Happy Carl Sagan Day

"For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring."
Carl Sagan

Conflicts

Many years ago I played saxophone in my middle school band. I wasn’t very good at all. Typically I was either 3rd or 4th chair. That depended entirely on how many saxophones there were that semester, 3 or 4. In band if you wanted a promotion to a higher chair you had to “challenge” the chair in front of you. Friday’s were challenge days. We would go around the band and listen to each challenge. Typically the 2 players would each play the same piece and they were judged by the band director. If that challenger played it better they advanced to that chair. Sometimes challenges would be issued to show an expertise in a specific technique. I remember challenges issues entirely on breathing at the correct spots in a piece.

I will always remember one particular challenge. I was in the flute section. Our band director had been working with us on keeping our fingers close to the keys; basically not wasting energy and time by completely straightening your fingers when a smaller motion will get the job done. So the 3rd chair recognizes that she had an advantage in this area and challenges the 2nd chair to a piece. Here’s where it got interesting. She challenged him based on two criteria, accuracy and keeping fingers on the keys. Both musicians played the piece and then the director had to make a decision. The 3rd chair flutist clearly had mastered the concept of keeping her fingers near the keys. However the 2nd chair played the piece with more accuracy. So what do you do? Which of the 2 challenge criteria trumps the other? Without any ground rules in place before the challenge he decided that a tie meant no change in the positions.

No you’ve probably already realized that this post isn’t really about who sits where in a middle school band class. At our company we have a long standing safety creed. Until a few years ago it read,
“No job is so important and no service is so urgent that we can not take time to perform our work safely."
I have no problem with that at all. It’s simple and to the point. When I would get spot checked while on site my supervisor would ask me what it meant in my own words. I would typically say something like, “It’s just your phone or your internet. Nobody should have to get hurt to make this work.”
Well a few years ago we were bought out by a larger company. And that company made a slight change to the safety creed. It now reads,
“No job is so important and no service is so urgent that we can not take time to perform our work safely and in an environmentally responsible manner."
Hmmm. Now like our band director I am presented with a possible conflict. I have no problem with either of the goals expressed in this creed as long as they don’t conflict with each other. But what about when they do conflict? I can think of several cases where the most environmentally responsible thing to do would not be the safest thing to do in the short term. What if a coworker is being attacked by a Canada Goose? Whose side do I take? The coworker’s or the threatened migratory bird? While I have no criticism of either goal, I just think that bringing up environmental issues in the context of a safety creed waters down the creed and could actually make a situation more dangerous.
Now on to other issues. How many times do we find ourselves in situations like this? Do I swerve to miss the animal in the road and endanger my passengers in the process? Or make a professional decision without considering the family? I guess my only point is that you need to be clear which goal would trump the other before you get into that situation.

Different Monitors

I’ve been looking at buying a flat panel monitor for my wife’s computer. I had a friend of mine email me a link to the monitor he has. In the email he was bragging about the color definition on his monitor. I looked at the monitor online and then, with tongue firmly planted in my cheek, responded, “The color definition doesn’t look any better than my monitor.” He laughed and thought it was pretty funny and then suggested we head over to a computer store and look at one in real life.

The incident reminded me of the TV commercials where you’d see a whole bank of other TV’s and you get to compare the picture quality. As a kid I remember remarking to my dad about how stupid those ads were. We never even had a color TV so I got a kick out of a Magnavox commercial showing a bunch of color TVs and I only saw 6 relatively identical black and white images. Today it’s the same thing. You can brag about your 1080P HD images all you want. Showing me a picture of it is not going to convince me unless I already have a 1080P HD TV. And in that case I don’t need the advertisement.

Well y’all know how I think. I couldn’t help but take this experience and extrapolate it out to other aspects of life. How often do we try to relate to somebody else and not take into account how they would see it? Each of us has certain filters that we view the world through. Expose somebody to a new idea and they are going to experience it differently than we are based on those filters. Suppose a friend were confined to a wheelchair. She would likely see a youtube video of a rock climber with a whole different attitude than I would. It would remind me to get off my butt and work out a little bit more, but it may bring nothing but discouragement to her.

I see this same thing come up all the time in discussions. Take the topic of climate change. Many people are only looking through the filter of politics. And it is a very political issue. I have many friends who refuse to accept the science behind climate change because they are afraid of what the political ramifications might be, higher taxes, increased cooperation with other countries, etc, etc. All of these are honest political concerns and there is nothing wrong with debating them. When I put on my political filter I see much the same image that they do. But if we could look at it with another monitor, if we could set the political filters aside and look at the science alone, ignoring the politics for now, I think it’s much easier to see the real image.

Lately there has been a lot of press about some remarks that were made by an LDS general authority at last week’s General Conference. I think we have the same thing going on to a great extent with this issue too. Those in the gay community have their filter that they are looking through and the faithful members of the church and church leaders are looking through another. Both sides seem to be talking about the same event yet they each see it in completely different colors. I have my own opinions about this issue too. But I recognize that my perspective may not be any better than the others.

It’s all too easy to jump to conclusions based on just our perspective. I’m not going to completely dismiss purchasing the monitor that my friend sent me until I check it out in person. Similarly I try not to completely dismiss anyone’s opinion or idea until I’ve at least attempted to view it through the same filters that they have. Now I still may not buy the new monitor or accept the other opinion. But at least I have made a solid attempt to view it in the most realistic way before I dismiss it or accept it.

Qualifiers

I had an interesting discussion with a coworker last week. He had just driven back from out west and was relating his trip details to a few of us. Having driven across the country more times than I can count I threw my two cents into the conversation. I was curious as to which route he had taken. It turns out that he had taken one of the same stretches of road that I always take. He commented on how much he liked the road and I remarked about how annoying the road is.
Hwy-78 from Birmingham to Memphis will someday be incorporated into the interstate system. But currently the road is incomplete. The divided hwy part of it starts about 12 miles north of Birmingham and ends a few miles south of Memphis. Consequently if you hit either section at rush hour it can be miserable. Even if you miss rush hour your average speed is severally limited due to the miles of traffic lights.
Well this coworker commented that he just loved the road and I said it was moderately annoying because of the incomplete sections.

Him, “I just drove it yesterday. They’ve completed it.”

Me, “Well they must have completed it since I drove it in July”

Him, “It’s complete all the way except for those 12 miles in Birmingham and a few miles in Memphis.”

At this point he threw his elbows back and was waiting for me to respond.

Me, “I don’t know what else to say. You’ve just completely conceded my only point and you act like we still have something to disagree over.”

This was just a recent dramatic example, but I see people attaching qualifiers to statements and not realizing that the qualifier removes most if not all of the original meaning from the statement. A generic example would be something like, “All psychic predictions come true except those that don’t.” Okay? The statement would seem to be rather powerful, at first. Then the qualifier removed all of the bite. Such was the discussion with my coworker. The road is complete except for the parts that aren't. Once he had qualified the statement to exclude all the annoying parts of hwy-78 we were left with only the nice parts to discuss.

What I find frustrating is that in these types of situations I always feel like the other party walks away feeling like we still have some disagreement when we don’t. In this case we both enjoy the completed sections of hwy-78 and find the traffic lights through both big cities rather annoying.

Puzzles

It’s been a few years since I’ve done a jigsaw puzzle. But last month my youngest asked me to sit down with her and work on a small one that she got for Christmas.

This puzzle was of a horse wearing a Native American blanket. We went through all of the standard techniques for building a puzzle. First I propped up the box lid so we could see the picture that it was supposed to look like when it was finished. Then we proceeded to flip all of the pieces so that the picture side is up and the raw cardboard side was down. Next I started sorting out all of the pieces that had a flat side, assuming that these would be the border pieces. Ideally, in the process we’d find the four corner pieces. Then the two of us started sorting the pieces by color, trying to group the pieces into smaller groups to work on separately; horse, sky, grass, blanket, etc.

Next came the process of assembly. Each of us would pick up a piece and try to see how it fit into other sections that we’d already assembled. I started by looking at the picture and trying to establish the border. I don’t always start with the border but it seemed to work for this puzzle. Sometimes it’s easier to start with a predominant color and try to get it together first and then work in the border later. I don’t really have a preference as to which method I choose. It just depends on the puzzle.

Eventually you’ll end up with a few sections assembled but not linked together. At this point you start looking for pieces that have a little bit of two different things on it, pieces that could conceivably go into more than one pile. The pieces with a little grass and a little bit of horse help tie those together and the pieces with the grass and sky help defiant he horizon. The “ah ha” moments of most puzzles come when you can link two large parts together with just a few small pieces or sometimes with just one. The best pieces are the ones that help tie three different chunks together. Once you’ve linked them you start looking for support pieces that also connect those chucks. Those help reinforce that your linking pieces are correct. Sometimes they disconfirm and force you to look for new ways to link the puzzle together.

At some point it seems you are always stuck with a bunch of pieces of relatively the same color and your only clue as to how they need to be assembled is to look at the shape of the pieces themselves and try to make them work.

Using these methods we were able to assemble this 200 piece puzzle in about 15 or 20 minutes. It struck me that in order to assemble it we had to make several assumptions about the puzzle.

1. The picture on the puzzle is the same as the picture on the box. I’ve put puzzles together without the box just to see how much longer it would take. If I had to guess it’d take at least twice as long. I’ve also participated in a team building exercise where the puzzle was put into the wrong box with a similar but just different enough image n the outside.

2. The pieces only have images on one side and raw cardboard on the other. I have actually done a puzzle that had images on both sides, but the stamping process made for edges that were easy to determine which side of the piece was for image one and which was for image two.

3. Flat edges are for the border. It’d be really sneaky to see a puzzle that had a jagged edge to the image and flat pieces that but up together inside the body of the puzzle.

4. The completed puzzle has no missing pieces in the body. We’ve all been in the situation where we’ve lost one piece and we just don’t feel like we’ve finished it.

5. All of the pieces have to be used. Want to really throw your head for a loop? Throw in a few pieces from another puzzle just to spice things up. I remember doing a puzzle and my grandmother’s house and having exactly that problem. She’d found a few pieces on the floor and just threw them into the first box she found.

I can think of several more assumptions that we make when we try to make sense of the scrambled pieces in front of us. But this will do to start out with.

Lately I've been working on a puzzle that seems to violate all of these assumptions.
No picture on the outside of the box. No raw side to the puzzle and no obvious way to tell one side from the other. Flat edges in the middle and bumpy edges on the edges. A few holes in the main body. A few extra pieces from other puzzles.
And the coup de gras of the whole puzzle is that I have a few large chunks of the puzzle that don’t even attach to each other.

Anyway, that’s my little analogy for today. I think I stopped talking about jigsaw puzzles a few paragraphs ago.

For Good Reason

One of my favorite podcasts lately has been Point of Inquiry. DJ Grothe has great guests and he does a great job of showing multiple different approaches to rational thinking. So it was with mixed emotions that I heard the news that DJ would now be President of the James Randi Education Foundation. I suspected that this would mean fewer episodes of Point of Inquiry.
Well I was pleasantly surprised to see DJ is hosting a new podcast for the JREF called For Good Reason. Check it out. I just finished listening to it and I enjoyed it. This episode had an interview with James Randi about the future of his organization as well as some information about some scams that have hit the news lately. I don’t know if DJ will be able to continue to be able to host both podcasts but I look forward to future episodes.
One small disappointment: In the intro to the podcast there is a segment by Jamie Ian Swiss. It’s brilliant but has a few not safe for work words. I loved the podcast but would have loved it more if I could have been able to recommend to my kids and family members without having to give this caveat. I think many podcasts in this genre disqualify themselves from a large audience, school children, by not exercising a little restraint when it comes to their language.

Rational Quote of the Day

"To find real answers we need to understand the real problems, not sensationalized caricatures of the problems spread on the internet."
Brian Dunning

Brian was specifcally speaking about the internet myth that there is a large island of floating trash in the middle of the Pacific. However I find this advice applies to just about any issue lately. Obama's death panels, global climate change, torture, etc. etc.

More on Confirmation Bias

For a few months I’ve been doing my best to lose a little bit of weight. I’ve basically just been eating smaller potions and walking on my lunch hours. The biggest motivator that I have is that my new office has a small workout room with a scale. I’ve made it a habit of starting the day off by checking my weight and recording it. In order to make sure that my results are meaningful I always measure under the same conditions. It’s always dressed for work at 6:45am and having only had a small breakfast. I even make sure that I don’t have my phone or any change in my pockets to be sure that the results aren’t artificially skewed.

Tuesday I had something to do after work and I didn’t want to show up in my AT&T uniform so I wore a nicer shirt and some different shoes. As I walked to the scale I realized that the results may not be accurate. I didn’t know if my outfit was heavier or lighter than what I usually wear. Just before I stepped on the scale I recognized that I was about to fall victim to my own confirmation bias. If the scale had read a little lighter than the day before I was ready to accept that as evidence of my diet and exercise was working. However, I was also fully ready to accept that if I was a little heavier that it was not my fault, it’s the differences in my wardrobe. As soon as I realized this I refused to step on the scale.

I bring this up again because lately I’ve seen far too many examples of people accepting information that supports their opinions and then wholesale rejecting any evidence that goes against it. Comments on blogs that accuse the blogger of a political bias while ignoring posts on the same blog that are highly critical of the same party. Family members who accept that a quack treatment works based on one example while ignoring the multiple times the same treatment did not make them feel better. Church friends using archaeological evidence to support their belief in the Book of Mormon but refusing to even read counter evidence.

It’s natural to cling to what makes us comfortable. Unfortunately it may not be the best thing to do. You’re not going to get accurate results if you can’t accept all of the evidence. If that’s the attitude that you have when you approach an issue just do as I did. Don’t even step on the scale. Same holds true on any other issue. Be aware of your biases and do your best to make sure they don’t influence your decisions.

Miller gets it Right Again.

Once again Non-Sequitor hits the nail right on the head.

More on Internal Consistency

A few years ago I wrote a post about internal consistency. Even if I disagree with the position stated I tend to take it more seriously if the logic in the argument agrees with itself. One of the examples that I brought up was a talk show host who will grasp at any position that goes against Al Gore’s position on global warming. However, sometimes he defeats his own argument. Will point to a Solar survey that says the Earth is hotter because or changes in the sun. So he admits that it is getting hotter on Earth but shifts the blame to the sun rather than to Human causation. This is a respectable position that many have taken. But to his detriment he goes on to point to colder temperatures on Earth and then suggest that it’s not getting hotter here after all. Although at first glace these claims do both go against Al Gore’s position, they also contradict each other. It’s hard to take them seriously together. It seems obvious to me that the host here was just taking every fact that supported a position other than his opponent’s and assuming that they would, by default, support his position. Or more likely he knew his argument was self contradictory but just hoped that his audience would ignore it.

I had a similar internal consistency issue with a lesson that we had in church last week. All the adults and youth over 12 were called together for a special meeting to discuss internet pornography. I have some issues with the format that was used but none the less I admit it’s an issue that needs to be discussed. Most of the presentation was in the form of an audio file over a PowerPoint presentation. Both were a companion file to a book. The author of the book gives several statistics and then goes into the neuroscience of why teenagers are more prone to have negative effects from pornography. He makes the claim that there are fewer connections in teenage brain between the logical section and the emotional section. Without these connections it’s harder for teenagers to gauge risk and to respond logically to situations. Using neuroscience he very effectively showed how teenage brains can be more adversely affected by pornography than more mature brains.

Up until now his argument has been consistent and rather well thought out. However later on in the presentation he cautions adults from viewing this material too. For the record I don’t condone it either, but this is where his logic goes south and become internally inconsistent. He asked the rhetorically questions, “Why do you think you are any stronger than those teenagers? Do you think your brain is better equipped to handle those images?” To answer his question, I don’t think that. But he does. He effectively explained an hour earlier how a teenage brain is more fragile. By also explaining how the connections between the logic centers and emotional centers are more developed in an adult he made a strong case against his own point that adults should stay away from these images too. He should have just left off the rhetorical challenge and his arguments would have been much stronger. I wish he had gone with a “lead by example” analogy rather than defeat the initial point. I think that this author just knew his audience and felt that most would take any argument against pornography as valid and was counting on them not connecting the dots to see if the arguments were consistent. For the most part I’m sure that is exactly what happened. But he’d have gained more points with at least one audience member if his arguments had all been internally consistent.

Note:

As always when I criticize someone’s logic I run the risk of coming across as a supporter of what they were arguing against. Nothing in this post should be construed as condoning the viewing of pornography in any form by adults or teenagers.

Why We Make Mistakes

For years I've been fascinated with the concept of human decision making. I've enjoyed reading books that explore this concept. I'm also intrigued about the strategies that people use to justify their mistakes and the cognitive dissonance required to make your actual decisions jive with what you know is right.
Why We Make Mistakes: How We Look Without Seeing, Forget Things in Seconds, and Are All Pretty Sure We Are Way Above Average by Joseph Hallinan is my latest read on this subject. In the opening chapter of the book Hallinan describes a commercial airliner simply flying into the ground because they got too hung up on a small light that was burned out ans ignored the fact that the plane was slowly loosing altitude. I felt that this one simple metaphor described the rest of the book. We do lose focus of the things that are truly important. And all too frequently our focus was shifted by relatively trivial details.
Hallinan skillfully points out how uncommon common sense really is. But rather than just blame the decision maker he talks about how we can put ourselves into positions that will help to make better decisions. sometimes it takes a design difference so that, for instance, clockwise is off on all the knobs. Things like always putting the hot on the left and the cold on the right, etc. Sure it sounds like a simple design issue but he gave some frightening mortality statistic from an anesthesia machine that was clockwise for off on on drug and counter-clockwise for another.
Hallinan compared the airline industry to operating room. In the past few decades accident rates in the airline industry have dramatically dropped and there has been an increase in the operating rooms. Hallinan points to the main cause of this as the changes that have been made to the authority system in on and not in the other.
In the airline industry anybody the cockpit is virtually free of authority struggles. Many decisions are not based on rank or position. A 20 year old air traffic controller tells the pilot where to land and the pilot obeys and doesn't pretend that he knows better just because she's been doing flying since the controller was a kid. In the cockpit as well the co-pilot and even attendants are valuable resources and their input is encouraged.
Conversely, this authority system seems to be trending the other direction in the operating room. Doctors all too frequently are seen as unquestionable. Even in situations where nurses have spoken up to prevent the error Hallinan sights instances of flipped x-rays and the wrong limb being removed.
A few years ago my youngest daughter had to have a tooth pulled. We went to see the specialist with the x-ray from our dentist. She'd taken a fall on the driveway and one of her teeth was a starting to go gray. The x-ray seemed to confirm that the root on the graying tooth was dying. When we went to get her tooth pulled the nurse questioned the x-rays. She thought we we looking at it backwards. The dentist did not question her and called to have another x-ray taken just to be sure. She was absolutely right. In spite of the fact that one tooth was starting to turn gray it was the tooth on the other side that had the dead root. The dentist went ahead and pulled the dying tooth and the gray tooth eventually regained its color. Had that nurse not spoken up and, more importantly, had the dentist not accepted her advice Eve would have had to go back and have the correct tooth pulled later and they'd have had a very upset father on their hands. I'm very grateful to have had a dentist who was willing to admit that he could make mistakes and ultimate prevent them.
I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anybody who is aware that they can make mistakes. I also think it should be force feed to anybody who thinks that they can't.

Trick or Treatment

It's been a while since I've reviewed a book on my blog. Primarily, because I really haven't read much in the last couple months. I have been reading, but most of the books have been on how to play the guitar and not really good subject of book reviews. Victoria checked out a few book that she thought I'd like. Wanting a little break from the guitar, I started reading the first one yesterday.
Trick or Treatment is a very thorough study of several of the more popular trends in alternative medicine. The first chapter is a history of the scientific method and a lesson on how we discover what works and what doesn't. The authors focus on what they refer to as evidence-based medicine. All the anecdotes and sales pitches mean nothing if the treatments don't stand up to rigorous scientific testing. Lets put the superstition, snake oil and wishful thinking aside and focus strictly on the facts.
The remaining chapters of the book deal with the top four of alternative therapies; acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic and herbal remedies. So far I've only read the chapter on acupuncture. But if they handle the other chapters as thoroughly as they did acupuncture I know I will enjoy them.
I was very pleased that the authors did not start out with an agenda. Their only loyalty is to the evidence. Honestly, I was a little surprised that they had anything positive to say about acupuncture at all. After finding no evidence of the alleged mechanism of acupuncture, chi'i, I expected them to just conclude that the entire practice was based on a flawed understanding of human physiology. While they admitted there is no evidence of chi'i and that the very nature of acupuncture negates a true double-blind test they did say that in certain cases it does promote pain relief. Until somebody figures out a way to truly double-blind test acupuncture it may be impossible to tell weather this is a real effect of the treatment or if it is placebo.
I'll give a complete review after I finish the book. In a day and age when Jenny McCarthy is telling us to just trust her "mommy instinct" and not vaccinate our kids it is refreshing to read a book that bases its conclusions on evidence and not just emotion, anecdotal evidence and superstition.

More Non-Sequitor

We live in a world were politicians castigate each other over how long they spent shaking hands at photo ops yet refuse to discuss how they would respond to some of the most important science-based issues to face our world in centuries. Although I'd like to see it, I must agree with Lucy. I don't see much hope for an "Age of Reason". The powers of illogic and irrelevance seem to be out pacing those who base their opinions on logic, facts and evidence.

Logical Fallacies

For about a year now I've been considering the idea of posting a weekly logical fallacy. At first I thought it would just be boring. However some recent events have caused me to realize that the world could use another lesson or two on how logic really works compared to how people think it works.

Circular reasoning
A couple of friends of mine and I were curious as to why so many fleet vehicles are painted white. I speculated that since white paint reflects more light then white cars wouldn't get as hot. A friend of mine countered by claiming that white paint is cheaper. So I asked, "Is white paint really cheaper?" His response, "Of course it is, why else would there be so many white cars out there?" I've never before had such an obvious case of circular reasoning presented to me as if it was logic. In his mind white cars are more abundant because the paint is cheaper and his evidence that the paint is cheaper is because white cars are more abundant. The car's color is proof of cheap paint and cheap paint is proof of the car's color.
In my suggestion I started with an established scientific fact; the color white reflects more light than other colors. Therefore, a white car would not absorb as much heat as a green car.
Granted this is a relatively trivial water cooler conversation but I've seen the same illogic used in much more serious issues. I am all for debating controversial issues. I just think that our justifications should be based on logic and not circular reasoning.

Turning off your brain

Suppose somebody were to ask you an interesting thought provoking question. If you were willing to have an open minded discussion about the issue both sides might learns something and at the very least you could have a stimulating discussion. I enjoy these types of discussions even if we never come to anything that resembles an answer. It's just fun to ponder the things that we don't quite understand.
Now suppose that every time an interesting question was asked you simply redefined the subject as something that does not require and answer. Well there goes any kind of discussion.
Q: What color is that book?
A: That book does not require a color.
Q: How fast is that car?
A: It is, by definition, speedless.
Q: What time is it?
A: Time is irrelevant.
You see what I mean? Granted these are just silly examples, but all to frequently people apply this same linguistically hopscotch to avoid interesting questions. Over the weekend I was mass CC'ed on an email that answered the question, "Who created God?" The answer given: "God does not require a creator." Huh? What kind of an answer is that? It isn't an answer at all. It's simply defining your subject as something that does not require and answer. This isn't a new concept. This is Aristotle's Cosmological argument just put into simpler English and distributed by email rather than toga clad sages.
What bothers me about this type of an argument is the finality of it. There's nothing left to think about. It's over. The discussion has stopped. Just when we get close to an interesting discussion they simply define the argument as out of bounds. Technically this is a form of the special pleading logical fallacy. If you have to make special exceptions to your subject that you wouldn't allow for other subjects, in this case the well establish concept of cause and effect, then your argument is fallacious. I guess I don't fault them too much. Some people are just more comfortable with concrete truths. I'd just rather have an open-minded discussion.

How We Believe

I originally posted this two years ago. Recently my thoughts and opinions on this issue have been called into question. So I'm reposting it.

My review of How We Believe: The Search for God in an Age of Science by Michael Shermer.

One of the deepest and most spiritual books that I have every read.

This book is written from the unique perspective of a born again Christian who loses that faith and becomes the editor of Skeptic magazine. However; unlike many skeptics he has no grudge against religion, he only seeks to understand it. Unlike most scientists and religious faithful he does not try to make one disprove the other. He has found a way that they can both peacefully co-exist.

Shermer describes three different ways that people think that science and religion are related.
First, The belief that science and religion are competitive, that one will disprove the other. I think that most people fall into this category.
Second, The belief that science and religion are harmonious. I think that many LDS members fall into this category. They want to believe that the natural laws and the physical evidence will all somehow support the gospel. James E. Talmadge obvious believed this way. "Within the gospel of Jesus Christ there is room and place for every truth thus far learned by man or yet to be made known."
The problem with both of these views is that they do serious damage to both science and religion. Any attempt to interject faith into science goe s against reason. Conversely trying to discount or prove matters of faith using science is a no win situation. Once something becomes provable then, by definition, it is no longer a matter of faith.
Shermer presents us with a third option. Science and religion exist in completely different spheres. Science exists in the realm of reason and religion exists in the realm of faith. As long as we respect the role that each has to play then there is no conflict and also no need to try to make them harmonize either. "O, ye of little faith. Why do ye need science to prove God? You do not. These scientific proofs of God are not only an insult to science; to those who are deeply religious they are an insult to God."p.123
I believe that for years I have been stuck on the second level but very uncomfortable with the conflict and inconsistencies that I was seeing in trying to make it all work out. This book has inspired me to stop trying and just deal with the fact that they are not even meant to be harmonized.

Expelled

One of the side effects of identifying yourself with a group, any group, is that others in that group will stop thinking of you as an individual. They will assume that you share the views, opinions, and political leanings of the majority of the group. Since my personal views vary so dramatically I don’t seem to really fit into any real group identity. I pride myself in being a free-thinker. I evaluate each idea and opinion based on their individual merits and not who else is behind me. One area that frequently causes me issues is home schooling. We home school our oldest and but the others are doing just fine in public school. At PTA meetings we might hear somebody bad mouth home-schoolers and then have the awkward silence when the find out that that we home school. Or our home-schooler friends will bad mouth public school only to have the awkward silence when they find out that we have two of our kids in public school.
The latest such conflict of ideas happened yesterday over the subject of intelligent design. Many home-schoolers are doing so for religious reasons. They just don’t think that kids are getting enough religion while at school. So it’s not surprising that I received the following email from a home school specific yahoo group.

To: hsconnectgroup; NorthGaHome Educators
Subject: [hsconnect] TAKE ACTION
About the film

WHO Ben Stein, in the new film EXPELLED: No intelligence allowed

WHAT His heroic and at times, shocking journey confronting the world's top scientist, educators and philoshers, regarding the persecution of the many by an elite few.

WHERE Ben travels the world on his quest, and learns an awe-inspiring truth that bewilders him, then angers him and then spurs him to action!

WHY Ben realizes that he has been "Expelled", and that educators and scientist are being ridiculed, denied tenture and even fired for the "crime" of merely believing that there might be evidence of "design" in nature, and that perhaps life is not just the result of accidental, random chance.

To which Ben says: "Enought!" And then gets busy. NOBODY messes with Ben.

Check it out!!
http://www.getexpelled.com/

Take action. Contact this lady to request that the movie be brought to our theatre here in town. If the recieve overwhelming support for the movie we might be able to get it here in town.
http://www.getexpelled.com/


Well I don’t accept the theory of intelligent design. I have no problem with the symbolic language of the Genesis and I accept the Bible as an inspired book to help my faith. However it is not, and was never intended to be a science textbook. When pressed to detail their theory most ID proponents are forced to admit that they really have no theory. All ID amounts to is a criticism of the flaws in evolutionary theory with nothing to replace or answer their own questions. The crux of their argument is to surrender their argument and simply say, “It is this way because God made it this way.”
As I’ve stated before, I agree with Galileo on this one.
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
So I fired off the following reply:

Thank you for copying me on this email. We will not be paying to see
this movie and will not be substituting theology for our children's
science education.
For advanced reviews of his movie and an objective review of the
science, or lack thereof, behind intelligent design theory please visit
http://www.expelledexposed.com/

I encourage my readers, both of you, to check out this site as well. Another poster on a discussion board that I frequent made the following observation and I don’t think I could have said it better, "If they spent half as much time reading about science as they did fearing it they'd know enough to not fear it."

More on Podcasts

My mother-in-law gave me a cool little MP3 player for Christmas. Thank you, Sue. Since I've given up talk radio I've been listening to a lot of books on tape and podcasts for the past year. Without an MP3 player I've just been setting up my laptop at work and listening that way. With my new player however, I can listen much more than I used to. I can take it on my walks on my lunch hour; I can listen in the car; and I don't have to pause it while I walk back and forth to the printer and the break room. You get the idea.
I've found that there are a bunch of books that I can download directly from the library in MP3. That's been a great resource. I recently listened to Thoreau’s Walden. The irony of listening to Walden on an MP3 player while I stare at a drafting program while designing a fiber optic based high speed data circuit for American Express was not lost. It actually helped me stay sane during the process.
There are several weekly podcast that I eagerly await the next episode so I can download and learn more. Lately my new favorite is Astronomy Cast. Each episode is remarkably simple yet very intriguing. It's just the host, Fraser Cain, the publisher of Universe Today talking with an astronomy professor, Dr. Pamela Gay. Fraser typically steers the conversation by asking tough questions and then just let's Pamela give a very thorough answer. I'm sure Fraser actually has much more knowledge on the subject than he let's on to. But he plays the role of an amateur very well. His questions and responses are right in line with what an average college student might ask on each subject. Listening to Astronomy Cast is very much like sitting in an ASTR 101 class and just listening to that one guy who likes to ask all the questions that you'd have asked. I'd recommend it to anyone as a companion to an astronomy class or just if you think astronomy is cool and would like to know a little more. Fraser lives in Canada so it's kinda funny to hear the way he pronounces "about". Being from the South, I'm sure he'd get a kick out of how I pronounce some words too.
SETI has a very interesting podcast that I also enjoy. It's very professionally mixed and edited and has the feel of an PBS documentary. They explore much more than the typical astronomy topics. Many of their episodes detail the scientific method and how we've learned what we know about the universe.
My old standby is The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Dr. Steven Novella hosts a well informed group of "skeptical rouges" on discussions of current events. Whether it's UFOs over Texas, ghosts in gas stations or the latest panic about Autism, I've really grow to trust the fact based, logical advice given on this podcast.
Recently I've also been downloading podcasts that have been reference on NPR. Electrons to Enlightenment explores the intersection of science and theology. It's only a four part series but I'd love to see it expanded into a weekly podcast.
Speaking of Faith is a program that my mother-in-law recommended because of a program they did on Mormonism. I downloaded that episode and several others. I'll review them more in detail after I've listened to a few more episodes.
I'd like to find more podcast out there that explore religion, science and politics as well as the complex interplay of the three. With all of this very intriguing material now filling my MP3 player I don't see how I could ever find the time to listen to the monotony of talk radio again even if I wanted to. Given the choice between learning something new about our universe like how we're finding extra-solar planets or just hearing some pundit recycle Clinton jokes, I don't have to think very long to figure out which would be a better use of my time.

"The Lone Dissenter"

Well at least that's what the AJC is calling me.

First I owe a debt of gratitude to the many friends and family members who provided moral support and advice in the days leading up to this meeting.
Thank you Snowflake for proof-reading my notes and helping me remove the LDS specific references that would have been confusing to a non-LDS audience.
Most importantly, thank you Victoria for talking me into going in the first place and then attending with me. Because of you I never really felt like a "lone dissenter". The more nervous I became the more convinced I became that this was the right thing to do.

Here are few links to news clips and articles about the Library board meeting.

Atlanta Journal and Constitution

CBS 46 video

Gwinnett Daily Post

And here are my notes from my presentation:

I’d like to start by thanking the Library Board for this opportunity to speak.

Thank you.

In response to the fervor around this issue I asked the board for a chance to publicly state that I agree with the current policy on internet use at the public libraries

I realize that there are many people in attendance today who will not understand my position. I hope that I will be able to convince you that I agree with the moral values you are trying to teach. I simply disagree with your strategy and ultimately whose job it is to teach them.

I have been a patron of the Gwinnett County library system for over 30 years. I have many memories of riding my bike to visit the library when it was in the basement suite at the intersection of Five-forks and Rockbridge. Now, my family of six uses your library system pretty much daily. I am also a Boy Scout scoutmaster over a small troop that meets at a church that is less than one mile from a library branch. I serve in a leadership position over the youth at the same church. I personally find pornography repugnant and degrading to both men and women. I have a real vested interest in the morality of our society and am working hard to teach all those in my charge the value of making correct choices.

With these credentials you may find it surprising that I support the current internet use policy. The truth is I get very scared when any one group tries to decide what is moral and correct for somebody else.
I respect your use of internet filters that would prohibit illegal images to be displayed. However, the stated goal of my opposition today is to restrict the legal access by adults to images that they find objectionable.

This is where I draw the line. When it comes to legal websites that may simply contain material that may be objectionable to someone else, I could give you a long list of images that I personally find to be objectionable but I do not expect the library to restrict access to this legal information simply because I object to it.

On the other hand in the past year I have read many books and accessed websites about the evils of polygamy. I have recently read a book which details the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. I like to read information on both sides of an issue before I form an opinion. As such I have even accessed material that is very critical of mainstream Christianity. I am sure much of this material would be very objectionable and possibly even considered pornographic to someone who was just looking over my shoulder while walking around the library.

If taken out of context by a passerby I can think of many situations that could be described as vulgar or pornographic but taken in context are far from it.

A medical student viewing an anatomy website.

A criminal justice student looking at crime scene photos.

A nervous mother-to-be viewing images of child-birth.

A teenager viewing a youtube.com video about how to protect herself from date-rape.

A mother looking for more information about a surgery that her child is about to undergo.

A woman afraid she might have breast cancer viewing a site with details on how to give a self examination.

My church preaches modesty in dress and as such we discourage two piece bathing suits and any outfit that shows any part of a woman’s torso. As such will any image that includes a belly button be filtered?

The Amish, Mennonites and some other Christian denominations take this morality a little bit further and find exposed human skin on the arms and legs to be offensive and immoral. Are we going to protect our Amish library visitors from being offended?

Some cultures require even more covering for their women that the Amish. Some find any visible female skin to be offensive. I have sat next to library patrons several times who were wearing full burkas. Should we filter based on their morality?

The dilemma here is that if we allow legal images to be restricted based on morality, then whose morality do we use? There is no way that the library can be expected to shield other patrons from accidentally viewing material that anybody may find objectionable.

My family already has filters in place to protect our children. Those filters are my wife and myself. We have educated our children as to what behavior is acceptable and what books and websites we will not allow to be viewed. They know that if someone else is involved in behavior that we find immoral that they are to walk away and not participate. The images that I described above are already available in countless books in the library system and every single day, during warm weather, my son has to walk into the library and see girls that he believes are immodestly dressed.

The library system is not a baby-sitting service and the librarians are not our children’s nannies. Get involved in their lives. Attend the library yourself. Help them select the books and websites that they choose to read. If they are old enough to leave them unattended show up early to pick them up periodically and see what they have been doing. In short, let’s do our job as parents. Let’s not surrender our parental responsibility to a software package, the librarians and the county government.

This is where I ran out of time but I felt it was just a good a way to end as any so I simply said thank you and sat down.

These are the few paragraphs that I had to leave out:

Just this week my wife and I found out that a popular, award winning children’s book had themes that we disagree with. We will not allow our children to read that material and we have educated them as to why so in the future they will be able to make that decision for themselves. As offensive as this particular book is I am sure that there is not a single software package out there that could make this decision for us. No filtering software can protect my family from immorality. That’s why I am acting as that filter and I am teaching my children to filter themselves based on our own morality and not someone else’s arbitrarily assigned values.

Please continue to allow me to be in control of what I decide to view while using library resources. Our country’s founders would be proud that you have chosen to stand up for the first amendment and refuse to censor this media.

I believe that our freedom of choice is a sacred trust that was given to me by my God. I honor Him by choosing as He would wish, not by restricting the ability of others to choose good over evil.

Thank you.

My only fear during this whole process was that in standing up for freedom of choice and parental responsibility that people would think that I was advocating pornography.

Nonsense Intollerance

As you’ve probably noticed I don’t have much tolerance when people take superstition and try to masquerade it as science. I read a lot of science and skepticism books, websites and blogs on a daily basis. I subscribe to many email newsletters from science organizations and I also listen to a several blogs a week on different aspects of science, religion and philosophy. Science, religion and even mythology all have useful places in our culture, but I find it very sad that so many people are so negative about science.
On a very personal note: I strive to stay up to date on the latest news, information and potential breakthroughs in the study of Autism. My brother-in-law has autism. Even before Victoria and I were married I have accepted the fact that at some point in my life I would likely be Denny’s primary care-giver. With this in mind I get a serious bee in my bonnet when I hear some of the superstition and nonsense get gets throw around as helpful advice for dealing with autism.
Recently Jenny McCarthy has been promoting here new book about her life since she found out her son was autistic. For years a preservative called thimerosal was used in vaccines. Some believe that this preservative causes autism because it contains mercury. No proof of this has every been found. McCarthy claims to have witnessed her son transform from normal to autistic right in front of her eyes after he was given a vaccine. The real kicker here is that there wasn’t even any thimerosal in the vaccine he received. She also likes to tout the fact that she trusts her “mommy instinct” more than she does the scientist and doctors. Let’s see, on one side we have thousands of doctors and scientist who have been objectively studying this issue and on the other side we have a Playboy centerfold and her mommy instinct. Hmm… I have nothing but sympathy for what McCarthy must be going though. I applaud her efforts to use her celebrity to bring this issue into sharper focus for parents and family members who are dealing with this disease. Her cart just seems to have derailed from reality and she is now using emotion to justify and add legitimacy to her unfounded superstitions.
Even big named famous doctors are not immune to falling victim to nonsense. Last week CNN medical stud Sanjay Gupta posted a blog about FC, facilitated communication. This is an old practice where a helped will support and autistic person’s hand and “stabilize” his/her jerky motions and allow him/her to type a message on a keyboard. At first this looked like an astounding breakthrough in communication. That is until tests revealed that the IQ of the autistic person with a “facilitator” was remarkably similar to the IQ of the facilitator. Whether deliberately or unintentionally the facilitator is just moving the hand as a pointer just like the old Parker Brother’s Ouija board pointer. In tests of this nonsense they would blindfold all of the participants and suddenly the ability of the “spirit” to locate the letters completely disappeared. I suspect that if a similar, double blind-controlled test were ever to be performed on FC that the results would be strangely similar.
Its not a matter of being closed minded to new ideas. Quite the contrary, I just believe that the more extreme the claim then the more extreme the evidence required to prove it. If FC ever tests successfully I would be the first to go over to Denny’s house to see what he had to say.
Having a facilitator just put on a blindfold seems like a very simple way to provide some measurable data about whether FC is based on the reality or fantasy.

Here’s the link to Sanjay Gupta’s blog.

This is Jenny Mccarthy’s book.