Julia's Picks

By Julia Galef

* A recording of the panel I moderated at the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism (NECSS) this spring was featured on this week's Scientific American podcast. My topic was "Arguing with Non-Skeptics," and the panel comprised an all-star cast of James Randi, DJ Grothe, George Hrab and Steve Mirsky. (Part I and Part II)

* I'll be going to this year's Singularity Summit in San Francisco in a couple of weeks. Whatever you think of their conclusions, the singularitarian and transhumanist communities comprise some very smart and interesting people in the fields of physics, neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Registration is still open.

* What would the political news look like if it were written by academics? (This is a pretty good illustration of why I don't read daily news.)

* After my meditation on the "self" and its potentially illusory nature last week, I particularly enjoyed Daniel Dennett's take on the issue, comparing the self to the center of gravity. 

* This thoughtful New York magazine article discusses the research showing that parents are less happy, on a moment-to-moment basis, than non-parents. The research is interesting for its own sake, but the main reason I liked the article is that it raises the question of what kind of utility we should be pursuing, given that people (e.g., the parents) argue that moment-to-moment happiness is only one consideration, which doesn't capture the sense of meaning their children give them.

* I've been relishing the Bloggingheads archives lately. In this interview, Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution challenges philosopher Peter Singer on the moral obligation to give. I admit I was surprised Singer didn't have better answers on whether free immigration policy is ethically required, and whether there is any utilitarian problem with eating wild-caught fish.

Massimo’s Picks

By Massimo Pigliucci

* A Philosophy Talk episode about the irrationality of human decision making.

* Best democracy in the world? It ain’t that easy...

* Can one be a conscientious objector on the basis that one “hates fags”?

* The Stone on the perennial question of free will.

* Gravity doesn’t exist, according to a Dutch scientist.

* Yes, the US does have an immigration problem. No, it’s not the one that McCain & co. have been screaming bloody hell about.

* Marta Nussbaum’s follow up to her column about (not) banning the Islamic veil. Here’s why I agree with her conclusion, but not her arguments.

* Always a good topic to think about: John Rawls’ ideas about justice and the ideal society.

Mr. Potato Head and Philosophy

By Julia Galef

If you listen to the Rationally Speaking podcast, you may remember Massimo and me mentioning the Pop Culture And Philosophy series, which is famous for expounding on everything from The Matrix as a case study in simulated universes, to theological paradoxes raised by Homer Simpson's cravings for a burrito. 

Well, a few weeks ago I saw the excellent Toy Story 3 movie, and my first thought as the credits began to roll (well, unless [sniffle] counts as a thought) was: "Those were some complex musings on personal identity. Somebody should really write a 'Toy Story 3 and Philosophy.’” My second thought was: “Hey, I'm somebody...” And indeed, I am. So here we go:

Toy Story 3 and Philosophy, part I: Mr. Potato Head

Perhaps the most hilariously surreal moment in the movie occurs when Mr. Potato Head disassembles himself. He has been imprisoned in a box, and the one hole in the box is nowhere near large enough for him to squeeze out through. So he pops his plastic eyes, nose, ears, arms and feet out of his potato-body (head?), tossing them through the hole so they land in a heap on the ground outside. And just as you're wondering, “What good did that do him?” each body part stirs itself and they all scurry away. They're traveling as a group, but a group of distinct individuals; each part moves independently, seemingly possessed of a mind of its own.

“Now wait a minute,” you might object. “Just because the various body parts are moving independently of each other, that doesn't necessarily mean they have separate minds. Maybe Mr. Potato Head still has the one mind, which is somehow able to control his body parts from afar.”

Well, Hypothetical-You, that's an excellent point! But it's provably false, even within the fantastical and unspecified logic of the Toy Story universe. If you pay close attention, you'll notice a subtle clue that rebuts your one-mind hypothesis: A few scenes later, the various body parts have embedded themselves into a flour tortilla (it's a long story; just watch the movie, ok?), which serves as an adequate, if floppy, substitute body for them. 

Unfortunately, a passing pigeon takes an interest in the tortilla and pecks at it until it falls apart. One shred of tortilla, containing an eye and an arm, sits up and looks around. Then, with the eye spotting a potential threat approaching, the arm nudges another nearby shred of tortilla (containing a leg) to alert it to the situation. 

Do you see where I'm going with this? The fact that this physical communication between Mr. Potato Head's body parts was necessary reveals that the separate parts aren't being controlled centrally by a single mind. The only conclusion left for us to draw is that each part is controlled by an autonomous mind. Which then raises the question: when Mr. Potato Head's parts are all assembled as per usual in his potato-body, does he have one mind, or does he consist of a complex collaboration between independent minds?

And this is — weirdly, astonishingly — a question that applies to our own minds as well. It's pretty well known that the two hemispheres of a human brain each have different functions, and that they communicate constantly via the corpus callosum which connects them. At first blush, this fact doesn't seem to endanger our belief that we each have a single, distinct mind. But what if you sever contact between the two hemispheres?

This has happened to some people. Called “split-brain patients,” they seem to function normally in most circumstances. But the oddness of their condition manifests when you give a piece of information to only one of their hemispheres, which is then unable to communicate the information to the other hemisphere. How do you do this? By giving the information to only one eye, for example, or to only one hand — sensory inputs from the right eye and hand go only to the left hemisphere, and from the left eye and hand only to the right hemisphere. 

This produces some very striking results, like this one described in Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons:

One of these people is shown a wide screen, whose left half is red and right half is blue. On each half in a darker shade are the words, 'How many colours do you see?' With both hands the person writes, 'Only one'. The words are now changed to read: 'Which is the only colour that you can see?' With one of his hands the person writes 'Red', with the other he writes 'Blue'.

… Or this one, from Thomas Nagel's “Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness”:

One particularly poignant example of conflict between the hemispheres is as follows. A pipe is placed out of sight in the patient's left hand, and he is then asked to write with his left hand what he was holding. Very laboriously and heavily, the left hand writes the letters P and I. Then suddenly the writing speeds up and becomes lighter, the I is converted to an E, and the word is completed as PENCIL. Evidently the left hemisphere has made a guess based on the appearance of the first two letters, and has interfered, with ipsilatral control. But then the right hemisphere takes over control of the hand again, heavily crosses out the letters ENCIL, and draws a crude picture of a pipe.

And just as with Mr. Potato Head, witnessing our brains' component parts make decisions independently when they are no longer connected raises the question of how exactly we should view them when they are connected. Our intuitive sense that a normal (non split-brain) person has one single mind becomes problematic, because now we know that if we cut the corpus callosum, the person appears to have two minds, operating simultaneously and independently. So did another mind pop into existence when the corpus callosum was cut? And if so, what happened to the original mind — is it now located in the left, the right, or neither hemisphere? The questions raised by this explanation are arguably even more mystifying than the original mystery we were trying to explain.

So the only interpretation which doesn’t seem to suffer from internal contradictions is that the whole idea of distinct, countable minds, no matter how intuitive and self-evident it may seem, is in fact an illusion. And this is the conclusion endorsed by the handful of neuroscience friends I’ve cornered and asked about this, yet it’s so staggeringly counterintuitive that it seems to demand the invention of some new, stronger version of the word "counterintuitive.”

I wish I could comment more intelligently on this conclusion, but so far I haven’t managed to muster anything more coherent than “!!!?!!??!” If you want to read more about the split-brain phenomenon and what we should make of it, I'd recommend Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons, Part III) and Thomas Nagel ("Brain Bisection and the Unity of Consciousness," in his Mortal Questions). And if you figure it out, come back and explain it to me.

Coming up in Part II: Lots-o-Huggin' Bear and Philosophy. 

Michael's Picks

By Michael De Dora

* An old but still good column by Guardian journalist and author Gary Younge that relates to my last essay here: "To Engage the Birther Fantasists is Futile; to Dismiss Them, Reckless."

* One of the more intriguing essays I've read this year, "How Facts Backfire." According to the story, research shows that "facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite."

* An important Supreme Court ruling: people who sign petitions calling for public votes on controversial subjects (think: gay marriage) do not have the right to hide their names from the public.

* A new Pew poll shows 41 percent of Americans believe Jesus Christ will definitely (23 percent) or probably (18 percent) return to Earth by 2050.

* The Vatican now considers the attempted ordination of women and the actual sexual abuse of minors to be crimes of the same sort.

* New York Times columnist David Brooks on "moral naturalism."

* I just finished Massimo's recent book "Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science From Bunk."

A very informative and readable book that I highly recommend for anyone generally interested in the nature of science and critical thinking.

* Sharron Angle, who is trying to unseat House Majority Leader Harry Reid, says she doesn't approve of abortion because "God has a plan." But does she really believe that?

On banning the veil

By Massimo Pigliucci


Several European countries — including Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands — have banned the full-body Muslim burqa, or are considering doing so. In Spain a similar measure was narrowly rejected by the Catalonian assembly. In the United States this is not (yet) a live debate, though there are other signs of religious intolerance, such as what I think is a rather moronic discussion about whether to allow a Muslim cultural center near ground zero (the answer, I should think very clearly, ought to be of course yes, because 9/11 was not about the Muslims against us).

I was hoping to get my own ideas about the burqa issue a bit more clear by reading a contribution by noted philosopher Martha Nussbaum in the New York Times’ The Stone blog, but I must say it didn’t really help much.

Nussbaum is a sharp thinker, and arguably one of the most incisive public intellectuals active today. In her essay she introduced the issue in terms of two philosophical traditions concerning the rights of minorities, in particular religious ones. According to John Locke, the law should not penalize religious belief, and should not be discriminatory, that is it should be applied equally to all practitioners of specific religions. Nussbaum’s example is a Supreme Court decision that allows ritual animal sacrifice for religious purposes (yup, you read correctly!) because not allowing it would represent an instance of religious persecution against a specific group (in that case, the Santeria worshippers). I do wonder what the Supreme Court would say if a religious group petitioned to carry out human sacrifices...

A more strict criterion for religious equality was proposed by Roger Williams (the founder of Rhode Island), who maintained that the law has to be written in order to protect minorities, and in particular not to burden consciences by allowing special exemptions, known as accommodations, for religious practices. For instance, the US Supreme Court ruled that the state of South Carolina could not deny unemployment benefits to a Seventh-Day Adventist who lost her job because she refused to work on Saturdays, as this would amount to a financial fine against a matter of religious conscience. Again, it is easy to see how this line of reasoning could be pushed too far: what if my religion tells me that I need to dedicate most of my time to god, so that I can work only once a week?

Be that as it may, with the above as philosophical background, let’s analyze Nussbaum’s reasons for why banning burqas is a bad idea. They are framed as responses to common arguments in favor of the ban. I will append my own commentary to each entry.

1. Reasons for ban: for security reasons people have to show their faces when in public places; also, a proper relation among citizens requires transparency and reciprocity, i.e., we ought to be able to see who we interact with in the course of everyday life.

Nussbaum’s objection: this criterion would be applied inconsistently if a ban were passed, which means that it would be discriminatory against a minority. After all, we have no objection to people wearing ski masks or scarves when it’s very cold outside; also, many professionals cover their faces in special circumstances, e.g. doctors in operating rooms, football players on the field, etc.

My take: this strikes me as rather disingenuous of Nussbaum. First of all, she must recognize that the situations she describes (like, wearing a ski mask when it's cold) are very different in nature from the burqa problem. Yes, some of us cover our faces when going outside in the cold, but there actually is a problem if we keep doing so inside (for instance, after having walked into a bank). As for doctors and football players, again that is a clear case of special circumstances that pose no threat to transparency or security (indeed, they increase security of the patient and of the players, respectively), and they are temporary.

2. Reason for ban: the burqa is a symbol of male domination, so a ban protects women from objectification.

Nussbaum’s objection: society is rife with subtle ways of objectifying women, including “sex magazines, nude photos, tight jeans” ... “and what about the ‘degrading prison’ of plastic surgery?”

My take: again, disingenuous is the first word that comes to mind. Yes, western society still has plenty of more or less subtle ways to objectify women, but if Nussbaum seriously wishes to equate the entirely voluntary option of undergoing plastic surgery to please a man (or to gratify one’s own vanity) with the non-optional mandate to wear a burqa under the penalty of beating or death, she is way off the mark.

3. Reason for the ban: women wear the burqa only because they are coerced, so a ban is about asserting women’s rights to independence from male coercion.

Nussbaum’s objection: domestic violence is not limited to Muslim societies and “given the strong association between domestic violence and the abuse of alcohol, it seems at least plausible that observant Muslim families will turn out to have less of it.”

My take: this seems to me somewhat of a non sequitur. First off, Nussbaum cites statistics about domestic violence in the US, which are readily available, and then gingerly claims that the equivalent numbers for Muslim societies are likely lower. On what grounds? Does she really think that those societies have the equivalent of western monitoring and protection mechanisms to reduce domestic violence? Second, this strikes me as a “tu quoque” (you too) argument, which is an elementary logical fallacy. Nussbaum should instead be arguing both against male-imposed burqas and against alcohol-induced domestic violence, not use the second as an excuse for the first.

4. Reason for the ban: burqas are both uncomfortable and unhealthy for women.

Nussbaum’s objection: when she goes to India, she “wears a full salwaar kameez of cotton, because it is superbly comfortable, and full covering keeps dust off one’s limbs and at least diminishes the risk of skin cancer.” Also, “wouldn’t we have to begin with high heels, delicious as they are? But no, high heels are associated with majority norms (and are a major Spanish export), so they draw no ire.”

My take: okay, high heels are indeed “delicious,” but once again she seems to either miss the point or willfully ignore it. Nobody forces Spanish women to wear high heels, and nobody forces Nussbaum herself to wear a full salwaar kameez. Muslim women wearing burqas are in a different category altogether.

I must say that it is rather distressing to see a progressive public intellectual with a rigorous training in philosophy arguing so badly. It is in fact rather ironic that throughout her essay Nussbaum accuses her opponents of adopting a double cultural standard, while at the same time flagrantly doing the same herself, point after point.

I am not so naive as to seriously believe that politicians who are proposing bans against burqas do it because of their disinterested concern for women. Nor do I believe for a second that most of the proposed or enacted legislature is not in fact a thinly veiled attempt to validate public fears about Muslims in general. But it doesn’t help to pretend that there is a problem on the other side as well.

Muslim societies are male dominated to a degree that the West left behind (though not entirely abandoned) centuries ago. Correspondingly, Muslim women are oppressed to a degree that is not even remotely approached in western societies — high heels, tight jeans and sexy magazine covers notwithstanding.

I do believe that religious minorities have a right to wear specific garments and practice specific rites, within limits. The discussion is precisely about what those limits should be, and there is no clear cut answer. I also believe that total bans are counterproductive on pragmatic grounds because they reinforce — on both sides — the “us vs. them” mentality that has been so pernicious throughout human history. Better instead to provide ample opportunities for education coupled with strict enforcement of anti-domestic violence laws.

Still, living in an open society is not equivalent to being able to do whatever one wants, no matter whether the reason is secular or religious. We should not be as open as tolerating intolerance, for instance, at least when it manifests itself in specific actions (as opposed to just words). Moreover, progressives in particular should strongly come out to condemn the obvious symbolism and actual enforcement of male domination and oppression of women that is so clearly represented by the burqa and other practices. Not doing so while protesting against high heels and plastic surgery comes perilously close to intellectual dishonesty.

Refuting Extremists and Their Ideas: Worth the Time and Energy?

By Michael De Dora

Usually when I come across the latest ridiculous statements by people like Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, my reaction is to begin deconstructing their arguments, and even start writing a public critique in an effort to combat the spread of their dangerous ideas. I have always considered countering nonsense a task of the utmost importance for anyone who thinks of him or herself as rational, intellectual, and in the position to have their voice be heard. There is all the more reason to critique nonsense when it gets out to a large audience.

However, lately I have been contemplating my usual reaction. There is suddenly a voice in my head that sounds like this: “they are extremists; they are crazy; don’t waste your time; you have better things to do.” This is an odd feeling for someone who believes fully in the importance of robust debate, especially on the ideas and beliefs that most influence our society. But that is precisely my problem: how much are extremists' ideas and beliefs influencing society? And if the answer is not very much, why bother handling them?

There are two examples I would like to use to illustrate this issue. The first example is broader and regards weighing the arguments of public figures, like Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin (others one might include, but who were excluded for space: Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity). The second is narrower, yet related, and regards the question of whether biologists should debate creationists. These are different cases with some overlap, but in the end, they get back to the issue of handling opinions deemed extreme.

What do Beck and Palin say that might be worth refuting? I don’t imagine I need to really tell you, but a couple of examples might help nonetheless. Beck has called Obama a racist. Palin dubbed the health insurance reform legislation “downright evil” and falsely charged there would be “death panels.” Beck backed her latter statement (while imploring viewers to at least listen to what Palin was saying regarding the “downright evil” legislation). Beck urged people to leave churches that preach “social justice,” and equated the term with Nazism and Communism. Palin said the Founding Fathers wanted a government “based on the God of the Bible and the Ten Commandments.” Again, this is just a taste of their antics. There is a collection of Glenn Beck clips here and Sarah Palin clips here, and plenty more can be found with a quick Google search.

These statements seem so ridiculous one might only want to shake his or her head, as I have begun to do. Yet upon some reflection, it seems to me there are good reasons to answer them.

Firstly, while such people might be extreme in their ideas, they are not extreme in their societal standing. That is, many people watch Glenn Beck and support Sarah Palin. This is also why one should not focus one’s critique on the person, but on their ideas (Beck and Palin are representations of the existence, power, and popularity of such ideas). By refuting their arguments, one is refuting the arguments of those who think Palin and Beck make sense, which is millions of Americans. Remember that Palin was recently a U.S. vice presidential candidate. It would seem that such an extremist holding political office, or at least being close to it, should wake us from our slumber and spur us to seriously challenge their beliefs.

But can we really change the minds of extremists? Perhaps not. Still – and this is the second reason – there is a large portion of the country (and the world) that is in the middle, that is somewhat undecided about the soundness of Beck’s or Palin’s arguments. They can be moved. There is also a large group of people who already agree that Beck and Palin are largely wrong, but who don’t really care about their wrongheadedness. These people can also be moved. Indeed, it would seem most reasonable to attempt to refute extremist ideas precisely because most Americans are in these middle positions. At the least, one might be able to prevent people in this middle from sliding toward extremism. If rationalists refrain from presenting their side, moderate Americans might be swayed to the extreme, thus making the problem much worse. This does not mean that rationalists should bother refuting everything Beck or Palin say. For instance, just the other day Beck called a Michelle Obama’s dress selection “an outrage,” a statement for which even Bill O’Reilly called him nuts. This doesn’t seem the sort of thing we should really care about. But, Beck charging that Obama is a racist is a claim of a different sort.

Now recall the situation with evolutionists and creationists. Some of my arguments about Beck and Palin would seemingly apply here, even though this is a more specific issue. Richard Dawkins has said evolutionists should not debate creationists in a public event setting because this gives creationists a legitimacy and standing they do not deserve. Others have stated that debate is not a good setting for quality discussion. I believe both of these arguments, if taken as blanket statements, have it wrong.

Firstly, creationism is an enormous problem in the U.S., where perhaps half the nation accepts it as truth. Someone needs to counter creationist arguments or they get to run free without critique. Second, as stated before, the arguments rationalists put forth in a given situation might be digested and accepted by the “sway” market. Third, of course, one cannot expect a single debate cause a creationist to reverse position, but it could be a step in that direction. Fourth, given the in-person character of debates (as opposed to impersonal writings) there is an opportunity to begin to break down biases. I refer to something Massimo once told me: after debating a creationist, a number of creationists approached him, not to tell him they had changed their minds, or that he was going to hell. Instead, they relayed shock that an evolutionist – and an atheist – could be a nice, normal person! It would seem that even if an evolutionist knew before heading into a debate that the audience members were nearly all creationists, this would still provide reason to accept the invitation (1).

Let's now consider the issue of debates not being particularly conducive to reasoned discussions. True, debates are more about rhetoric than substance. While I believe there is something positive to say about rhetoric, it is undeniable that debates have more to do with rhetoric than with substance. But none of the common avenues through which people are exposed to differing opinions – TV, radio, the blogosphere – are particularly conducive to reasoned discourse. To be sure, Dawkins has said he would avoid formally debating creationists not just in public events, but in all avenues, including TV. But this still seems like a blanket statement that is difficult to defend. Should one stop refuting Beck and Palin’s arguments merely because the available venues are not always desirable? That would let beliefs off the hook because of a dislike for the process. Instead, maybe the answer is this: there should not be an all-out stance against debate, but rather a recognition that certain avenues should be more or less favored compared to others; similarly, certain evolutionary biologists, and more broadly, intellectuals, should cede to others who are more experienced at debate or rhetorically more skilled. In short, we ought to come to some degree of acceptance about the way things are, and also realize that some people are better equipped for some tasks.

Of course, in both situations – Beck and Palin, and evolutionists vs. creationists – one could ask, why me? Why should I refute those ideas? Won’t someone else, like Media Matters, handle it? Well, there is the issue of how well others might handle the job. We all have different approaches and different areas of expertise, and so each person might register a different yet instructive reaction (or even a better reaction). Further, someone else might do it, but who will that person be able to reach? When someone publishes an essay on The Huffington Post, I might read it, but many of my family and friends will not. But, there is a greater chance they will read a piece I wrote, purely because it is by me. Some of my family members are creationists who I do not expect to sway (they already know I’m not a terrible or mean person), but at least I can present my reasonable arguments to the family and friends who are in that on-the-fence group, and perhaps win some support from non-creationists.

I want Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck – or, rather, their ideas – to go away as much as any other rational person does. But I believe the only way to have them go away is to continue critiquing their beliefs as they put them in the public square. There is reason to lament such a task. But if we are citizens concerned about the quality of our society, and we value that we live in an open democracy that allows all of us access to public debate, perhaps we ought not want it any other way.

Notes:

1. One could also argue that evolutionists should also spend time teaching people on their side, to make them more apt to rebut creationist claims. This would amount to a counter argument to the idea that "preaching to the converted" is a waste of time. But that is another essay.

Podcast teaser: open mic with Julia & Massimo

Believe it or not, we have already taped 14 episodes of the Rationally Speaking podcast, 12 of which have been released on our web site and via iTunes. So for episode 15  (we’ve already taped the two in-between, in case you were wondering about our math) we are going to try an experiment. If successful, we'll do something like it every five episodes, give or take.

The idea is to open our microphones, so to speak, to our listeners. Beginning now and for several days you can ask Julia and me any question that stimulates your skeptical bones, and we'll do our best to answer them in the course of episode 15. Questions can be posed directly in response to this blog post, of course, or — if you like the additional challenge — you can call New York City Skeptics' hot line (212-529-3393) and leave a spoken message.

Now, this is perhaps a bit of an experiment in hubris, as there very well might be questions we have no competence whatsoever answering or commenting upon. We promise we'll stay clear of those, and perhaps use them as suggestions for future shows featuring guests who actually know what they are talking about.

Still, the range of possibilities is pretty wide, from "core" skepticism (you know, ufology, paranormal, etc.), to atheism and secular humanism, to the relationship between science and philosophy — a favorite sparring intellectual territory for Julia and me. We can't wait to hear from you...

Should non-experts shut up? The skeptic's catch-22

As the whirlwind of TAM8 died down on Monday, I was left with warm fuzzies toward all the Rationally Speaking readers and listeners who came up to me throughout the conference. Thanks, everyone - it was delightful to meet you. I was impressed by how nice you are, and how articulate; and not least of all by what excellent taste you have in blogs and podcasts!

I was also left with lingering ruminations about a few of the TAM8 talks, including Massimo's. While I agreed with the main thrust of Massimo's argument, I also disagreed in a way that I felt was important and interesting enough to merit a blog post of its own. You can read the talk here, but in a nutshell, Massimo was admonishing skeptics who reject the scientific consensus in fields in which they have no technical expertise - the most notable recent example of this being anthropogenic climate change, about which venerable skeptics like James Randi and Michael Shermer have publicly expressed doubts (though Shermer has since changed his mind).

Now, I'm totally with Massimo that it seems quite likely that anthropogenic climate change is really happening. But I'm not sure I can get behind Massimo's broader argument that non-experts should defer to the expert consensus in a field. The main problem, as I see it, is that while we can usually count on the process of peer criticism to check the research within a field for validity, I'm not sure we can count on it to check the validity of the field itself. I'm talking here about the methodology and the philosophical assumptions that underlie a field, the usually-unstated pillars on which all its findings rest.

Why? First of all, while there are strong incentives for a researcher to find errors in other work in the field, there are strong disincentives for her to challenge the field's foundational assumptions. It will be extremely difficult for her to get other people to agree with her if she tries, and if she succeeds, she'll still be taking herself down along with the rest of the field. Second of all, fields naturally select for people who accept their foundational assumptions. People who don't accept those assumptions are likely not to have gone into that field in the first place, or to have left it already.

Sometimes those foundational assumptions are simple enough that an outsider can evaluate them - for instance, I may not be an expert in astrology or theology, but I can understand their starting premises (stars affect human fates; we should accept the Bible as the truth) well enough to confidently dismiss them, and the fields that rest on them. But when the foundational assumptions get more complex - like the assumption that we can reliably model future temperatures - it becomes much harder for an outsider to judge their soundness.

So we almost seem to be stuck in a Catch-22: The only people who are qualified to evaluate the validity of a complex field are the ones who have studied that field in depth - in other words, experts. Yet the experts are also the people who have the strongest incentives not to reject the foundational assumptions of the field, and the ones who have self-selected for believing those assumptions. So the closer you are to a field, the more biased you are, which makes you a poor judge of it; the farther away you are, the less relevant knowledge you have, which makes you a poor judge of it. What to do?

I've run into this problem before with, for example, postmodernism. No matter what else the experts in that field disagree on, they would at least agree that they are all more or less talking sense. I'm dubious of that consensus, and so are plenty of other people who are at least as smart as me. But when we outsiders object that postmodernism is bunk, postmodernists retort that we don't know what we're talking about because we're not experts in the field.

(Incidentally, it was in recognition of that Catch-22 that I began my tenure on this blog with a couple of posts trying to find some objective, external criterion to evaluate whether the postmodernists really are talking sense. But that was admittedly more of a mental exercise than a serious proposal, since, as many of you pointed out in comments, my criteria had some major flaws in them!)

Here's a trickier case study: economics. Plenty of smart non-economists have objected that the fundamental assumptions of economics - for example, that theoretical models can usefully represent the complex behavior of societies - are so flawed as to make the discipline worthless. Just one example, from philosopher Brian Leiter: "[Economics] parlays a set of implausible and utterly unrealistic assumptions into tidy, mathematically-expressible theories that have little or no connection to reality." Economists, on the other hand, will counter that economics is just too complicated for non-experts to have any hope of commenting intelligently on. As a case in point, this much-discussed op-ed by Virginia Fed economist Kartik Athreya, titled "Economics is Hard. Don’t Let Bloggers Tell You Otherwise." Athreya insists that the models are sound, they're just too complex to be understood except by people who have taken PhD-level economics, and that anyone who hasn't should refrain from judging the field.

So how should we deal with our Catch-22? Well, I don't pretend to have any definitive answers here, but I have a few preliminary thoughts. First, luckily, the Catch-22 isn't quite as stark as I made it sound. For example, you can often find people who are experts in the particular methodology used by a field without actually being a member of the field, so they can be much more unbiased judges of whether that field is applying the methodology soundly. So for example, a foundational principle underlying a lot of empirical social science research is that linear regression is a valid tool for modeling most phenomena. I strongly recommend asking a statistics professor about that. 

I also think there are some general criteria that outsiders can use to evaluate the validity of a technical field, even without “technical scientific expertise” in that field. For example, can the field make testable predictions, and does it have a good track record of predicting things correctly? This seems like a good criterion by which an outsider can judge the field of climate modeling (and "predictions" here includes using your model to predict past data accurately). I don't need to know how the insanely-complicated models work to know that successful prediction is a good sign. And there are other more field-specific criteria outsiders can often use. For example, I've barely studied postmodernism at all, but I don't have to know much about the field to recognize that the fact that they borrow concepts from complex disciplines which they themselves haven't studied is a red flag.

Again, let me be clear that my point is not that I’m skeptical of anthropogenic climate change. My point is that I don't think it's as simple as saying that skeptics should automatically accept the expert consensus in fields in which they have no technical expertise. I think we can, and indeed we should, pass judgment on fields we're not experts in. The tricky part is just figuring out what criteria to judge them by.

Massimo's Picks

* My TAM talk is available at PlatoFootnote.org, just scroll down to the first link of the second group.

* Here is a picture you don't see every day (also from TAM)...

* Video of my talk about Nonsense on Stilts at the New York Society for Ethical Culture.

* It's official: the Governor of Arizona is a nut job! (Or she is a lier.)

* The increasingly notoriously fluffy HuffPost (I mean, Deepak Chopra is a regular contributor) now even publishes pieces that blame nazism on Darwin.

* A priest molesting women (instead of young boys) is considered "refreshing" by right wing commentator.

* As it turns out, exercise really is good for your brain, science says so!

* Is freedom of the press an unqualified good? (Hint: nope.)

* You may not recall this, but back in 1962 the US was actually crazy enough to detonate atomic bombs in space. Among other objectives, to see whether it would disrupt the Van Allen belts!

* Are philosophers hopelessly lost in the clouds, and can we have a dinner party about it?

* And speaking of philosophers: what are they qualified to talk about anyhow?

Michael's Picks

* Austin Dacey asks: are Western atheists willing to give up the pure peace of opposition to God for solidarity with religious minorities?

* A U.S. judge in Boston has ruled, in two separate decisions, that a federal gay marriage ban is unconstitutional.

* The Huffington Post has always been known for pushing pseudoscience. But publishing an essay from a creationist linking Darwin to eugenics and Hitler, and editing out criticism of their choice to publish such an essay, seems an even worse offense.

* A long but good feature piece in The New Yorker magazine on Mike Huckabee, with some interesting insight into his religious background and beliefs.

* A short piece I wrote on my Center for Inquiry blog about the appeal to common practice fallacy, specifically in regard to the compatibility of science and religion.

* Fetuses cannot feel pain before 24 weeks, according to a major review of scientific evidence by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

* And yet, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's Republican opponent, Sharron Angle, opposes abortion in cases of rape and incest because "God has a plan." She even argues such pregnancies give women the chance to make lemonade from lemons.

* Speaking of abortion, NPR has an interesting story on how the focus of the debate is shifting from women to the fetus. Unfortunately, this is largely the result of efforts by religious fundamentalists to limit abortion rights, not secularists trying to clear up murky debate.

* President Obama has some harsh words for Republicans on the issue of the economy.

* Was just given the heads up about an interesting new book: "The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse" by Steven D. Smith of the University of San Diego School of Law.

Spiritual but not religious

I am not a religious person, and I'm most certainly not spiritual either. Both of these statements get me into trouble in polite society, especially when they are coupled. Apparently I'm not the only one, as anybody who has used an online dating service will readily testify. Typically, these web sites allow you to specify your religious beliefs (and to express a preference for the religious beliefs of your prospective dates). Try simply checking the "atheist" box (if there actually is one), and you'll be waiting a long time for your matches. But if you describe yourself as "spiritual but not religious" your chances are markedly improved (though the problem now is that you'll see a lot of new agey types showing up in your inbox). Why?

Despite the fact that more and more people are comfortable "coming out" as atheists, the word is still very much associated with being immoral, or at the very least amoral. This, of course, despite the fact that there is neither logical nor empirical reason to draw that conclusion. Ever since Plato's Euthyphro dialogue, philosophers have agreed that gods are simply irrelevant to morality, regardless of whether they exist or not. And of course modern sociological research shows that atheists are just as moral as religious believers. Still, the stigma persists.

Enter the word "spiritual," which is becoming synonymous with retaining all that is good in a religious person, without the religion. It seems that in many people's conception if you really can't be religious, at least you should try to be spiritual. If you are not, then you must be a damned selfish materialist, an implicit admission that is not likely to get you many dates on Match.com.

But what, exactly, does it mean to be "spiritual but not religious," or for that matter, just plain spiritual? One interpretation, of course, can be arrived at by taking the word literally: if you are spiritual you believe in spirits (not of the alcohol-laden type). In some sense, this must be right, as spiritual people seem to be averse to the idea that matter and energy are all there is to the universe (hence, the above mentioned cavalcade of new agers likely to populate your inbox). But if that is the case, it is not at all clear why holding such (entirely unfounded) beliefs should translate into someone being a better, more moral (and hence more datable) person. Being spiritual in this sense seems to me simply indicative of a slightly, if often benignly, deluded mind, not one with whom I would really enjoy associating for long periods of time.

A second possibility is that spiritual is meant to indicate someone who devotes part of her time and energy to cultivate her "spirit," as opposed to just being concerned with "material" things. But I'm not a dualist (another mild type of delusion), I don't think of my life as a dichotomous enterprise in the course of which I have to provide material/energy food for my stomach to process, as well as an entirely different kind of nourishment for my "spirit." My mind, whatever the detailed explanation of how it works, is a product of my brain, and the two simply can't be disconnected, upon penalty of the first one simply ceasing to exist.

Which brings me to the third interpretation of the word spiritual: someone who takes care of cultivating and reflecting on his ethics, of behaving justly and compassionately toward his fellow human beings, and of nurturing his aesthetic sense through arts and letters. Okay, by that definition, I am spiritual but not religious. But so is any human being who is not a psychopath. Yes, some people are more reflective than others, some more compassionate, some more inclined to read literature and go to art museums or concerts (the latter activities also of course greatly depending on one's means and education, not just his natural propensities). But I submit that to do the above is part and parcel of what it means to be human. As Odysseus famously puts it in Dante's Inferno, "Fatti non foste per viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza" (We were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge).

I suggest, therefore, that we reclaim the basic notion that a compassionate, ethical, and interesting human being doesn't need to be either religious or spiritual. He just needs to be human. Do we have a word to suggest to Match.com and similar services to add to their list of possibilities? Yup: humanist, as in someone who is trying to live up to the best of what humanity can be. Now, wouldn't that person make for an interesting date?

Liberal Democracy’s Constant Tension: The Openness of Debate

During debate over the recent health insurance reform that eventually passed both chambers of Congress, and was signed into law by President Barack Obama, minority Republicans often charged that Obama and the majority Democrats were “ramming” the legislation down the throats of Americans.

Republicans buttressed such rhetoric by arguing that most Americans did not support the legislation, and therefore its passage – and, to some degree, the Democrats' use of the reconciliation procedure, which would require only 51 votes instead of 60 to pass the bill – was undemocratic. Polling data and common sense – the Republican argument seems rather disingenuous considering their past use and support of such measures – makes this claim dubious. However, it feeds into a broader Republican charge, that Democrats were not opening debate fully to the views of the rest of America, who wanted different or no reform. Democrats, said the Republicans, were dogmatically adhering to their plan without listening to others (1).

Yet this line of thinking is odd if one considers that many liberals were actually enraged with Obama and leading Democratic lawmakers not for trying to "ram" through the bill, but for courting Republican ideas on the matter. This situation provides a shining example of a constant tension faced by the citizens of a liberal democracy (2). Why were liberals, torchbearers of the idea that any decent society allows open debate and unfettered inquiry, calling for a limit to debate? Isn’t that rather un-liberal of them?

These questions essentially get at the issue of openness of debate. Openness includes at least two aspects, which are inevitably closely related, indeed hard to separate: who (or, whose ideas) can enter the debate; and how long should debate last before it ends (and people move to the next topic, or act on conclusions from the past debate).

The first issue would seem an easy one: no person, nor any person’s ideas, can be barred from debate. Indeed, Republicans might have referenced such a passage as the following from John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, which is a cornerstone work of the modern liberal society: “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. … To refuse a hearing to an opinion, because they are sure that it is false, is to assume that their certainty is the same thing as absolutely certainty. All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility. …” (Mill, 23, 28). Indeed, Mill went on to write that even the Roman Catholic Church hears a "devil's advocate" during the canonization process of a saint. As Mill wrote: “Mankind ought to have a rational assurance that all objections have been satisfactorily answered, and how are they to be answered if that which requires to be answered is not spoken? Or, how can the answer be known to be satisfactory, if the objectors have no opportunity of showing that it is unsatisfactory?” (Mill, 45). The point is that debate is the healthiest possible thing for ideas, or more specifically here, legislation, especially if those ideas or laws will so heavily impact society. Everyone's opinion should, at the least, be heard before being dismissed.

But there is an important difference to parsed here. It is one of allowing people to enter debate – an essential part of a liberal democracy – and actually courting people to a debate. For instance, as mentioned, Obama was continually criticized by people on the left side of the political aisle for trying to include Republicans in the health insurance reform discussion. It would have been one thing for Republicans to put their arguments out there for the public to consume, as they would normally do, and did. But it is another for Obama to patiently ask for and await Republicans’ opinions, especially given the recent Republican penchant during the debate to, well, provide few constructive opinions.

One argument in support of Obama’s constant attempt to cross the political aisle is that, at the least, he gave the appearance of trying to work together. Americans would see this, notice that Republicans were merely being obstructionists, and support the Democrats. Others would counter that Obama and the Democrats were given something of a mandate when Americans gave them power over the presidency, Senate, and House. And so, any attempt to court Republicans was a waste of time – Americans told lawmakers what they wanted, and they wanted it done. In a sense, then, the Democrats in power did not gain support, but lost it, because they disappointed those who voted them in to pass the legislation. To be sure, one other legitimate argument liberals made against Obama and the Dems was about how quickly they folded on the public option.

So, how long should political liberals have let debate last? Here we reach another issue to parse, that of dividing the spheres of discourse of politics and society.

The political sphere includes lawmakers, who have their name for a reason: they make laws. They cannot sit around and debate endlessly. They must, at some point, push legislation through (which is at the center of the debate over filibuster reform). Republicans who opposed the passage of health care insurance reform on the basis of debate being too limited then might take note of another passage from Mill: “It is the duty of governments, and of individuals, to form the truest opinions they can; to form them carefully, and never impose them on others unless they are quite sure of being right. But when they are sure … it is not conscientiousness but cowardice to shrink from acting on their opinions. ... Men, and governments, must act to the best of their ability. There is no such thing as absolute certainty, but there is assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life." (Mill, 25-26, emphasis added). So, Obama and Democratic lawmakers should have gone to every length imaginable to ensure their ideas, their legislation, was sound, and all objections had been heard. But it would seem they did. The health care debate started when Obama took office in January 2009, and the bill wasn’t finally handed to him until March 2010. One could even argue that the debate over health care reform has been actually ongoing for decades, making passage of reform (assuming it is of quality) all the more necessary.

Yet our division of spheres of discourse means passage of a bill – or even defeat – does not mark the end of debate. Indeed, many Americans continued to discuss the merits of the legislation, with some even filing lawsuits arguing it was unconstitutional (I think these stand little chance of going anywhere). American society at large can and will continue to have the conversation about health insurance reform. Then, in the next election, they will bring their beliefs to the polls. They will expect those voted in to act. And then, the conversation will continue. Politics is a continuous process. By dividing up spheres of discourse into political and societal, we see that debate never really ends – it’s just that sometimes lawmakers need to get on with their job, and leave debate to the public.

Notes:

1. Of course, many Republicans rejected the legislation purely on intrinsic grounds. Perhaps even all of them did, you might argue. But they still complained often about the Democrats' monopoly of what went into the bill, which strikes one as somewhat odd considering that 161 Republican amendments were added to the legislation.

2. "Liberals" here refers to the political group of Democrats and other left-leaning people, whereas the term "liberal democracy" refers more broadly to our system of governance and its foundational ideas of liberty, free speech, free conscience, representation, and more.

Podcast Teaser: Jennifer Michael Hecht

One of the upcoming episodes of the Rationally Speaking podcast will feature author Jennifer Michael Hecht, a historian, philosopher and poet (yes, poet), who teaches at the New School in New York City. Jennifer is the author of Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson and of The Happiness Myth: The Historical Antidote to What Isn't Working Today, among other books.

I have read both of these, and I must say that they provide thoughtful readers with a lot to ponder. In the first one, Jennifer guides you through a breathtaking tour of skepticism in the broad sense of the term. Her history spans across millennia, but also extends far beyond western societies, with chapters on Buddha, Zen, Medieval thinkers, and ancient Judaism. But in what sense, exactly, is a scholar of the Torah, for instance, a skeptic? What is the relationship between skepticism and religious belief? If the latter is simply a particular type of superstition, isn’t a religious skeptic an oxymoron?

The Happiness Myth is another example of Jennifer’s iconoclasm, showing how the very concept of happiness has changed dramatically both in time and across cultures, to the point that it may make little sense to simply ask “are you happy”? There are chapters on drugs, money, our ever changing and complex relationship to our bodies, as well as on the importance of celebrations. Some parts of the book are skeptical, perhaps overly so, of the findings of science (for instance concerning eating and exercise habits), but again Jennifer manages to provide much material for reflection to her readers.

We are very much looking forward to chatting with Jennifer Michael Hecht, and we welcome your comments and questions concerning her writings, including of course her poetry.