on the Kanazawa controversy

I haven't blogged here about the Satoshi Kanazawa controversy and its negative impact on popular opinion about evolutionary psychology, but I've discussed it elsewhere (see the comments). I just want to point out this story to anyone who thinks Kanazawa represents the field.

Spoiler: he doesn't.

non-issues

Until your discipline can dispense with unproven modularity, gender and race essentialism, arguments from a presumed "mental fossil record" which of course can never be demonstrated, sociobiology, Dawkins' selfish gene and its general use as a justifier of the worst social norms and localized prejudices, I'm not really interested in discussing its value to leftist revolution.

- Jack Crow*

My discipline has never relied on unproven modularity. We have no interest in race essentialism, and to the extent that our theories involve what you might call "gender essentialism," they are supported by overwhelming cross-cultural evidence**. We don't argue from an undemonstrable mental fossil record, and we don't use The Selfish Gene to justify norms or prejudices, because we understand very well that one cannot infer a moral "ought" from an empirical "is."

So, now we can talk about the value of ev psych to leftist revolution!

(And please tell me where you got these mistaken notions.)

* I don't mean to pick on Jack specifically. I like his writing, and I appreciate his willingness to discuss the topic. I think his views are likely shared by many others, so I'm using his public remarks as a representative sample of leftist objection to evolutionary psychology.

** Yes, we do think that just as there are, on average, physical differences between men and women, there are psychological differences, and that evolution explains these differences. This is a value-neutral observation, and we acknowledge huge variance in behaviours and preferences within and between sexes. These differences are in no way used by the discipline to encourage discrimination or to restrict individual freedom.

advocacy is hard!

ok, i suppose i'm not really surprised to encounter such seething hostility to ev psych (see the comments sections). hell, if ev psych really were what they think it is, i'd be contemptuous too.

but i am surprised that these people, good folks with whom i so often agree in other domains, seem so confident in their criticism and rejection despite very strongly appearing to misunderstand fundamental principles. i understand that people have to choose what they want to spend their time learning about and that they have good reason not to have devoted as much time to the subject as me, but it appears to me that they're knocking down straw men and seem unwilling to even entertain the possibility that they're doing so. that's frustrating! i have thoughts about the mechanisms that poison people so strongly against ev psych, but i'll save that. i'm mostly just saying this for my own sanity (a good summary for the entire history of the blog), and don't intend to dwell on the point. and i don't mean any disrespect to anyone; i hope that's clear.

anyway, i think i'm going to try a different approach. every once in a while i'll highlight some good research. it is a lot easier to talk about one specific study than to just dive into a defense of an entire discipline against people who don't want to hear it. hopefully some of them will stick around for those more focused discussions.

questions for critics of evolutionary psychology

i've encountered lots of generalizations about the entire field, presumably based on exposure to a small sampling. and people seem to have some extremely confused ideas about ev psych. so i'm wondering exactly where you're getting your info. mainstream media? primary literature? books?

evolutionary psychology for leftist anarchist types

I'm always surprised by the hostility to evolutionary psychology (ev psych) from the left (meaning further left than loyal Democrats), because I consider the science extremely supportive of the leftist-anarchist worldview. Since many bloggers cover political issues much better than me, maybe as a lefty-anarchist evolutionary psychologist, my blogging efforts would be well spent debunking some common objections to ev psych and highlighting some findings that should be of great interest to. My first pass will skip the references (I'm feverishly ill, but fired up), but if people comment and want the primary literature I'll be happy to provide it!

First of all, the theory of evolution by natural selection is the unifying principle of biology. Since humans are biological organisms, we are no more exempt from the forces of evolution than any other life form. I actually am kind of uncomfortable calling myself an "evolutionary psychologist" because psychology, being the science of brain and behaviour, must be evolutionary; if a central principle or finding in psychology conflicts with evolutionary theory, something is wrong! Furthermore, evolutionary theory has been wildly successful at predicting and explaining animal behaviour, including human behaviour.

Misconceptions (feel free to suggest other objections for me to try to debunk!):

In a comment thread over at Jack's place, I encountered a few common misconceptions about ev psych, all of which I'd like to eventually address, respectfully. Among them (these aren't necessarily exact quotes, just my understanding of the objections raised):

1. "Sexual attraction is not scientific."

I think the intended meaning (correct me if I'm wrong) is that sexual attraction isn't a topic that science can attempt to understand. If that's the intended meaning, it is very wrong. We know a great deal about the science of sexual attraction; see my comments in that thread for an intro, and feel free to post questions in the comments.

2. "Ev psych is Lamarkism applied to mind."

Originally I wrote: Nobody (or close to it) takes Larmkian inheritance of acquired characteristic seriously in any field of biology, ev psych included. If you think otherwise, please provide specific references and I'll gladly take a look.

Update: I was a bit hasty with the outright dismissal of inheritance of acquired characteristics, because a lot of work in epigenetics is showing exactly that. Still, I don't know of much, if any, use of Lamarck's theories in ev psych; our models are Darwinian (and modern synthesis).

3. "Ev psych claims that human nature is fixed, which can't possibly be right given the extraordinary variety in human behaviour, culture, and social structure."

Indeed, it cannot possibly be right that human nature is fixed. Learning, conditioning, and plasticity are very important parts of understanding behaviour. I think this misunderstanding comes from a root confusion thinking that "genetically based" means fixed. A better way to think of it is that our genetic structure allows flexibility within a certain range.

One commenter highlighted the common occurrence of cross-species adoption, presumably as a way to argue "evolution could not possibly favor an animal investing so heavily in the offspring of another species?" The confusion here is between proximate and ultimate levels of explanation. Evolution by natural selection creates proximate mechanisms that are adaptive on average. That "on average" is key! In the case of cross-species adoption, the evolved proximate mechanism might be something like "take care of younglings in my nest." Since the vast majority of such younglings would be your own offspring, this behavioural tendency is adaptive on average. But there are many species, cuckoos for example, that exploit parental sollicitude mechanisms as a way to avoid the cost of raising their own offspring.

4. "Ev psych is innately conservative."

The next section mentions some key findings that I think are deeply subversive, but I'd be curious to hear what people think are the conservative aspects of ev psych.

Findings that lefties ought to like:

1. Inequality seems to be at the root of a variety of social ills.

Since natural selection can be conceived of as intrasexual competition for a share of the parentage of the next generation, it follows that inequality of outcome should be associated with heightened competition. Where there is a "winner take all" situation, for example in elephant seals, where one dominant male beachmaster gains the vast majority of sexual access to females and thus a large share of the parentage, we expect fierce competition, which we certainly see. Humans are no different! There is no better predictors of male-male homicide (from a cross-national scale, all the way down to neighborhood level) than income inequality (except possibly life expectancy, which I can address later if someone is curious). A variety of other social ills (e.g. a myriad of health outcomes, problem gambling, traffic fatalities) are also strongly correlated with income inequality. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but the findings are overwhelmingly supportive of the basic concepts of biology, and are equally supportive of the anarchist worldview of skepticism towards power structures! A common confusion is that these issues are related to absolute poverty, as opposed to relative poverty, but these correlations remain extremely strong once you control for various poverty measures (plus poverty is a relative concept anyway).

2. The classical economics model of humans as purely self-interested rational maximizers is totally inadequate.

Cooperation and conflict is my specialty within the field, and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of studies debunking the conservative models common in economics. In fact one group of evolution-minded researchers has proposed that humans are innately cooperative, even in situations where we do not stand to gain ("strong reciprocity" theory); I find the details slightly misguided, but its popularity if nothing else is indicative of how seriously the discipline takes cooperation and altruism as a fundamental characteristic of human psychology.

Ok, that's all for now. I'll update or make new posts if I attract some attention.

knocked up

Human pregnancy tests work on bonobos. That's kinda cool. I wonder how far out the phylogeny that keeps working.

Notes on Morality and Evolution: Intro

I TAed a Behavioral Ecology course this semester, and a couple weeks ago I gave a 45 minute presentation to the class. I was asked to present about my research, but since I didn't have any decent data from my experiment yet, I decided to just present on topic related to my research that is somewhat relevant to the course. I'm going to make a series of blog posts based on my presentation.

So, here you go.

Intro.

This picture was chosen by the course professor to be on the front page of the course website. It is a great choice because it is such a dramatic illustration of an animal behavior that seems puzzling but can be explained quite well. The course covers parental favoritism and sibling rivalry, and students learn that these phenomena are widespread in the animal kingdom and that there are piles of data showing how these behaviors are explained by evolutionary theories.

I think it is interesting that this picture should even seem so dramatic to us. After all, if this behavior is so common, and makes such good sense in light of well established scientific theory, why should it be so surprising to us?

I think that it is because of our moral sense that the image is so powerful. We feel bad for the little bird getting squashed by his mother. It seems unfair. And if we were to see a pictures of a human mother doing the equivalent to her child, we'd probably make a moral judgment about her.

So, this series of blog posts is about morality, specifically from an evolutionary perspective. Morality is a broad topic, and a difficult one to define, despite most of us feeling like we have a pretty clear understanding of what it is. I'm not going to attempt to thoroughly cover the subject; instead I'll be breaking morality down into components or looking at certain facets of morality. By components I mean things like I mentioned in regards to the baby bird: feelings of fairness, empathy, and moral judgment. A facet of morality to keep in mind is that our moral sense seems to push us to act in service to others, as opposed to our own "selfish" interests. Another is that moral rules and judgments often feel absolute, an observation that I'll expound upon in the next post.

I'll discuss 4 pieces of research in 3 future posts, that will look something like this:

1) Why did morality evolve?
A model of stability-dependent cooperation.

2) Phylogeny and the Origins of Fairness.
Fairness in monkeys?

3) How do we study morality in psychology labs?
i. Economic games in the lab: Dictator games with manipulation of information.
ii. Proximate factors: audience effects.

Stay tuned for the next installment.

Mr. Jones and Me

Believe in me
Cause I don't believe in anything
and I wanna be someone to believe

I share Jim's distaste for the use of "belief" in the context of science.

Do I "believe in" evolution? I don't really know how to answer that. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports evolution as the best explanation for diversity of life on earth, but I don't think belief has anything to do with it, because belief is typically associated with a lack of evidence. I don't really think I believe in anything. I just have ideas with varying degrees of support.

That's probably what those 3 Republicans meant when they raised their hands saying that they don't believe in evolution, right?

getting out of the house and more school thoughts

Today the Smithsonian was showing some of the winners from the 2006 Wildscreen Festival, so Kira and I went to check it out. We watched 3 of the films, including the one on my primate obsession, the bonobo.

As I try to get myself geared up to apply to go to grad school, I think I'm narrowing my interests down into two main areas. I'm interested in the kind of psychology research Robert Altemeyer does, particularly into authoritarianism, and I'm interested in something around the anthropology/primatology area, where I'm especially fascinated by the potential for insights into human evolution from study of the bonobos. Both seem to combine my natural attraction to the topics and an element of urgency to the research.

To elaborate a bit more, my interest in Altemeyer's research is well expressed by this description of him that I've seen on some of his papers:

Bob Altemeyer is associate professor of psychology at the University of Manitoba. He does research on authoritarianism, prejudice, dogmatism, love, and the impolite topics of religion, politics, and sex.

I have to be honest, I would love to be able to put "he does research on impolite topics" every single place my name is written. So that's my personal attraction to the area, and the urgency of the research should be obvious to anyone who's been paying much attention to my blog over the last few months. Basically, authoritarianism has become a devastating political force in this country, causing tremendous damage here and around the world. The more we understand it, the better we can fight it. And the sooner the better.

And my interest in bonobos is about my longstanding fascination with evolution in general, human evolution in particular, and probably evolutionary psychology as well. Reading Robert Wright's books about evolutionary psychology and then Steven Pinker's books really opened my mind back up after years of intellectual dormancy. I'm having trouble deciding exactly what to think about evolutionary psychology (I get the impression that lots of biologists scoff at it pretty hard), but I know that I'm totally sold on the human mind as a biological adaptation and I know that whatever I do I want to have some scientific rigor. Anyway, I imagine there's enough there to be studied to satisfy a lifetime of curiosity, and I think I could be quite happy trying to learn more in this niche for a long, long time. The element of urgency to this is that bonobos are dangerously close to extinction and their habitat is threatened by a raging genocidal civil war in the Congo. Our opportunity to learn about them could be almost gone.

Speaking of getting out of my house and trying to learn something, last weekend I went to see James Randi as the featured speaker at a National Capital Area Skeptics 20th anniversary celebration. That was an entertaining and enjoyable event. His James Randi Educational Foundation does good work and deserves more than this brief mention.

Alice Benbow and Jim R. Schwiesow

This is in response to the latest comment on links adspar likes 7, presumably posted by Alice Benbow. If you don't remember the background with Alice, read that link and the comments, the latest of which is copied and responded to here (the full article is available here).

OF MEN AND APES
By Jim R. Schwiesow
January 15, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

There are those, thanks to our educational hierarchy and many of the educated morons of our scientific community, who believe that the human species has a direct lineal connection to a lovesick amoeba, which oozed from a primordial soup and morphed from its primitive one-cell state into a series of ever ascending species of creatures, until at last it came into that wonderfully bipedal human form of being with a brain of capabilities, which far surpass our most sophisticated computers. The wonder here is how supposedly intelligent people could embrace such an absolutely ignorant supposition, while at the same time rejecting the Biblical account of creation.

Note that Mr. Schwiesow in no way offers any rebuttal of evolution whatsoever. He simply insults it and maybe offers some kind of argument from incredulity. He basically says, "since I can't imagine how complex life like humans evolved from one-celled life, it cannot have happened." Sorry dude, but your scientific ignorance doesn't refute hundreds of thousands of scientific articles that support evolution and the unlimited observations about the natural world that are perfectly explained by evolutionary theory.

And then of course he holds up the Genesis myths as the default winner in his (imaginary) defeat of evolution. Why is it any more believable than the God of Abraham created the world than the Flying Spaghetti Monster? His explanation...

These people seem to be living proof that Darwin’s hypothesis was reversed; it is men who turn into monkeys. That can be the only explanation for such convoluted rationally incomprehensible thinking. Or could it be that the thinking is not irrational at all, and that this is a part of a master plan for the complete subjugation of the people by a new world order?

Ah yes. After Darwin's theory was reversed, there was a master plan to use his work against us. Normally I'd stop reading here, but since Alice is so dear to me I kept reading. For Alice's benefit, I'll note that up to this point, Schwiesow has proven nothing but his own ignorance. He's mocked and insulted and huffed and puffed, but he has not yet offered any argument at all.

That the foundation of this nation was based upon Biblical principles cannot be denied. This contention can be argued against, it can be attacked by demogogues, and the unknowledgeable, misinformed, and uniformed can deny it, but the cold hard fact is that it is supported incontrovertibly. Even a cursery reading of the Declaration of Independence, the preamble to the Constitution, and the Constitution itself contradicts any other argument or conclusion. The great majority of our founding fathers understood God’s Word, and believed in God’s Word. And they put His word to practice in their lives.

Sigh. This is such hackneyed garbage. I'd refer you to Ed Brayton's writing, as he often deals with this kind of claim. As a short response, yes some of the ideas that are dear to this country are in the Bible, but that's because the Bible is a huge book with lots of ideas in it. The Bible also lends support to slavery, murdering disobedient children, and countless other offensive ideas, along with some good ideas too. But this nation was founded on Enlightenment principles, by men who wanted to keep religion out of government. That some of the founders were Christians is in no way evidence that the nation was founded on Biblical principles. So this whole paragraph of Schwiesow's is, at best, meaningless.

We have come to the most critical times in the history of our nation. We are witnessing a carefully planned program of social engineering, which is being carried out by an increasingly despotic government and the interntionalists thereof. The nation is rapidly being immersed in a depraved satanic system. For the government to carry out this program for the total subjugation of a once free people it is necessary to dull the senses of the people and instill in them a totally false system of beliefs. They must be dumbed down and made compliant.

Except for the satanic part, this guy is starting to speak my language. There is definitely some nasty stuff going on in government these days. I wonder how he thinks people are being dumbed down? I say it is with beer and television and Paris Hilton. Let's see what else Mr. Schwiesow has to say about it...

One of the key elements of the program to bring about a slavery to a socialistic system is to destroy the peoples faith and belief in a sovereign God. It is infinitely easier to control one who believes that his existence is the result of a biological mutational accident and that it is the ancestral blood of apes that courses through his veins, than it is to bring under subjection one who has an absolute faith that he was wonderfully created in the image of his creator, Almighty God.

Woah woah woah. It is "infinitely easier" to control an atheist than a Christian? Wow, I've heard some funny shit from creationists before but this is right up there. What possible basis for this does he have? I'm guessing, based on what I've read so far, that he won't back it up in any way, but let's keep reading.

Certainly one who believes that he owes his very existence to the great God who breathed into him life and that his spirit is of God and by God, and that he was created as a free agent with an ability to chart his own course in life is not easily controlled.

Wha???? Not easily controlled? Let's see if we can more easily get a group of atheists or Christians to load into a hot, boring Church on Sunday, giving up valuable weekend time to recite empty words to an imaginary friend. Wow, I could just keep listing endless ways that theists are controlled by their religious leaders. In the comments are some other good examples. I can't even imagine how someone could possibly claim that atheists are more easily controlled than religious people.

That Satan has succeeded wildly with his platform for disinformation and control is evident when we look at our nation today and assess the extent to which we have been deprived of our liberties and subjugated to a despotic ruling elite. We are being controlled by corporatists, fascists, internationalists and communists, all birds of a feather and brothers under the skin who share to a great extent the same ideology and the same goal, which is a new world order.

Wow, he's starting to speak my language again. And again, the Satan talk is the only exception. He's managed to see through all the government bullshit, but he can't let go of the religious bullshit. Very weird.

The Tower of Babel is well on the way to re-construction, and this time God is not going to come to earth and disrupt the process. We see today in many of the world’s leaders an incarnation of Nimrod. And we are also witnessing much success in the perversion of the human soul by human agents who promote the agenda of the powers and principalities of the air. This success in corrupting the people has to be gratifying to those who lead the way to that new world order. That they have suceeded in dumbing down the people cannot be denied. And that they have corrupted and desenitized the human psyche likewise cannot be denied. The national conscience has been seared.

Uh... ok....

Jay Leno has, with great success and hilarity, pointed up the stupidity of our new generation with his famous man on the street segments, during which he randomly selects individuals of both sexes and asks them relatively simple questions. The answers are uproarious, and at the same time pathetic. The people that he selects cannot answer the most simple of questions, and their improvisations often times cause convulsive laughter, which dissipates into dismay at the ignorance displayed. That the segment is a comedic success for Mr. Leno cannot be questioned, but what it says about the nation is profoundly pathetic.

Wow, pop culture references coming out of nowhere. I didn't see this coming. But I agree with him. It doesn't disprove evolution, demonstrate that our nation is founded on biblical values, show that Satan is commanding our government, or that the Tower of Babel is being rebuilt, but I agree that "man on the street" reveals how pathetic Americans can be.

This domestic ignorance is the product of the social engineering of the one world elites, who occupy stragic positions in our educational heirachy, which enables them to ensure that our youngsters will move into society without the ability to understand even the most basic of concepts. If they cannot reason, they cannot question. They simply take up space and follow blindly the direction provided by the elites who direct them along paths, which lead in the wrong direction. Real knowledge had been replaced by superstition, myth, and occultic tripe. Too many of our young cannot read, they cannot write, and they cannot think. They walk through life like programed zombies contributing only to the collective ignorance of the nation.

It totally blows my mind that this guy is saying this. It is beyond funny that the same guy who laughs at evolution and promotes biblical creationism is criticizing anyone else's reasoning skills. He sees how people blindly follow leaders, and yet he doesn't see how he is blindly following a leader. The level of self-awareness here is disturbing.

What has happened to the soul of this nation? If our values and our morals are a reflection of that soul we have progressed to a most exacrable state of being. Over the course of the last thirty-two years, forty-seven million three hundred thousand babies have been cold-bloodedly murdered. They were delivered into the hands of medical executioners, who murdered many of them in the most heinious of ways. Living babies fully developed with beating hearts were stabbed in the head and their brains were suctioned by mentally diseased sociopaths. How were these murders justified by the women who delivered them up to the executioners? If your answer is that it was done to save a mother’s life you are miles away from the truth.The truth is, as verified, by those who sought a medical abortion of their babies, that these murders were done for expedience or convenience. Seventy-five percent of those who were queried said that a baby would interfere with their work, school, or other responsibilities. If their mothers had felt likewise, these women wouldn’t be around to worry about work or the responsibilities of life.

The sanctity of human life means nothing to the social engineers who are guiding our destiny in the most depraved way. Their perspective on a human being is strictly from a biological viewpoint. They have no more regard for a human life than they have for the life of an animal. In fact it has been proven time and time again that they exhibit more compassion for animals than they do for human beings. To them a human being is just another primate of limited value. If a person’s parts are showing some wear get rid of the person to make way for another. This kind of thinking has had a profound affect on medical ethics in our nation. A new breed of cats called bioethicists has come upon our national scene. They have undermined the Hippocratic oath and have re-defined life and death. They have made great strides in making forced euthanasia a part of our new national culture. Their guiding light is Darwinism. They embrace this half-baked hypothesis in the same manner that Hitler embraced it, to justify the killing of the infirm and the disabled.

Even if you don't like abortion (abortion make me sad), and even if you think abortion should be illegal (the prospect of banning abortions makes me sadder), and even if you somehow buy into his link between abortion and Darwinism and Hitler (which is profoundly ignorant), this doesn't disprove evolution. It just artificially links a few things you don't like.

Also, who has made "forced euthanasia" a part of our culture? Who has redefined life and death? As usual he doesn't back up any of his absurd claims.

And their methods are most horrible to contemplate. They kill their victims slowly and with great suffering and pain. Their work was highlighted nationally with the recent legal medical murder of Terri Schiavo. If a dog were to be put to death by starvation and dehydration, the perpetrator of that act would be prosecuted and incarcerated. When a human being is put to death in such a horrifying manner it is with the approval of the courts and with the blessing of the system. The fact that medical practitioners can be found to carry out so inhumanely the taking of a helpless human life is a commentary on the depths to which this nation has fallen.

What the flying fuck is this guy talking about. Who intentionally kills people with great suffering and pain? What is he talking about? More unfounded bullshit.

If the putrescence that we are witnessing today in society is just a small sample of things to come in a new world order, we have to contemplate the future of our children and grandchildren with great anguish. But, such is the future that we build for them with our complacence and failure to deal with those who lead us down the path to destruction.

I’m through, and I‘m sick.

© 2007 - Jim R. Schwiesow - All Rights Reserved
Jim Schwiesow is a retired sheriff with 46 years of law enforcement service. He served with the Unites States Army with the occupation forces in post war Berlin, Germany, and has a total of nine years of military service, which includes six years in the U.S. Army Reserve.
His law enforcement service includes: three years in the military police, fifteen years as an Iowa municipal police officer, and twenty-eight years as the duly elected sheriff of Sioux County, Iowa.
Jim has written a number of articles, which have been published in various professional law enforcement journals.

Wow. I have to wonder what is going on with Alice Benbow that she thought it would be helpful to send this to me. Maybe she just wanted to take up an hour of my time. This is some worthless bullshit.

(I should also note that his original is peppered with numerous spelling errors. They weren't my mistake. )

My favorite blogs 1

Ed Brayton's Dispatches from the Culture Wars is one of my favorite blogs. I noticed I had a growing list of links from there that I've saved to write about. Here are a bunch of them.

• New Anti-Evolution Tactic? - Here Ed shreds a terrible argument that evolution is a religious belief.
• Wiccan Soldier Gets Symbol On Grave - Ed reports that the state of Nevada allowed a Wiccan symbol on the grave of a soldier. I noted this post for the comment thread, which includes a pretty sweet quote from Bush.
• Conservatives Against Republicans - Highlighting how in our 2-party system, it seems like the best we can ever hope for is a gridlocked government incapable of doing anything.
• Why Gay Marriage Matters - A genuinely moving story. I don't know how a human could read this and still oppose gay marriage.
• Anti-Drug Ads Increase Drug Use - The title says it all, but you have to read the rest of this just to see how pathetic our government's 'war on drugs' really is.
• Religious Right Loves Gambling Ban - Ed says that the assholes who seek to ban online gaming claiming that 'we must protect people from the addictions of gambling' are themselves addicted to controlling other people's lives.
• More Bush Signing Statements - President Bush is so fucking ridiculous. He signs a bill into law, then the same day says that he can just ignore it. "Bush is on a zealous mission to destroy any and all limitations on his unbridled authority. It's time for impeachment. Like now."
• And just to demonstrate that he takes positions that I'd probably never take, consider reading this post and the slew of comments, where Ed criticizes my hero, Richard Dawkins, for irresponsible scholarship in his most recent book, The God Delusion. This is just excellent stuff from Mr. Brayton.

links adspar likes 7

I'm getting more and more pissed off everyday. Here are a few things that piss me off. I'm not bothering with my standard introduction or wrap-up any more because I'm too pissed off.


Legislating Violations of the Constitution
by Erwin Chemerinsky
(link might require registration after a few days, bust just use BugMeNot.com)

adspar's quick summary:
The House of Representatives quietly passed legislation that wouldn't allow plaintiffs who successfully sue for Church/State violations to recover attorney's fees, effectively making it far more difficult to legally challenge something like prayer in schools.

why you should read it:
The author argues that since the Republican majority knows they can't amend the Constitution, the sole intention of this legislation is to make it harder to enforce the establishment clause. I'd like to hear any other possible explanation for this passing, because I can't think of one.


They Cry, Pray to Bush and Wash out the Devil - Welcome to Jesus Camp
by Dan Glaister

adspar's quick summary:
A new documentary follows kids through Jesus camp.

why you should read it:
You've probably heard of this by now. It should be a crime to brainwash kids like this.


How would ID have contributed?
by PZ Myers

adspar's quick summary:
I'm posting this mostly because I liked the comment by Qrazy Qat, about half a dozen comments down the page. The rest of the discussion, about breakthroughs in using genetic studies to understand human evolution and the distortion of that science by ID clowns, is interesting too if you follow the links and read them and their links.

why you should read it:
The comment I like makes the simple point that it takes longer to refute a nonsense claim than to generate one, something that bullshit artists have known since the beginning of time. In fact this cuts to the very core of what science is all about. It is much easier to generate a plausible-sounding hypothesis that it is to rigorously test it. This is why it takes a lot of education and training to really understand basic science ideas, and decades of education to master a tiny area of expertise. Our brains are really good at coming up with simple theories that might explain things, but going through the pain of proving something is decidedly un-natural. If people woke up and realized that, lots of good things would happen, like good science would be respected again.


Ann Coulter on Newsnight (youtube video)

adspar's quick summary:
Speaking of bullshit artists, Ann Coulter is interviewed by A BBC anchor, and she says things that are so ridiculous that he stops bothering to challenge them.

why you should read it:
The British are way more sensible than Americans. His whole attitude from the introduction seemed to say "how can you possibly sell books?"


"... So Help Me God"
by The Republican Party of Texas

adspar's quick summary:
Anti-atheist bigotry is explicitly part of the Texas GOP's platform.

why you should read it:
Because it is so hard and yet so easy to believe this shit. These are actual politicians running for actual public positions. Fuck these ignorant assholes.


Intelligent Design is Scientific
from the Detroit Free Press

adspar's quick summary:
Let's keep rolling with the ignorant assholes. In the midst of a heated Michigan election that includes a debate over teaching ID in public school, here is a flood of ignorance in the 'letters to the editor' section.

why you should read it:
Presumably these people write in to the paper because they are politically active, which means these are the people that are voting. My favorite is towards the end:

My 4-year-old son said, regarding evolution: "Momma, that is the funniest thing I have ever heard."

Out of the mouths of babes.

Alice Benbow

Rochester Hills

Alice Benbow writes to the editor and votes in Rochester Hills, and not only is she ignorant, she is militantly ignorant. And her son is most likely going to grow up to be ignorant too, thanks to her terrible ignorant parenting. Do these people expect that all scientific phenomena are going to be able to be understood by a 4 year old? Do they themselves ever get beyond a 4-year old level of thinking? NOT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE EASY! SOME IDEAS ARE GOING TO TAKE MORE THAN 3 SENTENCES TO EXPRESS! TURN OFF YOUR FUCKING SOAP OPERAS, PUT DOWN YOUR BAG OF BITE SIZE SNICKERS BARS AND READ A BOOK, ALICE BENBOW OF ROCHESTER HILLS! And please, for the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, stop reproducing.

links adspar likes 3

Here is the third installment of a recurring feature, creatively titled links adspar likes. These should keep you busy with good reading material while you're bored at work, and it makes me feel productive because most of the links are educational and/or thought-provoking.

I feel like if I was more ambitious I could form some grand thesis with all of these. Maybe someday it will turn into that. But for now I'm just linking up some cool shit for anyone who cares. On to it...


Freedom to choose won't make you happier
from Science Blog

adspar's quick summary:
Research shows that there is often no difference in how happy people are when they choose between options versus when the option is chosen for them.

why you should read it:
This is an idea I encountered recently in Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling on Happiness. He actually takes it a step further and cites studies that indicate in many situations people are less happy when they have a choice than when a choice is made for them. This has important implications for the standard idea that an option is valuable by definition. Anyway, maybe next time you go out to dinner, just have someone else pick your meal for you.


How Cooperation Can Evolve in a Cheater's World
from Terradaily

adspar's quick summary:
Evolutionary biologists have developed a model that can theoretically explain how cooperation behavior can evolve.

why you should read it:
I'm not really sure that this is anything new. It reminds me a lot of the iterated prisoner's dilemma games that game theorists have played with for decades. But this study is applying it to biology instead of economics, which is useful to reference the next time I hear someone suggest that human altruism/cooperation is a challenge to the theory of evolution, which people often mistakenly see only as a "dog eat dog" kind of system. While eating your neighbor can be a good evolutionary strategy, teaming up with him can sometimes be better.



Government funding of studies you don't agree with
by Tara C. Smith

adspar's quick summary:
This is a good conversation about a general problem raised by the stem cell research debate. Should the government be conducting research that some people find objectionable?

why you should read it:
Some have made the point that people shouldn't have to see their tax dollars spend on something they find objectionable, excluding cases necessary for the maintenance of a well-ordered society (like military action). That sounds reasonable at first, until you consider that almost ALL scientific research is bound to piss off some tax-payer. How then should the government make its scientific funding decisions? Great discussion in the comments here.



Not cool: a brief rant
by Hume's Ghost

adspar's quick summary:
MTV's show My Super Sweet 16 is the most offensive show on television.

why you should read it:
I completely agree.



The Example of Fairness & Equality Being Exhibited by Representing Them at All Is, Of Course, Completely Lost of Them
from Godless Wonder

adspar's quick summary:
There is a church group that protests at military funerals. They say that God hates America because we're tolerant of homosexuality, and that death of troops is God's revenge on us. But there are laws that prevent picketing or protesting near funerals or cemeteries. The ACLU is representing this group in a lawsuit, claiming that such protest is protected free speech.

why you should read it:
First of all, those church people are scumbag bigotard assholes. I wish impotence upon them all. However I don't know what to think about the ACLU's position here. I'm generally supportive of the Voltaire (mis)quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." But shouting hateful insults at funerals crosses some line of decency that I just can't agree deserves free speech protection. One of them had a sign that said "THANK GOD FOR 9/11." How do people become so twisted?



They make me feel like this angry German kid. Seriously, you need to watch that video, which contains insane displays of profanity.




Thus ends links adspar likes 3. All of the links for it are neatly available here. I actually had a lot more content, but I'm tired so I'll just push that all into link4.



RIP: APA

Our Leaders

"Guns have little or nothing to do with juvenile violence. The causes of youth violence are working parents who put their kids into daycare, the teaching of evolution in the schools, and working mothers who take birth control pills."

– Tom DeLay, on causes of the Columbine High School massacre, 1999

More evolution

You might have noticed I get really pissed off by anti-science bullshit, so any time I hear someone say mean things about evolution I get a bit worked up. Paul Phillips has a pretty good evolution discussion going on over on his blog. I responded to this post.

I figure for most of the people who would see my post here and then go check his out, I'm already preaching to the choir. But for anyone who reads this and thinks evolution is wrong and that Intelligent Design should be taught in schools as an alternative to evolution, I suspect you might be enough of a sheep to believe him just because he's rich and quasi-famous.

It has been pointed out that my belief in evolution is just the other side of someone else's belief in Intelligent Design. Or that my belief in science is just like someone's belief in the Bible. What makes my belief better than theirs? It is a fair point in many ways, which is what Paul discussed.

So, here are my beliefs:

• I believe that objective truths exist.
• I believe that the better we understand these truths, the better our lives can be, and thus we should pursue truth whenever possible.
• I believe that most people share my first 2 beliefs, but for various reasons don't know the best way reach truths. Many just want to be told what the truth is.
  
• I believe that sound reasoning and the scientific process are the best way we have to discover truths.
• I believe that the pursuit of truth by the scientific process has value in and of itself, even if the search is unsuccessful.
• I believe that too often in this pursuit we let our vision be clouded by forces like religion, politics, greed, and fear. This can undermine popular acceptance of good science, like evolutionary sciences, which slows the pace of advances in such fields.
  

It was the process of evolution that crafted us as creatures who tend towards religion and politics, and who often act based on greed and fear. These traits made us more likely to survive and reproduce in our environment as we evolved, but in our modern environment they impede us from fully understanding the mechanism that allowed them to have such power in the first place. Sweet irony.

Intelligent Design : Science :: Weezer : Music

Funny stuff.

It frustrates me when people exert political power to discredit good science; I hate it when irrationality wins out over clear thinking; and I hate it when truth is obscured. I also recognize that it is often in an individual's best interests for these things to happen, and perhaps it is or will be in my best interests for these things to happen, especially if I believe that most people are not capable of rational behavior. Maybe its worth fighting it, maybe not.

This reminds me that I was told recently by an intelligent person that evolution is basically a bunch of crap, and that he thinks it is ridiculous that people would object to disclaimers in school textbooks that say "Evolution is just a theory; Intelligent Design and Creationism are other theories..."

Since I actually respect this guy and realized that he had an open mind and had just been presented with bad information, I talked to him about it for quite a while and recommended several books. Hopefully we'll win him over to seeing the issue more clearly. Maybe its worth fighting for, maybe not.

Bring on the bashing from the Creationists and the Weezer fans.