One reason CNN doesn’t tell us what Hoffman does is that Hoffman is full of crap. For example, Muhammed lived in the 7th not the first century A.D. If he doesn’t know that basic fact, he must be intellectually ignorant.
I am surprised that recent comments include things from Islam to Christianity, and from England to Iraq. I wanted to get back to Paul Gross’ article and suggest he read Getting Past the Culture Wars: Regarding Intelligent Design. If the self-organizing principle is not narrowly limited, this in itself would be intelligent design, without the need for outside intelligent agents.
I don’t know how Paul could have missed that one argument for purpose in the universe is that the rare circumstances allowing for life on a planet are also the same rare cirumstances that allow for the best scientific discoveries.
Here’s where I see a parallel between the thesis in The Privileged Planet and biology:
TPP: “The most habitable places … also offer the best opportunity for scientific discovery. I believe this implies purpose.” (Notice Guillermo Gonzalez presents the science first, then what he believes to be the implication of the science.)
In biology: “The same genetic mutations which are triggered by changing conditions in the environment also offer life forms the best opportunity for survival under those new conditions.”
“You have entirely missed the point of Ms. Armstrong’s writings.”
Thanks for your less-than-illuminating comment. Given the certitude of your assertion, perhaps you’d be good enough to point out exactly what it is that I’ve missed, and, if possible, how that pertains to the gross distortions and factual errors made by Ms Armstrong and highlighted in the piece?
Oh, Rhett. I am indeed intellectually ignorant. There is no other kind. But you missed my rather lengthy comment about dates: Muhammad lived in the 1st century of his era, Jesus in the first century of his. Ask anybody. And then, above all, read before posting.
First, Pinker’s “All human behavioural traits are heritable” does _not_ say the opposite of what Pinker meant, because it does not imply that all behaviour is inherited. It just says that all behavioural traits has measurable heritability.
Second, being “consistent with” empirical data has _nothing_ to do with whether a theory is scientific. Otherwise the theory that angels make planets move in ellipses would be scientific. I.D. and angelic planetary motion are unscientific because it’s impossible in principle to either verify or falsify them empirically. That’s no accident–I.D. and planet-moving angels theories are meant to be immune to data.
Peter may be literally correct about the Pinker point, analogously in the same way that I may (quite vacuously) say that there is a correlation between my shoe size and the number of bugs in Mexico. The correlation likely approaches 0, but it’s still a correlation. But if that’s what he’s suggesting, then a) it’s not really getting to the point, which has just as much to do with the felicity of his use of words as it does with the meaning of the term; and b) he’s admitting that the first law is trivially true.
I agree the angel example is a consequence, and I agree that they seem like unfortunate implications; but they are also, for all we know, true. At minimum, in order to be rebutted, these unfortunate consequences require a non-arbitrary in-kind distinction between scientifically favored and unfavored causes. My example was of God and gravitons, and my distinction was between “support” vs. “consistency”. If one can make another distinction within the scope of scientific expression, fine; but Peter has not endeavored to provide it. If it is to be made on the basis of probability, that may work. But appealing to possibility will not, at least not without a lot of further commentary required, for the reasons I mentioned.
“Michael Crichton’s war on global warming comes first to mind, relying upon weak arguments to reach the bold conclusion he desired.”
The link for “weak arguments” goes to the RealClimate site (www.realclimate.org).
One of the key contributors to this site is Michael Mann, famous for the “hockey stick” graph which is used to argue for unprecedented recent warming.
RealClimate, as a consequence, is hardly likely to provide an unbiased review of Crichton’s book.
The conclusions of Mann and his associates were, however, recently criticised, following independent review by experienced statisticians (see links at the bottom of this post): “Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported by the MBH98/99 analysis.”
Heritability isn’t like correlation between shoe size and insects in Mexico. It’s the amount of observed genotypic variance divided by the amount of observed phenotypic variance. In English, the proportion of observed variation due to genetic factors. It has lots of problems, none of them having to do with correlation.
Ben may mean his insect analogy only as a mataphor for the possibility that heritability estimates could be artefactual, but it’s still misplaced since we don’t take such estimates seriously till they’re independently and multiply replicated, and none of the variables under study have anything like the remoteness of shoes & far-distant bugs. After all, we’re just talking about the brain.
What divides angels pushing planets and I.D. from scientific hypotheses is indeed a complicated problem, but we can make two pretty solid assertions about the solution. First, scientific hypotheses need to be refutable in principle, within the scope of methodologic naturalism. Second, consistency with observation is a red herring (literally, as Ben should know; also figuratively), and isn’t any part of the solution.
I.D. might be religiously plausible (whatever that might mean). It isn’t scientifically plausible.
Keith, thanks for the links. Since I’m not competent in the relevant science, and can’t pretend to make intensive statistical remarks, I must defer to expert opinion and consensus on issues which seem less than cut-and-dry, regardless of whether or not that consensus is biased (as Wegman et al allege). However, it was the present American government which produced the report. What I will say is that the present government is not credible by any reasonable standard, and so I simply don’t trust the literature it produces.
I should add that my reason for lashing out at Crichton was, essentially, because of the remarks about the even distribution of rising temperature, simply because that was the item which stuck out in my mind as being especially ludicrous.
Peter was right to infer that the “correlation” point was just an analogy. But there are two things I wonder about. First, why would Pinker admit that the first law is “a bit of an exaggeration” if all of what Peter is saying is true? Second (and to the point of my analogy to correlations, bugs, and shoes), since we’re talking about a statistical issue, wouldn’t it be accurate to say that, no matter what the results are after we’ve divided genotypic variance by phenotypic variance, we’ve come to a conclusion about levels of heritability (not the existence or nonexistence of heritability)? If so, then even if the level was very high, we could still say that it was heritable in a manner of speaking, just because it’s on our scale. If not, then both myself and Mr. Pinker appear to be confused; which is not bad company to be in, all things considered.
On the I.D. matter, my point was, in part, that both God and the graviton *are* in refutable *in principle*. The difference, if any, is that only the latter seems to be refutable in practice (CERN, etc). In effect, it seems to me that if there is a solution here, one cannot appeal to falsification to find it. If appeals to consistency seem like a red herring, it is only because too much trust has been invested in the traditional Popperian argument.
If, for a given trait, we obtain robust & replicated heritability estimates that are statistically indistinguishable from zero, we conclude heritability does not exist for that trait. If we were to get that result for all traits, we’d have to conclude that heritability is likely a myth. But over & over we see estimates hugely different from zero, eg the average for personality traits tends toward .5. One cannot then run to the public square with news that “half of personality is inherited”. But one can run there with the news that heritability for personality exists.
If an idea is falsifiable in principle, we can design an experiment that could, in principle, collect the falsifying evidence. What experiment does Ben have in mind for falsifying the God hypothesis?
Peter, a) if really low (but not quite insignificant) results, based upon behavioral traits which are obviously and mainly contingent upon culture and/or environment are dubbed “heritable”, then those results only act as a remark on how we’ve decided to describe the scale and tolerance of the concept of “heritability”. Thus, the first law would be shown to be a banal point about methodology and semantics, and Pinker would have had no cause to make his concession about Turkheimer’s “exaggeration”. On the other hand, if these things bottom out at zero, then the law is false, a result of Pinker confusing his quantifiers. Pinker’s “exaggeration” remark would be correct, but the irony of his critique of those who shout “genetic determinism” would be patently obvious.
Or so it seems to me. I’d certainly be indebted to you if you pointed me to where I’ve mis-stepped.
b) The experiment is this. First, you invent a time machine; then, you go back to before the Big Bang; see whether or not there is a diety floating there, fashioning the universe; and then report back with your findings. Alternately, if one wants to test the existence of the Christian God, then they merely need to clone Jesus Christ himself and await Rapture. If Rapture comes, then the nonexistence of God has been falsified.
These are all fantastic conditions, of course, and presented tongue-in-cheek. But they’re enough to defeat an “in principle” argument. Principles are weak things. They depend so little on reality, and can be punctured by the most absurd flight of the imagination.
Ben, heritability estimates near .5 are not “really low”, not low at all in fact LOL. They assert that near half the observed phenotypic variance on these personality variables is genetic.
You’ve given no shred of a reason for expecting a god to be more visible before the big bang than after, so that “experiment” fails. So too does waiting for Jesus to come back, since there’s no falsifying endpoint. So these jokes don’t meet the criterion. Gravitons are falsifiable, I.D. isn’t. By design.
cryptanalysis was developed by al-Kindi in the 9th century; Arab math was based on Indian numbers (including 0-9), though babylonians and sumerians had previously developed a place value system and a concept of zero; Arabia was also ‘custodian’ of greek, roman, farsi and sumerian (among other) knowledge during the dark ages; Omar Khayyam developed a more accurate calendar/leap year system than the later Gregorian Calendar; Al-Biruni found the radius of the earth (not found in the West until the 16th century); Muslims also developed the spherical astrolabe and the armillary sphere among others, they also built the first dedicated observatories.
#25 is nearly incomprehensible
#26 refers to the terrorists of south lebanon without mentioning israel.
Peter: didn’t say that .5 was “really low”. But even if, as you say, most traits are at .5, then this point falls into the same analysis I’ve provided (a few times now) if these traits rise out of obviously culturally or environmentally contingent sources. Now, you might respond by looking at the dichotomy itself, or by reinterpreting Pinker in such a way that he avoids the dichotomy, but nothing you’re saying here is relevant to the propositions I’ve endorsed.
I needn’t provide a reason for saying God is visible, invisible, or a mongoose for that matter. All that suffices is that I have a set of conditions wherein a certain kind of diety would be falsifiable, and the puzzle remains. Also, in the “Jesus cloned” fantasy, note that there’s no real waiting involved: since he’s cloned, there is an end-point. Perhaps there is an in-kind distinction that will put the absurdity to rest, but you haven’t provided it here.
I’ve believed for a long time that humanities’ belief in a god is a case of mass psychosis, born of the belief that we (humanity) cannot possibly be alone in the universe. Fear is our worse enemy. Fear of death after death. Fear of disconnectedness. Fear of aloneness.
Your statement “That when secularism and humanism fail, democracy fails” is right on the mark. Fortunately, only 26% of voters in the US are ‘fundamentalists’. Unfortunately, this group is over-represented in government, starting with a president who doesn’t know how to read a book and uses ‘Christianity’ as a cloak to hide the fact that his sole purpose as president is to aid in the enrichment of his political friends who, in many case are already so rich that they could not begin to spend all their wealth in their or their children’s or their grandchildren’s lifetimes. And the gullible public has fallen for the ruse.
Some of the ‘facts’ are incorrect in this treatise, but who am I to question. Some of the grammar and sentence structure is poor, also. Don’t you have an editor?
#12 and #25 are not true by virtue of having been reported by CNN. For #25 in particular, CNN has reported on a number of pro-Hizbullah rallies in Baghdad tacitly supported by the new “democratic” regime in Iraq.
#16 is not true by virtue of an incorrect definition. Islam translates as “submission”, submission to God, specifically. Just because English has few contextual words doesn’t mean other languages are the same.
#17 is also not true by virtue of an incorrect definition. Jihad translates as “to strive”, to strive to be a better person, specifically. Also a contextual word. See #16.
#21 is not true by virtue that religious tolerance existed in the middle east for approximately 650 years, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the time of the first Crusade. During this period, Christians, Jews, and Muslims were freely able to visit and use their respective holy sites in Jerusalem, for instance. Christians invented religious intolerance and taught it to Muslims.
#23 is supposition, not fact. Even if you accept the supposition, though, I have a hard time believing the author believes in the literal Eden. ;-)
#24 is… interesting, and is a rather fascinating insight. I’d like to see a whole article devoted to #24.
I refuse to believe that you have any credentials or knowledge whatsoever, since you clearly think Jesus and Mohammed were contemporaries. Nice try, Herodatus. Perhaps you should hit the books more and post silly rants less.
The rest of the piece is rife with similar ridiculousness. You don’t know if God is real, you don’t know what Bush thought about Mesopotamia and Eden and you provide not even slightest bit of evidence contrary to the the notion of the “intellectual tradition in Arabia.”
Please do some research before posting your next rant. As prestigious as I am sure the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion is, it doesn’t compare to cracking a book and providing evidence.
To save Hoffmann the trouble of re-posting, I’ll copy and paste from one of his earlier responses:
“You missed my rather lengthy comment about dates: Muhammad lived in the 1st century of his era, Jesus in the first century of his. Ask anybody. And then, above all, read before posting.”
Before you “refuse to believe” that he has any credentials, you might want to do a quick Google on his name and see what you find. In other words, “please do some research before posting your next rant.” He has written the books that you have yet to crack open.
Muhammad only lived about a decade in the first century of “his era”. In any event, such dating should be clarified or most people will assume that 1st century implies CE or AD.
I recognize your right to invent new words, with definition, e.g. sophibole. But ‘correllary’? A correllative perhaps? Surely not a misspell of ‘corollary’? (I hope I’m not being too tactless.)
Wood writes: “The frustration and rage which results from being let down by your own side is something with a very distinctive and special kind of sting. You feel it at times such as when … prominent writers and thinkers offer ‘solidarity and support’ to a viciously anti-Semitic terrorist organisation which they see as a ‘resistance’.”
He links the words “prominent writers and thinkers” to a letter to the editor which states that its writers (in reference to the conflicts between Israel and Lebanon/Palestine) “offer [their] solidarity and support to the victims of this brutality and to those who mount a resistance against it.”
Where did they say they supported a terrorist “organization” or acts of terrorism? Nowhere in the letter. “Terrorist” is, of course, an easy word to throw around. If it is defined by the outright killing of non-combatants, then both sides in this conflict have clearly engaged in “terrorism,” but then it would be no worse to support the Israeli government on that tack than to support those who defend the Lebanese (except insofar as Israel has apparently killed many more people, but, at this level of discourse, who’se counting?). If it is possible to support Israel without supporting its killing of non-combatants, as Wood might contend, then it is clearly possible to do so for Lebanon, as well.
Of course, what else do you expect from Armstrong?
We can never criticise anything about Islam but go on an on about everything Christians have done against them.
We can write a 3000 worded article without mentioning even a single instance when the sword was the single most persuasive factor in conversion.
We can write essays without mentioning how millions were forcibly converted all the way from Africa to India to South East Asia.
And of course, the 9/11 terrorists were clearly degenerates who were later excommunicated from Islam. Didn’t you guys read the official communication from the Khomeini? Mrs. Armstrong can forward you a copy any time.
And who can deny the fact that the thousands of temples destroyed in India and elsewhere were just political in nature and not religious.
And the only worldwide religion that allows a divorce in a matter of seconds and permits a man to have different wives illegally, does it for the sole purpose of women’s liberation from a non-Western perspective.
(But Mrs. Armstrong, like many others, has an exceptionally cliched reaction to the likes of us; “You perverted fundamentalist who cannot see Islam for what it is – a religion that tolerates every other faith even in this day and works towards global peace, thus nurturing democracy and egalitarianism the world over. You degenerate right wing extremist, isn’t it time you apologised for the Crusades, Palestine and the rest?”)
Mrs. Armstrong has showed that she shares a characterisitc well aligned with everyone on board on HMS Rescue Islam From The Rest. She is spineless.
She knows she can say virtually anything about any religion except Islam and get away with it.
She knows she can criticise any religious idea or practice except Islam and be guranteed of the right to criticise in the future.
She knows she can get out get back home safely even while criticising every other faith.
And she knows she will never be able to say a word against Islam without fearing for your life or your children’s.
Because that is the abiding principle of every other major society in the world.
Mrs. Armsrtong will never, in her wildest dreams, write an article condemning Khomeini and plan to visit Iran or any Muslim majority society.
So, kudos to your Mrs. Armstrong.
The world needs you.
Fundamentalist Islam will be less dramatic without the likes of you.
You see, without you, we might have missed the irony there.
I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have seen this article. Armstrong has been worrying me for years, but it wasn’t always so. I first came across her when I read her History of God many years ago it seems now, before I knew anything about Islam, and I was very impressed by what she said about all the religions she deals with.
But since then I’ve read a lot of Ibn Warraq, and also the late Mervyn Hiskett and Irshad Manji, and lots of other stuff, some of it on the web, so I feel in a better position to make a balanced judgement between the opposing views.
I’m sure social circumstances influence (if they don’t actually dictate) which writings of any religion adherents choose to highlight and which they choose to ignore. I think you could say, for example, that most Christians don’t really believe what they’re supposed (fundamentally) to believe, or practise what they’re supposed to practise. Same goes for mainstream Jewry.
The sentences in the Quran are there for all to read, as are the accepted hadiths. Critics of Islam don’t make them up. But if I understand someone like Irshad Manji correctly, she would say that the modern world can perfectly well have an Islam that doesn’t emphasise the violence and intolerance.
That also seems to be what some prominent Muslim journalists are saying. But whether Islam can ever go as far as, say, the Church of England in diluting its original message is open to serious question.
And certainly the whole matter of Islam has to be discussed much more honestly than Armstrong ever does. But I’d say the same about Christianity, particularly the US Evangelical kind, and the militant Jewish kind, and the Hindu nationalist kind, and the Buddhist violent (sic) kind. We simply can’t afford to cover any of this up any more.
Yet it has to be done clearly separating __people__ from __ideas__. One can hate the intolerance, the illiberality and so on, and have affection for those labouring under the delusions that foster them. Easier said than done, since beliefs don’t exist unless they’re held by real people, and people feel hurt if their beliefs are questioned or attacked. I don’t have an answer to this, but the question has to be faced.
Are you a therapist? If so, how effective do you think therapy is?
In regards to the issue of love, I was initially responding to a post by someone named Elliot. Seemed as though his response indicated a kind of nihilism, some sort of perfect balance. Is it perfectly balanced?
So in asking what love is, it was actually a rhetorical question
Psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and counselling have no scientific basis. They can be defined, at best, as a belief system; some people would more accurately use the word cults.
Psychotherapy is an industry out of control, literally and metaphorically. In the UK, the industry is still unregulated (out of control). Any fool can stick a note on his door and set himself up as a psychotherapist. The ‘regulation of psychotherapist’ bill has been passed around in Parliament for the last 15 years and has never become an Act. Primarily, this is due to the fact that psychotherapists do not wish to be regulated (though they’ll deny this very loudly to the press officer who may care to ‘phone any of the myriad of associations representing the ‘profession’). The industry is worth million of pounds and there are hundreds of ‘schools of psychotherapy’ squabbling for a larger share of the market and making dubious claims about the validity of their technique. There are so many careers at stake!
It is extremely difficult to prove malpractice or abuse in psychotherapy and practically impossible to demonstrate that your ‘treatment’ did not work and that you want your money back. Psychotherapists’ associations pay lip service to the concept of ‘protecting patients/clients’; sadly, their primary interest is with their members’ ability to make a living!
Psychotherapy, as an industry, has a very influential and very vocal lobbying arm, which is forever pushing for more therapeutic intervention in every sphere of our life: parenting, relationships, family, employment, ageing and so on. As more and more normal experiences which are part and parcel of being human, become pathologised the army of psychotherapists, counsellors, analysts, coaches, motivators, mentors etc. grows and grows.
We are all waiting to hear whether there are any limits to the power and knowledge of psychotherapists to interpret life for us.
Wonderful! Science and rational thinking is the only salvation for our totally messed up planet. The sooner we do away with vile pseudo-religions such as Islam and other “traditions” that oppress people and provide justification for bloodthirsty behavior, the better.
If yes, think about this: religion/belief systems have been around for thousands of years and psychotherapy has been around for over one hundred years. In what way have they healed and wholed the world?
In what way does the following statement suggest that I may confuse psychotherapy with religious belief?
“religion/belief systems have been around for thousands of years and psychotherapy has been around for over one hundred years. In what way have they healed and wholed the world?”
The point I was trying to make is that (it would appear) that *neither* religion *nor* psychotherapy have managed to make the world a better place. This despite the often repeated claims from their mouthpieces, that they stand for peace, healing, self-knowledge and the general well-being of mankind.
But thank you for making the distinction between religion and psychotherapy. Personally, I don’t have much time *neither* for the cleric *nor* for the psychotherapist.
all very well you saying that ‘fine sir’, but how can you explain the fact that female (presumably) feminists would be unable to read and that Geoffrey Masson – alledgedly one time archivist at the london freud (yes you must be right that a) wasn’t a deed poll sirname and b) doesn’t mean joy on translation from yiddish oops – i mean german of course) also like myself a male – could not read. perhaps, fine sir, even in the modern time of concern with the context of a @mere snippit of a quote why not stop stressin’ the rest of us out and luzz us a few of your well niff quotations, fine sir.
eric stil a sort of fan of monty python so don’t worry – your not an ‘old dear’
– this is the nineteenth century here in the uk full stop i am not and never have been a …
Re: Things CNN Will Never Tell You About Religion by R. Joseph Hoffmann
This is a strange article. Firstly, why CNN? It is the irritating voice of the (hack spit) liberal mainstream media, and not us right-wing death beasts. Either R Joseph should have said Free Republic, or he is so far left that he thinks the media generally are tools of a fascist establishment.
Then, a bunch of truisms about what is acceptable media speech about dominant religions… uhuh. Like these things are not implicit in media except when they make some absurd saccharine motherhood speech.
Then, self-evident stuff about how thick and/or ignorant of the world the fundies and Bush are… check.
And finally, going from some dubious rephrasings of fact to conclude contradiction in RWDB attitudes – seems to just be a way to feel morally superior, rather like the email jokes of top-40 reasons why ‘liberals’ are hypocrites on guns and abortion.
The article is just not up to B&W’s normal intellectual standards.
One reason CNN doesn’t tell us what Hoffman does is that Hoffman is full of crap. For example, Muhammed lived in the 7th not the first century A.D. If he doesn’t know that basic fact, he must be intellectually ignorant.
re: Meet the Deity
I think you’ld enjoy Margaret Atwood’s “Our Cat Goes to Heaven”. It’s in her latest collection of shorts, The Tent.
“Our Heaven is their Hell” , said God:
“I like a balanced universe.”
I am surprised that recent comments include things from Islam to Christianity, and from England to Iraq. I wanted to get back to Paul Gross’ article and suggest he read Getting Past the Culture Wars: Regarding Intelligent Design. If the self-organizing principle is not narrowly limited, this in itself would be intelligent design, without the need for outside intelligent agents.
I don’t know how Paul could have missed that one argument for purpose in the universe is that the rare circumstances allowing for life on a planet are also the same rare cirumstances that allow for the best scientific discoveries.
Here’s where I see a parallel between the thesis in The Privileged Planet and biology:
TPP: “The most habitable places … also offer the best opportunity for scientific discovery. I believe this implies purpose.” (Notice Guillermo Gonzalez presents the science first, then what he believes to be the implication of the science.)
In biology: “The same genetic mutations which are triggered by changing conditions in the environment also offer life forms the best opportunity for survival under those new conditions.”
You have entirely missed the point of Ms. Armstrong’s writings.
Karen Armstrong: Islam’s Hagiographer
Alison,
“You have entirely missed the point of Ms. Armstrong’s writings.”
Thanks for your less-than-illuminating comment. Given the certitude of your assertion, perhaps you’d be good enough to point out exactly what it is that I’ve missed, and, if possible, how that pertains to the gross distortions and factual errors made by Ms Armstrong and highlighted in the piece?
Oh, Rhett. I am indeed intellectually ignorant. There is no other kind. But you missed my rather lengthy comment about dates: Muhammad lived in the 1st century of his era, Jesus in the first century of his. Ask anybody. And then, above all, read before posting.
Ben Nelson has go off two howlers.
First, Pinker’s “All human behavioural traits are heritable” does _not_ say the opposite of what Pinker meant, because it does not imply that all behaviour is inherited. It just says that all behavioural traits has measurable heritability.
Second, being “consistent with” empirical data has _nothing_ to do with whether a theory is scientific. Otherwise the theory that angels make planets move in ellipses would be scientific. I.D. and angelic planetary motion are unscientific because it’s impossible in principle to either verify or falsify them empirically. That’s no accident–I.D. and planet-moving angels theories are meant to be immune to data.
Peter may be literally correct about the Pinker point, analogously in the same way that I may (quite vacuously) say that there is a correlation between my shoe size and the number of bugs in Mexico. The correlation likely approaches 0, but it’s still a correlation. But if that’s what he’s suggesting, then a) it’s not really getting to the point, which has just as much to do with the felicity of his use of words as it does with the meaning of the term; and b) he’s admitting that the first law is trivially true.
I agree the angel example is a consequence, and I agree that they seem like unfortunate implications; but they are also, for all we know, true. At minimum, in order to be rebutted, these unfortunate consequences require a non-arbitrary in-kind distinction between scientifically favored and unfavored causes. My example was of God and gravitons, and my distinction was between “support” vs. “consistency”. If one can make another distinction within the scope of scientific expression, fine; but Peter has not endeavored to provide it. If it is to be made on the basis of probability, that may work. But appealing to possibility will not, at least not without a lot of further commentary required, for the reasons I mentioned.
“Michael Crichton’s war on global warming comes first to mind, relying upon weak arguments to reach the bold conclusion he desired.”
The link for “weak arguments” goes to the RealClimate site (www.realclimate.org).
One of the key contributors to this site is Michael Mann, famous for the “hockey stick” graph which is used to argue for unprecedented recent warming.
RealClimate, as a consequence, is hardly likely to provide an unbiased review of Crichton’s book.
The conclusions of Mann and his associates were, however, recently criticised, following independent review by experienced statisticians (see links at the bottom of this post): “Our committee believes that the assessments that the decade of the 1990s was the hottest decade in a millennium and that 1998 was the hottest year in a millennium cannot be supported by the MBH98/99 analysis.”
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_fact_sheet.pdf
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/home/07142006_Wegman_Report.pdf
Heritability isn’t like correlation between shoe size and insects in Mexico. It’s the amount of observed genotypic variance divided by the amount of observed phenotypic variance. In English, the proportion of observed variation due to genetic factors. It has lots of problems, none of them having to do with correlation.
Ben may mean his insect analogy only as a mataphor for the possibility that heritability estimates could be artefactual, but it’s still misplaced since we don’t take such estimates seriously till they’re independently and multiply replicated, and none of the variables under study have anything like the remoteness of shoes & far-distant bugs. After all, we’re just talking about the brain.
What divides angels pushing planets and I.D. from scientific hypotheses is indeed a complicated problem, but we can make two pretty solid assertions about the solution. First, scientific hypotheses need to be refutable in principle, within the scope of methodologic naturalism. Second, consistency with observation is a red herring (literally, as Ben should know; also figuratively), and isn’t any part of the solution.
I.D. might be religiously plausible (whatever that might mean). It isn’t scientifically plausible.
Keith, thanks for the links. Since I’m not competent in the relevant science, and can’t pretend to make intensive statistical remarks, I must defer to expert opinion and consensus on issues which seem less than cut-and-dry, regardless of whether or not that consensus is biased (as Wegman et al allege). However, it was the present American government which produced the report. What I will say is that the present government is not credible by any reasonable standard, and so I simply don’t trust the literature it produces.
I should add that my reason for lashing out at Crichton was, essentially, because of the remarks about the even distribution of rising temperature, simply because that was the item which stuck out in my mind as being especially ludicrous.
Peter was right to infer that the “correlation” point was just an analogy. But there are two things I wonder about. First, why would Pinker admit that the first law is “a bit of an exaggeration” if all of what Peter is saying is true? Second (and to the point of my analogy to correlations, bugs, and shoes), since we’re talking about a statistical issue, wouldn’t it be accurate to say that, no matter what the results are after we’ve divided genotypic variance by phenotypic variance, we’ve come to a conclusion about levels of heritability (not the existence or nonexistence of heritability)? If so, then even if the level was very high, we could still say that it was heritable in a manner of speaking, just because it’s on our scale. If not, then both myself and Mr. Pinker appear to be confused; which is not bad company to be in, all things considered.
On the I.D. matter, my point was, in part, that both God and the graviton *are* in refutable *in principle*. The difference, if any, is that only the latter seems to be refutable in practice (CERN, etc). In effect, it seems to me that if there is a solution here, one cannot appeal to falsification to find it. If appeals to consistency seem like a red herring, it is only because too much trust has been invested in the traditional Popperian argument.
Don’t forget the Colombian necklace…and the gloves…”if the gloves don’t fit, you must aquit.”
And literary success Michael Crighton didn’t even go to law school.
If, for a given trait, we obtain robust & replicated heritability estimates that are statistically indistinguishable from zero, we conclude heritability does not exist for that trait. If we were to get that result for all traits, we’d have to conclude that heritability is likely a myth. But over & over we see estimates hugely different from zero, eg the average for personality traits tends toward .5. One cannot then run to the public square with news that “half of personality is inherited”. But one can run there with the news that heritability for personality exists.
If an idea is falsifiable in principle, we can design an experiment that could, in principle, collect the falsifying evidence. What experiment does Ben have in mind for falsifying the God hypothesis?
Peter, a) if really low (but not quite insignificant) results, based upon behavioral traits which are obviously and mainly contingent upon culture and/or environment are dubbed “heritable”, then those results only act as a remark on how we’ve decided to describe the scale and tolerance of the concept of “heritability”. Thus, the first law would be shown to be a banal point about methodology and semantics, and Pinker would have had no cause to make his concession about Turkheimer’s “exaggeration”. On the other hand, if these things bottom out at zero, then the law is false, a result of Pinker confusing his quantifiers. Pinker’s “exaggeration” remark would be correct, but the irony of his critique of those who shout “genetic determinism” would be patently obvious.
Or so it seems to me. I’d certainly be indebted to you if you pointed me to where I’ve mis-stepped.
b) The experiment is this. First, you invent a time machine; then, you go back to before the Big Bang; see whether or not there is a diety floating there, fashioning the universe; and then report back with your findings. Alternately, if one wants to test the existence of the Christian God, then they merely need to clone Jesus Christ himself and await Rapture. If Rapture comes, then the nonexistence of God has been falsified.
These are all fantastic conditions, of course, and presented tongue-in-cheek. But they’re enough to defeat an “in principle” argument. Principles are weak things. They depend so little on reality, and can be punctured by the most absurd flight of the imagination.
Ben, heritability estimates near .5 are not “really low”, not low at all in fact LOL. They assert that near half the observed phenotypic variance on these personality variables is genetic.
You’ve given no shred of a reason for expecting a god to be more visible before the big bang than after, so that “experiment” fails. So too does waiting for Jesus to come back, since there’s no falsifying endpoint. So these jokes don’t meet the criterion. Gravitons are falsifiable, I.D. isn’t. By design.
on #15 on things CNN will never tell you:
cryptanalysis was developed by al-Kindi in the 9th century; Arab math was based on Indian numbers (including 0-9), though babylonians and sumerians had previously developed a place value system and a concept of zero; Arabia was also ‘custodian’ of greek, roman, farsi and sumerian (among other) knowledge during the dark ages; Omar Khayyam developed a more accurate calendar/leap year system than the later Gregorian Calendar; Al-Biruni found the radius of the earth (not found in the West until the 16th century); Muslims also developed the spherical astrolabe and the armillary sphere among others, they also built the first dedicated observatories.
#25 is nearly incomprehensible
#26 refers to the terrorists of south lebanon without mentioning israel.
…………….Uh, and then?
Peter: didn’t say that .5 was “really low”. But even if, as you say, most traits are at .5, then this point falls into the same analysis I’ve provided (a few times now) if these traits rise out of obviously culturally or environmentally contingent sources. Now, you might respond by looking at the dichotomy itself, or by reinterpreting Pinker in such a way that he avoids the dichotomy, but nothing you’re saying here is relevant to the propositions I’ve endorsed.
I needn’t provide a reason for saying God is visible, invisible, or a mongoose for that matter. All that suffices is that I have a set of conditions wherein a certain kind of diety would be falsifiable, and the puzzle remains. Also, in the “Jesus cloned” fantasy, note that there’s no real waiting involved: since he’s cloned, there is an end-point. Perhaps there is an in-kind distinction that will put the absurdity to rest, but you haven’t provided it here.
Regarding #10: Make that *seventh* century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed
And yes, he did consider himself a Muslim, after he invented the idea that is.
I’ve believed for a long time that humanities’ belief in a god is a case of mass psychosis, born of the belief that we (humanity) cannot possibly be alone in the universe. Fear is our worse enemy. Fear of death after death. Fear of disconnectedness. Fear of aloneness.
Your statement “That when secularism and humanism fail, democracy fails” is right on the mark. Fortunately, only 26% of voters in the US are ‘fundamentalists’. Unfortunately, this group is over-represented in government, starting with a president who doesn’t know how to read a book and uses ‘Christianity’ as a cloak to hide the fact that his sole purpose as president is to aid in the enrichment of his political friends who, in many case are already so rich that they could not begin to spend all their wealth in their or their children’s or their grandchildren’s lifetimes. And the gullible public has fallen for the ruse.
Some of the ‘facts’ are incorrect in this treatise, but who am I to question. Some of the grammar and sentence structure is poor, also. Don’t you have an editor?
#12 and #25 are not true by virtue of having been reported by CNN. For #25 in particular, CNN has reported on a number of pro-Hizbullah rallies in Baghdad tacitly supported by the new “democratic” regime in Iraq.
#16 is not true by virtue of an incorrect definition. Islam translates as “submission”, submission to God, specifically. Just because English has few contextual words doesn’t mean other languages are the same.
#17 is also not true by virtue of an incorrect definition. Jihad translates as “to strive”, to strive to be a better person, specifically. Also a contextual word. See #16.
#21 is not true by virtue that religious tolerance existed in the middle east for approximately 650 years, from the fall of the Roman Empire to the time of the first Crusade. During this period, Christians, Jews, and Muslims were freely able to visit and use their respective holy sites in Jerusalem, for instance. Christians invented religious intolerance and taught it to Muslims.
#23 is supposition, not fact. Even if you accept the supposition, though, I have a hard time believing the author believes in the literal Eden. ;-)
#24 is… interesting, and is a rather fascinating insight. I’d like to see a whole article devoted to #24.
Your list of doctrines are humorously as narrowminded as the fundamentalists.
I refuse to believe that you have any credentials or knowledge whatsoever, since you clearly think Jesus and Mohammed were contemporaries. Nice try, Herodatus. Perhaps you should hit the books more and post silly rants less.
The rest of the piece is rife with similar ridiculousness. You don’t know if God is real, you don’t know what Bush thought about Mesopotamia and Eden and you provide not even slightest bit of evidence contrary to the the notion of the “intellectual tradition in Arabia.”
Please do some research before posting your next rant. As prestigious as I am sure the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion is, it doesn’t compare to cracking a book and providing evidence.
With love,
Michael
Michael,
To save Hoffmann the trouble of re-posting, I’ll copy and paste from one of his earlier responses:
“You missed my rather lengthy comment about dates: Muhammad lived in the 1st century of his era, Jesus in the first century of his. Ask anybody. And then, above all, read before posting.”
Before you “refuse to believe” that he has any credentials, you might want to do a quick Google on his name and see what you find. In other words, “please do some research before posting your next rant.” He has written the books that you have yet to crack open.
Leslie
Muhammad only lived about a decade in the first century of “his era”. In any event, such dating should be clarified or most people will assume that 1st century implies CE or AD.
No Facts.
No Humor.
No Satire.
100% personal and isolated views.
so that just makes it pure bull crap.
I recognize your right to invent new words, with definition, e.g. sophibole. But ‘correllary’? A correllative perhaps? Surely not a misspell of ‘corollary’? (I hope I’m not being too tactless.)
RE: J. Carter Wood’s “Poseurs of the World Unite”
Wood writes: “The frustration and rage which results from being let down by your own side is something with a very distinctive and special kind of sting. You feel it at times such as when … prominent writers and thinkers offer ‘solidarity and support’ to a viciously anti-Semitic terrorist organisation which they see as a ‘resistance’.”
He links the words “prominent writers and thinkers” to a letter to the editor which states that its writers (in reference to the conflicts between Israel and Lebanon/Palestine) “offer [their] solidarity and support to the victims of this brutality and to those who mount a resistance against it.”
Where did they say they supported a terrorist “organization” or acts of terrorism? Nowhere in the letter. “Terrorist” is, of course, an easy word to throw around. If it is defined by the outright killing of non-combatants, then both sides in this conflict have clearly engaged in “terrorism,” but then it would be no worse to support the Israeli government on that tack than to support those who defend the Lebanese (except insofar as Israel has apparently killed many more people, but, at this level of discourse, who’se counting?). If it is possible to support Israel without supporting its killing of non-combatants, as Wood might contend, then it is clearly possible to do so for Lebanon, as well.
JM, one day I will take the virtues of spellchecking to heart. Thanks.
Anyway, I’ll blame Ed-in-chief Ophelia for not catching it, because I’m petty, and because I blame Ophelia for all things wrong in life.
You said Muhammad, a delusional first century Arab who thought the God of the Jews was speaking to him, was not a Muslim.
I thought that Muhammad was active about 300 years after Jesus. Am I wrong?
re: Meet the Deity
Elliot: To say the universe is perfectly balanced…does this mean there is no direction?
What is love?
Amen!
Are those not many words, many thoughts, many ways to avoid loving?
What is love?
Of course, what else do you expect from Armstrong?
We can never criticise anything about Islam but go on an on about everything Christians have done against them.
We can write a 3000 worded article without mentioning even a single instance when the sword was the single most persuasive factor in conversion.
We can write essays without mentioning how millions were forcibly converted all the way from Africa to India to South East Asia.
And of course, the 9/11 terrorists were clearly degenerates who were later excommunicated from Islam. Didn’t you guys read the official communication from the Khomeini? Mrs. Armstrong can forward you a copy any time.
And who can deny the fact that the thousands of temples destroyed in India and elsewhere were just political in nature and not religious.
And the only worldwide religion that allows a divorce in a matter of seconds and permits a man to have different wives illegally, does it for the sole purpose of women’s liberation from a non-Western perspective.
(But Mrs. Armstrong, like many others, has an exceptionally cliched reaction to the likes of us; “You perverted fundamentalist who cannot see Islam for what it is – a religion that tolerates every other faith even in this day and works towards global peace, thus nurturing democracy and egalitarianism the world over. You degenerate right wing extremist, isn’t it time you apologised for the Crusades, Palestine and the rest?”)
Mrs. Armstrong has showed that she shares a characterisitc well aligned with everyone on board on HMS Rescue Islam From The Rest. She is spineless.
She knows she can say virtually anything about any religion except Islam and get away with it.
She knows she can criticise any religious idea or practice except Islam and be guranteed of the right to criticise in the future.
She knows she can get out get back home safely even while criticising every other faith.
And she knows she will never be able to say a word against Islam without fearing for your life or your children’s.
Because that is the abiding principle of every other major society in the world.
Mrs. Armsrtong will never, in her wildest dreams, write an article condemning Khomeini and plan to visit Iran or any Muslim majority society.
So, kudos to your Mrs. Armstrong.
The world needs you.
Fundamentalist Islam will be less dramatic without the likes of you.
You see, without you, we might have missed the irony there.
I can’t tell you how relieved I am to have seen this article. Armstrong has been worrying me for years, but it wasn’t always so. I first came across her when I read her History of God many years ago it seems now, before I knew anything about Islam, and I was very impressed by what she said about all the religions she deals with.
But since then I’ve read a lot of Ibn Warraq, and also the late Mervyn Hiskett and Irshad Manji, and lots of other stuff, some of it on the web, so I feel in a better position to make a balanced judgement between the opposing views.
I’m sure social circumstances influence (if they don’t actually dictate) which writings of any religion adherents choose to highlight and which they choose to ignore. I think you could say, for example, that most Christians don’t really believe what they’re supposed (fundamentally) to believe, or practise what they’re supposed to practise. Same goes for mainstream Jewry.
The sentences in the Quran are there for all to read, as are the accepted hadiths. Critics of Islam don’t make them up. But if I understand someone like Irshad Manji correctly, she would say that the modern world can perfectly well have an Islam that doesn’t emphasise the violence and intolerance.
That also seems to be what some prominent Muslim journalists are saying. But whether Islam can ever go as far as, say, the Church of England in diluting its original message is open to serious question.
And certainly the whole matter of Islam has to be discussed much more honestly than Armstrong ever does. But I’d say the same about Christianity, particularly the US Evangelical kind, and the militant Jewish kind, and the Hindu nationalist kind, and the Buddhist violent (sic) kind. We simply can’t afford to cover any of this up any more.
Yet it has to be done clearly separating __people__ from __ideas__. One can hate the intolerance, the illiberality and so on, and have affection for those labouring under the delusions that foster them. Easier said than done, since beliefs don’t exist unless they’re held by real people, and people feel hurt if their beliefs are questioned or attacked. I don’t have an answer to this, but the question has to be faced.
Olvidiu,
Are you a therapist? If so, how effective do you think therapy is?
In regards to the issue of love, I was initially responding to a post by someone named Elliot. Seemed as though his response indicated a kind of nihilism, some sort of perfect balance. Is it perfectly balanced?
So in asking what love is, it was actually a rhetorical question
Ovidiu Stoica
I agree with your comments.
Psychotherapy, psychoanalysis and counselling have no scientific basis. They can be defined, at best, as a belief system; some people would more accurately use the word cults.
Psychotherapy is an industry out of control, literally and metaphorically. In the UK, the industry is still unregulated (out of control). Any fool can stick a note on his door and set himself up as a psychotherapist. The ‘regulation of psychotherapist’ bill has been passed around in Parliament for the last 15 years and has never become an Act. Primarily, this is due to the fact that psychotherapists do not wish to be regulated (though they’ll deny this very loudly to the press officer who may care to ‘phone any of the myriad of associations representing the ‘profession’). The industry is worth million of pounds and there are hundreds of ‘schools of psychotherapy’ squabbling for a larger share of the market and making dubious claims about the validity of their technique. There are so many careers at stake!
It is extremely difficult to prove malpractice or abuse in psychotherapy and practically impossible to demonstrate that your ‘treatment’ did not work and that you want your money back. Psychotherapists’ associations pay lip service to the concept of ‘protecting patients/clients’; sadly, their primary interest is with their members’ ability to make a living!
Psychotherapy, as an industry, has a very influential and very vocal lobbying arm, which is forever pushing for more therapeutic intervention in every sphere of our life: parenting, relationships, family, employment, ageing and so on. As more and more normal experiences which are part and parcel of being human, become pathologised the army of psychotherapists, counsellors, analysts, coaches, motivators, mentors etc. grows and grows.
We are all waiting to hear whether there are any limits to the power and knowledge of psychotherapists to interpret life for us.
Peter Snow
Then what can make this world healthy and whole?
Wonderful! Science and rational thinking is the only salvation for our totally messed up planet. The sooner we do away with vile pseudo-religions such as Islam and other “traditions” that oppress people and provide justification for bloodthirsty behavior, the better.
Can you elaborate please?
What exactly do you mean by ‘make this world healthy and whole’?
SA
Does it need healing and wholing?
If yes, think about this: religion/belief systems have been around for thousands of years and psychotherapy has been around for over one hundred years. In what way have they healed and wholed the world?
In what way does the following statement suggest that I may confuse psychotherapy with religious belief?
“religion/belief systems have been around for thousands of years and psychotherapy has been around for over one hundred years. In what way have they healed and wholed the world?”
The point I was trying to make is that (it would appear) that *neither* religion *nor* psychotherapy have managed to make the world a better place. This despite the often repeated claims from their mouthpieces, that they stand for peace, healing, self-knowledge and the general well-being of mankind.
But thank you for making the distinction between religion and psychotherapy. Personally, I don’t have much time *neither* for the cleric *nor* for the psychotherapist.
“It seemed, and still seems, to me that you routinely do”
Routinely?!? I have only posted two messages so far. This is my third (and last, fear not!).
“(but I may be wrong)”. Yes, may be.
all very well you saying that ‘fine sir’, but how can you explain the fact that female (presumably) feminists would be unable to read and that Geoffrey Masson – alledgedly one time archivist at the london freud (yes you must be right that a) wasn’t a deed poll sirname and b) doesn’t mean joy on translation from yiddish oops – i mean german of course) also like myself a male – could not read. perhaps, fine sir, even in the modern time of concern with the context of a @mere snippit of a quote why not stop stressin’ the rest of us out and luzz us a few of your well niff quotations, fine sir.
eric stil a sort of fan of monty python so don’t worry – your not an ‘old dear’
– this is the nineteenth century here in the uk full stop i am not and never have been a …
Re: Things CNN Will Never Tell You About Religion by R. Joseph Hoffmann
This is a strange article. Firstly, why CNN? It is the irritating voice of the (hack spit) liberal mainstream media, and not us right-wing death beasts. Either R Joseph should have said Free Republic, or he is so far left that he thinks the media generally are tools of a fascist establishment.
Then, a bunch of truisms about what is acceptable media speech about dominant religions… uhuh. Like these things are not implicit in media except when they make some absurd saccharine motherhood speech.
Then, self-evident stuff about how thick and/or ignorant of the world the fundies and Bush are… check.
And finally, going from some dubious rephrasings of fact to conclude contradiction in RWDB attitudes – seems to just be a way to feel morally superior, rather like the email jokes of top-40 reasons why ‘liberals’ are hypocrites on guns and abortion.
The article is just not up to B&W’s normal intellectual standards.