The Baloney Detection Kit (or Scientific Method Made Simple!)
crabsallover, 02/07/2009
Source: HASSERS - Humanist Atheist Scientific Secularist Ethical Rationalist Sceptics
crabsallover, 02/07/2009
Source: HASSERS - Humanist Atheist Scientific Secularist Ethical Rationalist Sceptics
Jumile, 02/07/2009

Posts have been few and far between lately due to being extremely busy with study (adult university distance courses take up a lot of time!), work and other things.
Over the weekend I managed to win an eBay auction for a telescope mount and tripod that I realised I’ve needed for some time: a Celestron CG5 equatorial mount on a “bomb-proof” tripod. It’s essentially what you see to the left, but without the computer and automatic tracking motor.
This became necessary because the motorised mount that came with my telescope is clearly not up to the task of reliably tracking objects — even after deciphering the instructions, carefully levelling the mount base and zeroing the unit, the drift is quite noticeable and requires regular, fiddly adjustment — and astrophotography requires either a fully-computerised AltAz mount that can track an object with pinpoint accuracy, or any level of equatorial mount. Trying to finely-adjust a motor-controlled AltAz mount to track an object is like using an Etch-A-Sketch: bearable for visual viewing, but astrophotography is out of the question. Even a cheap equatorial can track an object easily, providing the gears don’t have too much play in them and the unit is correctly configured.
A barn door mount for a camera would have done the trick, too, but I want to reap the benefits of an equatorial mount via the telescope’s eyepiece, too.
So today I have taken delivery of what appears to be 2/3 of the new mount and tripod assembly, with the joys of eBay meaning multiple packages. It’s definitely a solid, sturdy unit and I can see why the seller stated the need for something “lighter and more portable” — you wouldn’t want to carry this around to your local astronomy society’s evenings.
So once I’ve received all the parts and had a chance to test it out, I’ll post back with some pictures for your stargazing delight…
Source: Hurtling Through Space
AsukaRen, 02/07/2009
Source: Minority Within a Minority
Unknown author, 02/07/2009
Other studies have shown the moral-cleansing effect, but this new Northwestern model shows that the cleansing also has to do with restoring an ideal level of moral self-worth. In other words, when people operate above or below a certain level of moral self-worth, they instinctively push back in the opposite direction to reach an internally regulated set point of goodness.
"If people feel too moral," Sachdeva said, "they might not have sufficient incentive to engage in moral action because of the costliness of being good." Science Daily
Basically, this was a priming study. The participants were asked to write a short essay either on doing a good deed, or a bad one, or neutral. Those who wrote about doing a good deed were least generous in a variety of follow up tests, especially when the good deed they wrote about was their own.
The next step, apparently, is to see whether the results hold for other cultures.
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This work by Tom Rees is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Source: Epiphenom
grammarking, 02/07/2009
Apologies it’s been so long, but I’m crazy busy working every day and don’t have a lot of time. I spend a lot of my space on this blog bashing religion, but I should specify that I don’t think religion is the main problem. Religion is in turn fed by irrationality and superstition, I think weeding out this root cause could solve a lot of the problems we have today.
I spend a lot of time talking with the people at my new job, not least because a large proportion of them speak Spanish and I like to practice. One of my colleagues provided an example of such irrationality at work. She said that she took her flatmate to the bank machine to take out rent money, and after he withdrew the money, he folded the notes over, and a number handwritten on the outside note was the exact same number as the amount of money he’d withdrawn. “How do you explain that?” she said smugly.
My response was to ask her how many times she’d taken money out, folded it up and there was a different number written on the outside note, or how many times there hadn’t been any number written on the note. A statistically unlikely event will still happen if you repeat the situation an excessive number of times, and that doesn’t make it a coincidence, much less a supernatural event.
Dawkins goes through a similar idea in one or other of his books, which I’ll paraphrase here. A TV psychic looks into the camera and tells the audience to look at their watches and clocks, proudly declaring that someone’s will stop right at that second, and that they should call in. 5 minutes later, a few people are calling in, amazed that he was correct. I mean, what are the odds that my watch would just happen to stop right when he told me it would, that’s amazing!
Except that it’s not. If millions of people are watching and they’re each looking at several timepieces, the odds of one of them stopping aren’t all that huge. Next we have people saying “my watch didn’t stop just then, but I was speaking to my aunt in Canada and hers did stop just then, she’s across on the other side of the world and wasn’t even watching, that’s amazing!” Except it’s not. If we’re now including not only the millions of people who are watching but all their friends and relatives that aren’t, then the Population of Events That Would Have Appeared Coincidental (PETWHAC) just grew significantly, but conversely it seems more amazing that a watch belonging to someone who wasn’t even watching had stopped.
So, how do we tackle such basic superstition? Fortunately I think the education system can do a lot of the work for us.
I suggest we start with a basic education in statistics and probability. I’m not hot at all on statistics but I have the basics and it helps a lot. There’s a lot of logic that goes along with it too which often isn’t emphasised. For example, just because there are two possibilities, doesn’t mean that they are equally likely. Most mathematical problems used to teach probability involve 10 different coloured balls in a bag pulled at random, but this is only useful for illustrating equally likely outcomes. There isn’t, as some apologists seem to think, a 50/50 chance that God exists, just because he either does or he doesn’t. A building either stays up or falls down, that does not mean that there’s a 50/50 chance that it’ll fall down at any given moment.
A knowledge of the scientific method would also go down well. My friend wouldn’t have made her silly mistake if she’d known about recall and confirmation bias (she only remembered the time there was a number, and not the hundreds of times there wasn’t), both of which need to be accounted for when we’re practicing science. Put Philosophy of Science on the school science syllabus! This will also make sure everyone knows why clinically controlled trials are essential in proving the efficacy of a treatment, why randomization, blinding and placebo controls are important, and hopefully get rid of people’s faith in unproven alternative medicines. Win/win.
Last but not least, we need to foster an environment of critical thinking. I took a Critical Thinking class at school. It was terrible. We got a history teacher who barely knew the first thing about the subject for a single session a week for 40 minutes, and all he did was teach us what a non-sequitor was (which I could’ve figured out from my Latin class) every week, and we’d mess around for the rest of it. If that was taught properly, that would’ve been the most valuble class I could have taken. But then I suppose Catholic schools aren’t too keen on having rational critically thinking students, are they? Fortunately I’m happy to hear that Critical Thinking will be going on the GCSE syllabus.
As a final thought, remember that dwindling church attendance numbers are not in themselves good news, since lots of these people are losing faith in organised religion simply to go into New Age bollocks or become superstitious and just believe in ’something’. We need to tackle the root cause, not just one of it’s branching weeds.

Unknown author, 02/07/2009
If this blog has seemed quiet lately, it's because we've been finishing off our July issue, which is now with the printers and due out next week. Inside you'll be able to read Laurie Taylor tackling Dawkins' biggest critic, Terry Eagleton – he flew out to Dublin to interview him, and we can assure you he didn't let him off lightly. There's also insight into an Afro-Cuban drumming cult, Fiona Russell Powell tracking down cult rocker and "living work of art" Genesis P-Orridge (never heard of him before? Me neither – but here's a good place to start), Jonathan Rée assessing the legacy of Isaiah Berlin, our special summer humanist quiz, and much much more.Source: New Humanist Blog
athinkingman, 02/07/2009
I suppose it makes a change from a sex scandal, though you could argue that, in the scale of things, it could actually be worse.
According to The Times:
A 60-year-old vicar was charged yesterday with involvement in an alleged criminal conspiracy to organise “sham marriages” for illegal immigrants.
The Rev Alex Brown was one of four people arrested after a series of dawn raids in the Hastings area of East Sussex on Tuesday, which came after an 18-month investigation by Sussex Police and the UK Border Agency’s immigration crime team.
Police searched the offices of St Peter and St Paul Church, St Leonards, and arrested Mr Brown, who has worked in the parish for almost 20 years. He was charged with conspiring to facilitate unlawful entry and solemnising a marriage according to the rites of the Church of England without banns of matrimony being duly published.
Those who liked the vicar would doubtless understand his misdemeanor and point out that clergy are not highly paid and that he was probably building up his retirement fund by performing these public duties.
They might also argue that people are responsible for their own actions and it is not the job of the vicar to moralize over who should get married and who shouldn’t - heaven knows there has been enough public fuss over that recently for the church daring to suggest that some couples shouldn’t get married because they happened to have the same, rather than different, biological plumbing.
Doubtless the Rev Alex Brown used such arguments when trying to square the circle in his own mind and conscience - assuming he had both.
I find at least three things reprehensible about this story. First, a supposed representative of truth and honesty has become involved in criminal activity, turning a blind eye for his own gain, regardless of the consequences. I suppose in the light of church history, a little illicit marrying seems comparatively minor, but he should have known better, and should have stayed clear of the crime.
Secondly, it is so hypocritical for a leader in an organization that puts so much store on the value of marriage and the alleged importance of the life-long permanence of a union of one man and one woman before god, to be trivializing the ceremony (or as they would say, the ’sacrament’). The result is not a life-long union before god, but a piece of paper to be used in deceit and the relationship will almost certainly cease to exist after the ceremony and be legally annulled at some future date. My issue is not that marriage should necessarily be any of the things the church teaches, but rather that because they teach it, it is so bizarre for one of them to be acting in such a way.
The third issue for me is (strangely) about management and accountability (it reflects my background). It just highlights how weak and ineffective the management structure is in the church that such a person could get away with it until the police spilled the beans.
Source: A Thinking Man
crabsallover, 01/07/2009
Source: HASSERS - Humanist Atheist Scientific Secularist Ethical Rationalist Sceptics
TPO, 01/07/2009
Source: The Perplexed Observer
Gregory, 01/07/2009
S. and I are at this diner in downtown Tucson, a kitschy place popular with the hip college crowd. It’s one of those places with lots of linoleum, and worn red vinyl in the booths. Shiny metal counters and napkin dispensers glint in the fluorescent lights. This is no Johnny Rocket’s or 5 And Diner, corporate 50s chic to cater to the family nostalgia demographic. The fading is a bit too real, the small tears in the seats too genuine, for that. It’s genuine fake, the Real Faux Deal. It’s been faking since before your time, been faking so long it has become a real thing. The main attraction, aside from the delightful “dive” ambiance, is that it is open 24 hours, and offers the chance to eat huge bowls of cereal at 3 A.M.
It’s the mid-90s, S. and I are coworkers, and we have come here to have a Conversation. At this point in my life, I’m more than a little lost. I’ve face-planted on the whole life thing. I’m in the Dark Wood, a poor wretch, yada yada yada. I’m pretty sure I don’t believe in God — but I really, really want to at this moment, remembering how I almost had myself convinced, back in high school, that I had found an answer and some peace — though I had found no such thing. I’ve convinced myself that my doubts now are a sign of weakness. Recently, I had read a couple of books that made me very angry — an essay collection by Harlan Ellison (how his famous anti-Christmas article pissed me off!) and Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World. Both are reminding me of skepticism and asking questions, and damn all if I’m having any of that.
(Later, I will realize that reading The Demon-Haunted World was a turning point for me — from that point forward, I will always have Sagan in my head, whispering questions, and worse, suggesting that it’s okay. It will be years before I fully get that.)
So here is S., my coworker. She’s beautiful, she’s hip, she’s smart, she’s funny. A blond tomboy, careless in her appearance, a haunter of thrift stores. One of her favorite shirts is a UPS shirt she found at Value Village. She’s kind and sweet and listens with an almost scary intensity. You don’t talk with S. — you converse with her, long rambling conversations that cover all the bases, in depth, with lots of laughter throughout. She’s one of those people who seems to almost genetically have her shit together. It’s an illusion, of course. I’ll find, with time, that she has the same problems with that as any of us do. But right now, in this diner, she seems to be a Totally Together Person.
And this Gregory of the mid-90s is all about the gurus. My whole conscious life has been a search for a guru, a person with the answers. A person to save me, to fix the problems of my life, make it all better, iodine, band-aid and a kiss. My romantic life has been a shambles, since I’m always searching for the Magical Woman who will heal me (except for that one time, when I searched for, and found, a bit of poison in female form…). In high school it was B., and the brush with Evangelical Christianity. There was P., and the way I pushed her away with my desperate, needy clinging. There were others, too, the non-romantic relationships, almost always women, often ones I was attracted to. It’s part hormones, part the guru thing, and part my inability to have decent relationships with other men. Because there is always that — I get along better with women, and most of my closest friends have been women.
Anyway. S. I’m a little keen on her, and a lot lost, and searching for that guru. And here she is, in her favorite joint, ready and willing to talk. A Christian. Deeply so. Campus Crusade so. Mission to that heathen land, New Zealand, so. Fact is, that part is bugging me. I have a huge problem with that. I hate Campus Crusade and their ties to right wing extremists. I hate the whole missionary thing. Rational Gregory is already being birthed at this point, and he cringes at all that. And yet. She’s got it all together. She’s happy, she’s relaxed, she seems to know what she wants from life. She’s grounded. She must know Something. Teach me, Guru, teach me! Heck, I think, drowning out the skeptical questions in my head, maybe it’s even that Christianity thing. Maybe I’m missing something, my smarty-pants intellect getting in the way and keeping me from seeing the Truth.
So I’m telling S. about this book I found, an old, faded paperback of Asian religious literature — one of those very Eurocentric affairs, the ones that point to the whole continent of Asia like it’s one cultural group, so that you have Buddhist hymns along with Sufi poets and everything else in between. One of the poems is by Rumi, about Judgment Day, and it has me thinking. It’s long lost to my memory, but I remember it talking about being called to give an accounting of one’s life. I’m being just plain honest when I say that, at this point near the end of the millennium, the accounting on my life is a bit worrisome. I pour my heart out, in a breezy, vague sort of way, and admit that I find myself wondering if that whole Jesus thing might have something to it.
Funny thing is, I don’t remember what she said. I remember that she was sweet and kind, and that we laughed a lot. I remember that she didn’t really push the evangelism, just spoke simply about what she felt and believed. The specifics are lost to me. I mostly remember the scene, in that trashy dive that was real faux. I was really searching for truth, but also not really doing so. I was trying to get answers from someone else, trying to recapture something from my past that had never really been All That to begin with. Chasing a bit of nostalgia for what had never really been, and knowing it deep down. And yet, at the end of day, I was still really, honestly searching. I was being fake and real at the same time. It would be years before the real stuff became more earnest, before I could start to put aside the quest for Truth, the endless search for my magic guru, and begin to really look, myself, for truths. Looking back, though, I know that she never could have convinced me, no matter how hard she tried. Questioning was already part of me, something I couldn’t turn off, no matter how hard I tried.
Tagged: atheism, christianity, religion, skepticism, truth
Source: skin hunger
AsukaRen, 01/07/2009
Source: Minority Within a Minority
mmccamman, 01/07/2009
Source: Rant & Reason
Rev. BigDumbChimp, 01/07/2009
Source: Rev. BigDumbChimp
Ebonmuse, 01/07/2009
Source: Daylight Atheism
crabsallover, 30/06/2009
Source: HASSERS - Humanist Atheist Scientific Secularist Ethical Rationalist Sceptics
roarjohnsen, 30/06/2009
Secular Planet, 30/06/2009
Source: Secular Planet
Unknown author, 30/06/2009
Source: BHA news
Spanish Inquisitor, 30/06/2009
We spend a lot of time here talking about peripheral issues in religion and atheism. Oftentimes we get sidetracked, sometimes intentionally, on these peripheral issues. They can be intellectually fulfilling at times, but in the end, like theological Chinese food, they don’t satisfy. But there’s one issue, one single question that never seems to get discussed head on: The Existence of God. I’ve contended here many times, if god doesn’t exist, the rest of this stuff is meaningless blather. Without god, theology is just philosophy and someone needs to prove he exists before I waste a lot of my time reading the Bible.
So I’m going to open up this post and comments to anyone and everyone that has evidence for the existence of God.
I’ll state my prejudices, up front, for those who don’t already know. I’ve never seen anything that comes close to evidence for the existence of god. But I have an open mind (I think) so I am willing to be convinced. I’ll even say that if you show me good evidence, I’ll bow down and worship your god, whoever he may be. But I want evidence.
By evidence I want to see something, or hear something, or feel something, or have explained to me something that I can’t see, hear or feel, that can be reproduced at any time by anyone without exception, and capable of being experienced or understood by anyone and everyone equally.
What I don’t want, and what I don’t think will suffice, are quotes from any Holy Scripture, though I won’t delete them if you really feel they are evidence. Don’t get pissed, though, if I don’t respond to them, or if do respond, I do so by quoting another book of my own choosing.
Personal anecdotes are welcome, provided you don’t mind them being dismissed or ridiculed, especially if no one else can corroborate them.
Visions of Jesus, Mary or Mohammad on a slice of toast, a window, or the sky probably won’t cut it, but feel free to give it a shot.
Seriously, this is an opportunity for theists, all three of you who read this blog, to tell the world exactly what did it for you. What evidence did you experience that convinced you that you were worshiping the right deity?
And if you want to say you don’t need no stinkin’ evidence, you just know god exists, then I appreciate your honesty.
Have at it.
Posted in Atheism, Beliefs, Christianity, Critical thinking, Evidence, Freethought, god, Islam, Religion, Science
Source: SPANISH INQUISITOR
Unknown author, 30/06/2009
And this is what happened. If you look at those subjects that were left to make their own minds up, you can see that those without the religious prime had a slight tendency to choose the more difficult questions. Those with the religious prime were slightly forgiving._______________________________________________________________________________________
Saroglou, V., Corneille, O., & Van Cappellen, P. (2009). “Speak, Lord, Your Servant Is Listening”: Religious Priming Activates Submissive Thoughts and Behaviors International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 19 (3), 143-154 DOI: 10.1080/10508610902880063
This work by Tom Rees is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Source: Epiphenom