hebrew slaves go, so that he and the Egyptian people would be spared of suffering anything more than a collectively bruised ego. The Hebrews were free, but such a terrible cost in life, it merely looked to be yet another part of the violent cycle.

116th Skeptics' Circle

It's up at White Coat Tales.

Open thread as usual, except rebuilding the patients to be faster, stronger, better than they were before is FORBIDDEN!

Doggerel #188: "THEM!"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or jut plain meaningless.

Whether it's the Illuminati, the government, the corporations, or whoever, shallow thinkers always have allegedly monolithic groups to blame for their lack of evidence. Unfortunately for them, even if these groups were as evil as claimed, they wouldn't have the logistics to perform such a cover up.

Put simply, science works, regardless of where you are or who you are. Too often, to name a government example, I've had alties claiming their treatments' evidence was being suppressed by the US government, despite the fact that any other nation in the world can perform the appropriate experiments.

On top of that, the fact that they speak as if these organizations were monolithic is telling: Everyone has their own interests, and in fact, most organizations rely on having opposing parts. It'd be bad for a pharmaceutical company's long term goals if a dangerous product got out. That's why they tolerate government-mandated tests, and even if such regulations didn't exist, you can bet there'd be some whistleblowers pushing for them anyway, out of the kindness in their hearts: Some people get into the medical business specifically to help others, after all.

The world is made up of many, many individuals with differing interests. As much as some leaders wish they could have hordes of mindless drones, they can't. This plays to science's strength: Evidence cannot be suppressed so easily.

Kobolds!

I've gotten something of an odd gaming desire show up. It showed up shortly after I read about Boatmurdered, a Let's Play of Dwarf Fortress that didn't end well. The DF wiki mentioned fans of the game thinking of kobolds as cute little buttmonkeys of the DF world.

So, I suddenly get an urge to play some kind of fortress simulator along the general lines of DF where you play as the kobolds, goblins, or whatever race: Something small, weak, sneaky, and evil misunderstood. Anyone know a game like that?

New Age, Pronounced "New Wage"

My regular readers have no doubt noticed I'm fairly consistent at typing "newage (rhymes with sewage)" when I type about the trendy, fluffy woo. Not long ago, I saw a comment talking about the marketability of woo, and one of the other memes about the name: Calling it "New Wage" for the commercialization of it all. What struck me to eventually write this post was a comment about Native American shamans and their view of the New Wage phenomena: Apparently many of them like to describe the popular gurus who allegedly derive from them as "plastic shamans."

That just struck me as a very compact way of putting it. The last time I heard the use of "plastic" in that manner was to describe the "phony" people of Hollywood: Detached from the outside world by the fame and luxury, usually involved in some way or another in the act of selling pretentious, shallow fantasy while claiming to be innovative.

That's what much of the New Wage is: It's the theme park version of ancient quackery and mysticism, sanitized for the average American consumer. All the icky, unappealing parts are removed, supernatural entities are transformed into exotic guardian spirits, and just about any form of extensive footwork is removed so that it can be toned down into a hobby. After all, they want you to keep buying more books, overpriced bundles of material components, and herbal concoctions shredded up and compacted into mass produced pill format.

The quackery end is probably responsible for a large number of diet fads: Take these herbal pills full of ancient wisdom, and you won't need to cut down on sweets, like your "allopathic" doctor tells you to with increasing urgency. You shouldn't trust a doctor who tells you to eat more fruits, vegetables, and sources of fiber because you know mainstream doctors don't know anything about nutrition. Here, buy some herbal vitamin supplements balanced specifically for your blood type and aura color.

Doggerel #187: "[Scientist] Recanted on His Deathbed!"

Welcome back to "Doggerel," where I ramble on about words and phrases that are misused, abused, or just plain meaningless.

There's no shortage of these urban legends, and always a shortage of evidence to back them up. That, however, is a complete red herring that develops from the delusion that scientists are more authoritative than evidence.

Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur are frequent victims of this doggerel. The problem is that the theories they birthed aren't confined to them. The success of a scientific theory is its explanatory and predictive power. Evolution is still the only way to look at biology that ties it all together. It's grown beyond Darwin's knowledge. The same is true with the Louis Pasteur's germ theory of disease: We not only know that germs cause various diseases, we know the various types of germs, how and why many cause disease, and how to combat and contain these diseases. The "alternatives" pitched by the people who tell these stories typically rely heavily on coincidence, or simply don't bother to explain or predict the myriad details the mainline theories do.

That's why deathbed recantations, even if they did happen, are completely worthless. The ultimate authority in science is the evidence. Either a theory works or it doesn't. Theories are not proclamations from on high that can be revoked by royal decree. The only thing that can tear down a theory is evidence that contradicts its predictions. To find that, you have to understand the theory and what it explains.

Pointless Question #64

If Rule 34 is, well, you know, what are Rules #1-33?

The Skeptic as a Blithe Spirit

Since having a hotlink to TV Tropes is too much of a temptation for some of my readers, I'll skip it and give the gist of it: A Blithe Spirit is a person, usually the main character of a story, who ends up changing everything by being a free spirit in a stuffy environment and proud of it. That's how I've started viewing the skeptic versus woo battle: We're a force of creative chaos made to disrupt stagnant order.

Really. Although the woos like to pretend they're the innovators, everything they do seems to include all sorts of mechanisms designed to prevent anyone from questioning them. Unfalsifiable beliefs mean never having to say, "I was wrong." For a skeptic, being wrong is an opportunity: It means there's more to the universe than we thought. That means there's a mystery begging to be solved.

That's not how it is for the woo: For them, being wrong is a personal failing. If someone takes a prudent course, doing everything logically, and ends up having to change his opinion when unexpected evidence comes in, it's something to rub in their face. Of course, the whole problem with woo is that they do everything recklessly: They prefer their biases over clarity, which is why they embrace so many fallacies, especially ones founded on an idea of being infallible. Because of this attitude, a skeptic's curiosity is something to be vehemently opposed and shot down. That's why they react so negatively when we ask fundamental questions.

If you're careful and logical about how you think and what you believe as a result, being wrong and changing your mind when new evidence comes forth is nothing to be ashamed of. Being right on what boils down to a basis of luck is nothing to be proud of, either. We know science isn't magical or perfect. It's the best answer we could think of for dealing with the fact that we aren't perfect. Despite this keen awareness of our flaws as mere mortals, we remain optimistic about the process: With enough careful evidence gathering and communication, we can make steady progress into understanding the world around us and use that understanding to help one another. Being wrong and making mistakes is an inherent part of that process.

From my experience with woos, they're much more cynical and homeostatic. They don't accept the scientific method because they can't accept the risk of being wrong about their favorite topics. Many of the fallacies they employ are designed to protect their beliefs in the face of logic and contradicting evidence. That's why every failure is accompanied with an ad hoc hypothesis to explain it away. The natural result of this is that all woos are stuck in an eternal rut, and why I display such passion for getting them out of it, along with no small amount of frustration when they spout doggerel to resist even the tiniest bit of introspection.

A side effect of this is a climate I often perceive among the newage (rhymes with sewage) crowd: If there's a point of disagreement, they'll just agree to disagree, rather than debate the merits of their position. When scientists disagree on a subject, they get adversarial. This is because the truth is easier to find when everyone's willing to find weakspots in various theories. If our best ideas are wrong, that means we have to find out what weird thing is deviating from the expected, and figure it out. Science is not a field for those with easily bruised egos. Without this no-holds barred approach, woos can't expand beyond their inflated egos. They usually don't debate amongst themselves because they've learned to protect their feelings by not rocking the boat.

So I try to rock it for them.

Viva La [Civilization] Revolution!

My brother and I have been playing some games of Civilization: Revolutions on our PS3s. It's fun. One annoyance I have: The AI's usually not much of a challenge in the long run. About the only problems I have with 'em is maintaining some defenses in the early game while the computer sends in legion armies. I've heard it gets them for free at times.

So, anyway, my PSN ID is BronzeDog (no space). Feel free to drop friend requests. We can also talk other multiplayer games if you like. Of course, we also have Civ4 on our laptops, though fair warning: My brother's tends to overheat and shut off. He's got bad luck with laptops.

Something of Interest

Got this from a commenter named "Celestial" over at NeuroLogica: It's a post about some psychological quirks marketers can use for manipulation. Of course, these techniques can be used to inform and encourage good things as well.

The Dave Mabus Thread

Since I saw a few spammers on other blogs, I decided what the heck: Dave Mabus, if you're going to spam my blog, spam here. If, for example, you want to claim Randi owes you the million, try posting a copy of your application. If you want to thumb your nose at PZ and "the atheist movement," how about you stay and discuss the philosophy, rather than post links to a non-discussion area?

You should note that I've never deleted your spam, and only repeatedly invited you for discussion, which you've shied away from. It's far more amusing to laugh at desperation than it is to delete the annoyance. That's why an even formerly "banned" troll like WoMI still had lots and lots of comments after I "banned" him: When he wasn't flooding with copy-paste insults that made my browser worry he set up an infinite loop, he was just too hilarious to delete. Of course, if you actually have something cogent to say, you shouldn't care whether we laugh at you or not.

Something I Saw Yesterday

I figure if I've got insomnia tonight, might as well catch up on my blogging. One guy I sometimes watch on YouTube was going on about Florida license plates. You've probably seen PZ cover the issue enough. Being from Texas, I expressed sympathy in the comments, since we're dealing with all the BOE crap, lately. I got a little reciprocation. Afterward, I made a trip to the grocery store and saw something that just covers Texas's problems so well:

I was behind a blue pickup truck with a bumper sticker roughly like this:

Texas Educators
One Voice, One (garbled) (garbled) Vote
www.texasedu(garbled..............)

Something had dented the sticker right in the middle, rendering much of it illegible.

Work Time Fun?!

I have little to say about this, other than it's worked its way up to the top of my "That is Some Messed Up Shit" list.

---

I posted that a bit quickly. Here's another one that's twisted on a more individual level that happened to MarkCC of Good Math, Bad Math. Another one worthy of a high rank.

115th Skeptics' Circle

It's up at Effort Sisyphus.

Open thread as usual, except selling timeshares on Risa is FORBIDDEN!

Barking Up the Right Tree #1: Population

Welcome to a new series of mine, dealing with specific points I think skeptics should focus on when making arguments. Today's entry: It's populations of organisms that evolve, not individuals.

Yeah, animations of organisms changing over time are a nice way to show the history of a lineage, but possibly thanks to Hollywood, comic books, and so forth, (alongside Creationists using such instead of textbooks in their inane arguments) there's a lot of Creationists who think evolution is about magical transformations randomly happening to individuals. This, of course, is complete bumpkis.

Those animations? It's better to think of it as the net averaging of a lineage over the course of generations. Mutations and combinations that result in a big difference are pretty rare. Usually, evolution takes the form of very small differences: For example, a gene that makes teeth a little bit longer shows up and is beneficial. The slightly longer-toothed individual has more kids than average, who have more kids than average, and so on until that gene is commonplace in the species. From that changed population, a new, different trait may take root, and so on. New traits may make old, previously neutral ones more beneficial than usual, so those propagate, etcetera.

Nowhere is the process directed or able to foresee the future. Steps don't have to occur in a particular order. Older "models" of a species can stick around for extended times if they're isolated and/or still competitive enough. Nowhere is there a requirement for a "wonder monkey" that shows up as a paragon of momentous change, like they do in the comic books. Sorry, X-Men hopefuls, it's an incremental process, and advantages will generally be small.

Metaphor time, since Creationists are fond of bogus probability: A species's evolution from one form to another isn't settled in a single pull on a big slot machine. It's more like some of those videogame slot machines that allow you to lock individual wheels. Now imagine you've got millions of people playing the same game, and when one locks a beneficial wheel, that benefit spreads to the other players. To add to that, there's several ways to win the jackpot. There's no individual wildly improbable act being done. When you've got millions of players, one of them getting a favorable turn of the wheel is hardly extraordinary. When those small successes are allowed to persist and spread over generations, progress is expected.

So, to summarize: An individual organism getting a big improbable change is the stuff of comic books, not evolution. I think any Creationist who makes such an argument should be ridiculed for not knowing the difference between the beliefs of Magneto and real world scientists.

This Just Hit Me

It has been a whole month since I've eaten fast food.

Woo Enthymemes #3: "Words are More 'Real' Than the Things They Describe"

This enthymeme particularly bugs me, and most often comes up with Creationists: Many seem to think that a species can't change, like there's some barrier that trims out any mutations beyond some arbitrary limit to diversity. The problem is that "species" is a loose label humans invented for convenience.
Let's take horses, for example. If you were to introduce a person without preconceptions to a horse and a zebra, it probably wouldn't be surprising if he thought they were the same species, just with different fur patterns. They are in the same genus, so they do have a lot of similarity. But they are different species, since they can't produce fertile offspring. Take dogs as well: Thanks to human breeding efforts, they come in a vast variety of forms, but many can interbreed. Naturally, with that variety, it's not hard to convince some people that some breeds aren't dogs at all.

Given what humans have been able to do with canines, just how flexible is this "species barrier?" And where's the magical stop sign that prevents anything from going outside it? Or is there some magically unalterable "species" DNA that isn't subject to nonlethal mutations? The problem isn't finding these things: It's that many Creationists don't understand that our labels are based on convenience, not on immutable laws or some quintessence a particular group of critters are supposed to have. Life is a moving target, and is not tethered down by squiggles on a page or patterns of sound issuing from a human's mouth. Truename Magic does not exist.

There are a bunch of living things out there. We just lump them into categories to make it easier to talk about. Mr. Ed is a horse. Fido is a dog. We know Ed's DNA is compatible with these other things we call "horses" because they contain the same characteristics we use to define him as a "horse." Just because we invented a word to describe this compatibility doesn't mean the horses are now obligated to conform in every way. With enough time, some horses might lose some of those characteristics (but not all, since, say, becoming a protostome instead of a deuterostome would kill the offspring) and become incompatible, necessitating a new species or genus name.

The objects we describe are real. The words we use to describe them are a convenience. If something defies description, it's the description that's the problem.