…and this is a 
Liberal baloney
Category: Politics
Posted on: October 15, 2008 12:25 AM, by PZ Myers
OK, this is the kind of thing that just pisses me off: the tendency for some liberals to go off all loopy and credulous. The perfect example is on Salon right now—an article that goes on at ridiculous length about the judgments of a physiognomist, a ditz who derives McCain's economic policy from the shape of his nostrils, and Obama's idealism from the breadth of his forehead. This is insane, and irritating, and stupid.
The one thing I dread with a Democratic victory is the ascendancy of navel-gazing crystal-healing New Age loons, without a shred of critical thinking.
Comments
Posted by: Kobra | October 15, 2008 12:31 AM
I've heard of palm-reading, but holy meatballs this is nuts!
Posted by: Shaden Freud | October 15, 2008 12:33 AM
Single best quote: "...Bill O'Reilly...has 'an extremely large, macho knob.'"
Posted by: Kel | October 15, 2008 12:34 AM
I went to a lecture on Anomalistic Psychology on Monday, and one of the techniques that was brought up was rumpology - the practice of arse-reading. Some of the shit people come up with is absurd, poor old Poe just can't ever keep up.
Posted by: Jeremy | October 15, 2008 12:39 AM
I would love to study rumpology ;)
Posted by: Kobra | October 15, 2008 12:41 AM
#4: You can study my rumpology. ;)
Oh wait, you're a guy. Nevermind.
Posted by: Shaden Freud | October 15, 2008 12:43 AM
#3
With guest lecturer, Sir Mix-a-Lot.
Posted by: archie | October 15, 2008 12:44 AM
Come to the dark side. Neoconservatism is the only viable political recourse for 21st century america, check out Josh Xiong and see what you think:
Joshua Xiong's blog
Posted by: Jason A. | October 15, 2008 12:53 AM
My favorite are the ones who put on a rational, skeptical air, then tell you all about how there just has to be intelligent extraterrestrial life out there and why I'm arrogant for not automatically accepting it, even though there's no evidence for it.
Although the ones who talk about the 'next level of human evolution' as if we're going to jump into untapped psychic powers within a single generation just by meditating are good too.
And it's to the point where you automatically have to be leery of anyone who says the words 'energy' or 'vortex' or 'quantum'.
Cargo-cult science. It's a good term.
Posted by: Sigmund | October 15, 2008 12:53 AM
As McCains new press spokesman says, it's just another example of liberal media bias.
Posted by: Quidam | October 15, 2008 12:55 AM
Really?I'd say he IS a large macho knob.
Posted by: Tabby Lavalamp | October 15, 2008 12:59 AM
Archie wrote:
[blockquote]Neoconservatism is the only viable political recourse for 21st century america[/quote]
Yes, because that's been working well so far.
Oh, how the comments need an eye-rolling emoticon.
Anyway, America, today Canada has tilted (but not fallen) farther to the right. I almost wish McCain will win in November so conservative economics will be even further demonstrated to be the disaster they are.
Posted by: toomanytribbles | October 15, 2008 1:04 AM
'(Wrinkles, says Rosetree, are "God's makeup.")'
snicker.
Posted by: Capital Dan | October 15, 2008 1:08 AM
What happens when a rumpology conference collides with a plumbers' convention?
Posted by: Badger3k | October 15, 2008 1:09 AM
Damn, someone beat me to the O'reilly is a knob. Maybe they should have said "he has an extremely large loofah" instead?
I like this (Ambrose Bierce, the Devil's Dictionary):
PHYSIOGNOMY, n. The art of determining the character of another by
the resemblances and differences between his face and our own, which
is the standard of excellence.
Posted by: Ick of the East | October 15, 2008 1:11 AM
You just can't accept it because you, like most people, only use 10% of your brain power.
Woooooooooo.
Posted by: Aquaria | October 15, 2008 1:12 AM
Single best quote: "...Bill O'Reilly...has 'an extremely large, macho knob.'"
If I hadn't followed the link, that statement would have made me throw up in my mouth. But then the balance of bliss would be knowing that he wouldn't know what to do with it. Anyone every get subjected to one of the sex scenes in his so-called book? Man, was that a hoot. You knew it was some deranged O'Reilly fantasy, because he actually thought that putting a tongue in a vagina would excite a woman. I mean, maybe if you're Gene Simmons and get it...
Um.
Sorry.
Anyway, even Bill's sexual fantasies are laughably inept.
Sad.
So sad.
Posted by: Phoesune | October 15, 2008 1:17 AM
Ok, outside of the obvious lode of crock she's feeding, can I mention some little things about her description...McCain's nose was broken in Nam. His cheeks being full under the cheekbone was a result of the plastic surgery they performed. So basically if what she is saying is true then you can change people's fate by bashing the face in. Plastic Surgeons are the new prophets of science!!
Thank you, you may carry on now...
Posted by: Ghost of Minnesota | October 15, 2008 1:24 AM
I'd rather have navel-gazing crystal-healing New Age loons than Bible-thumping theocracy-loving religious loons. I've never seen a New Ager wish death upon those who don't share their delusions.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck, FCD | October 15, 2008 1:30 AM
GoM,
There is that.
Posted by: SteveC | October 15, 2008 1:32 AM
This is the "problem" with "converting" the religious to atheism. They do not automatically (or in any other way) become smarter in the process.
At the current time, with atheism in the severe minority, it seems fairly obvious (or, even if it doesn't, suppose for the sake of argument that it is the case) that the population of atheists is skewed towards the highly intelligent.
Supposing we were to somehow cnnvince a large majority of people to become atheists. It would no longer be so true that the population of atheists was skewed towards the highly intelligent.
I think most atheists (myself included) who complain about the religiousness of society. and the consequent actions of such a society, are really complaining about a symptom, and were this symptom remedied, would find themselves still complaining. It may (in my opinion) require nearly no intelligence to recognize religion is a pile of crap, and that there are no good arguments at all whatsoever for the existence of any gods, much less the highly specific god of the typical Christian, however, the fact that a one-time believer abandons their beliefs, esp. as it becomes more comfortable to abandon those beliefs, doesn't make them smarter than they were before the abandonment. Converting to atheism doesn't make one less stupid. The stragglers in the conversion to atheism -- atheism b(the lack of belief in deities) being a conclusion which to my mind is blindingly obvious to anyone not utterly retarded -- the stragglers do not gain in intelligence by their eventual capitulation.
The proximal cause of religious difference might be eliminated in a world without religion, but the stupidity at the bottom of it all would remain.
Damn i'm a pessimist tonight.
Oh well.
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 15, 2008 1:34 AM
Steve, is it possible that the phenomenon of credulity you describe might be better accounted for by a failure by society to teach and value (and, in some cases, a failure by society not to outright vilify) critical thinking skills, than by a lack of innate intelligence?
Posted by: SteveC | October 15, 2008 1:39 AM
Azkyroth, I hope you're right.
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | October 15, 2008 1:45 AM
blockquote> Posted by: Ghost of Minnesota | October 15, 2008
I'd rather have navel-gazing crystal-healing New Age loons than Bible-thumping theocracy-loving religious loons. I've never seen a New Ager wish death upon those who don't share their delusions.
You have not looked hard enough. Just look at The Secret. The idea is that "like attracts like". Ask the universe for good stuff and the universe will provide. Conversely, if you are ill, poor, lonely of pretty much any undesirable condition, it is because you thought "bad thoughts". In other words, you deserve all the bad things that happen to you. It is called "stinking thinking".
That sounds about as harsh and unforgiving as any monotheistic religion. I have no more use or love for any "new age" mush as I do any of the Abrahamic religions.
Posted by: Joshu | October 15, 2008 1:46 AM
Would this be a good time to ask about Bill Maher? I've seen it mentioned a couple times around here that he has the unfortunate habit of buying into some form of pseudoscientific nonsense, but I have no idea what that would be. Could somebody fill me in?
Posted by: Tom | October 15, 2008 1:46 AM
Navel-gazing crystal-healing New Age loons really aren't anything to worry about. If they get to be a nuisance, just shove them out of the way. Hard. They're too pacifistic to do anything about it.
Posted by: SteveC | October 15, 2008 1:47 AM
Azkyroth, on second thought though... I know a few people who just aren't very bright. Not to insult those people, they don't pride themselves on being not smart, it is just a statement of a brute fact: they just aren't that smart, and there's no getting around it, though it is through no fault of their own that they are this way.
It is quite clear to me that converting them to atheism would not somehow make them smarter.
Maybe you are arguing that my supposition that the currently rare atheist is not as smart as I suppose, on average, and more closely matches the general population in terms of intelligence.
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | October 15, 2008 1:49 AM
Yikes! I did an incomplete blockquote.
Posted by: Kel | October 15, 2008 1:58 AM
The Newageists have that unfortunate habit of not doing any direct harm, rather they facilitate the spread of misinformation. Talking people out of modern medicine to use their "alternative healing", and getting people to make life decisions based on psychic powers or palm reading. Yep, they do a lot of indirect harm that way. There should be a lesson here about weeding out those of weak minds, but Newageism has the unfortunate quality of attracting otherwise intelligent individuals.
Posted by: John C. Randolph | October 15, 2008 2:02 AM
The one thing I dread with a Democratic victory is the ascendancy of navel-gazing crystal-healing New Age loons, without a shred of critical thinking.
They've certainly done a lot of damage both to the environmental and feminist movements in the last couple of decades.
I've never seen a New Ager wish death upon those who don't share their delusions.
Oh, I certainly have. One of the many drawbacks of inventing a new flavor of mysticism from whole cloth, is that some of its followers will be flat-out nuts, even if its founder isn't.
-jcr
Posted by: felix | October 15, 2008 2:03 AM
#24
Maher has expressed doubts about the sense of mandatory vaccinations, apparently lending some credibility to the (meanwhile proven as unfounded and a media hype) myths about inoculations causing autism. He has however noted the widespread criticism of his statements and has toned down on the topic. I hope he's learning. As far as I'm aware, he hasn't addressed the topic in quite a while (for a tv personality, more than two weeks passes as a while I suppose).
Posted by: Geral | October 15, 2008 2:20 AM
"Rose Rosetree..." Stopped reading.
Posted by: llewelly | October 15, 2008 2:20 AM
For what it's worth, one of the biggest marketers of New Age woo, Utah-based Basic Research (which operates under the names of hundreds of front companies - like 'Zoller Research Labs') is one of the biggest donors to Senator Orrin Hatch, was a big donor to Utah Gov and later Dept of Human Health Services Secretary Mike Leavitt, and to Senator Bennett. Woo isn't particular to Democrats.
Posted by: clinteas | October 15, 2008 2:40 AM
To be quite honest,I dont see the immediate connection between a democratic victory and an
// ascendancy of navel-gazing crystal-healing New Age loons, without a shred of critical thinking.//
Then again,Im not American,so maybe someone from over there can enlighten me.
We probably take less offense towards Newagers because there arent that many around to start with,compared to religious loons,and even the religionists give them a funny look.
They do damage,as Kel mentioned above,just to a lesser extent given their smaller prevalence in the population.
Posted by: Mac'N'Tosh | October 15, 2008 2:45 AM
New age stupidity, yes - but why try to associate it with liberals? As a skeptical liberal, I rather resent this attempted connection between halfwitted flakiness and my political position. Liberals have some things to answer for, but physiognomy isn't one of them.
Posted by: Aquaria | October 15, 2008 2:45 AM
You know, I have my own unverified-by-science observation of a rather curious phenomenon. The deeper the Republicans are in trouble, the more expensive and numerous their USPS mailings become. I get to see this from the vantage of being a wage slave to the USPS.
Until 2006, I had rarely seen much above first class mail. If you were lucky, you got a Business Reply Envelope to send back a contribution. Eh, why spend all that much. The Democrats suck at fundraising, right?
2006, I saw an expensive mailing to the super-rich of certified letters begging for contributions. Meanwhile, the Democrats had figured out how to reach contributors through the Internet, while the Republicans clung to their much-ballyhooed (snort!) mailing lists (Snort!).
In 2008?
You guys wouldn't believe how much Republicans are spending in this campaign trying to bilk little old ladies out of their cat food money.
First there were the pre-paid Priority envelopes mailed to their loyal minions to send back money "quickly." That one's still going on, but it's moved from having McCain as the addressor to, this past week, Palin. Whoever's name is on there, this is a very expensive mailing, probably $4.50 a pop, minimum, even with discount rates.
But what, it gets better. Anyone care to guess what the new McCain addressor mailings contain?
Can we say pre-FedEX EXPRESS (overnight) envelopes? I'm not sure what the Fed Ex discount rates are, but I don't think they're much less than $15 a pop.
This is desperation you could smell, if you cared to get close enough to a Republican for it.
Posted by: Son of a Nonymous | October 15, 2008 2:49 AM
SteveC, you make an interesting argument, though I would call people more irrational than outright dumb. Other than that, yeah, the average atheist is no smarter than the average theist, all things being equal. The problem, however, is that all things are not equal. Atheists tend to advocate a logical, empirical approach to knowledge, analyzing the evidence and coming to reasoned conclusions from that. Religions, by contrast, actually prize the ability to separate oneself from the evidence, following one's beliefs in spite of any evidence to the contrary. They don't advertise it that way, of course, but how else would someone define absolute faith than believing something without need for evidence?
However, this is effective because reason doesn't come naturally to humans, any more than any other animal. Let's face it, when a lion charges a gazelle, stopping to see proof of the lion's malice would quickly get the gazelle eaten. Though humans no longer need this pure "trust what you've been told, even if you don't understand" reaction, old habits die hard, and religion is just another manifestation of that.
The trouble, though, is that since religion is the symptom, not the cause, suddenly removing religion from the world still wouldn't cause people to become more reasonable. This New Age phenomenon is simply another manifestation of the same problem. Or how about that gambler over there? You know, the one who's convinced that this time, he really, really, REALLY has a way to beat the system? It's the same thing. I'll repeat, people are irrational by nature, just like every other creature on this planet. Atheism just attracts we few freaks that managed to beat the evolutionary odds, preferring to think things through logically. As such, we'll always be in the minority.
Posted by: Katkinkake | October 15, 2008 2:56 AM
Everyone wants to get into the act!
Posted by: llewelly | October 15, 2008 3:07 AM
Joshu , #24:
He seems to deny the germ theory of disease.
He's opposed to vaccination. Orac has written on this several times, starting here .
Posted by: Katkinkate | October 15, 2008 3:09 AM
Posted by: Phoesune @ 17
"...McCain's nose was broken in Nam. His cheeks being full under the cheekbone was a result of the plastic surgery they performed. So basically if what she is saying is true then you can change people's fate by bashing the face in. Plastic Surgeons are the new prophets of science!!"
Actually, in Anhk-Morpork you can tell a phrenologist what personality/character traits you want and he will study your skull and then, with a mallett, will hit your head to raise lumps in carefully positioned places to produce the results you want.
Posted by: John C. Randolph | October 15, 2008 3:15 AM
New age stupidity, yes - but why try to associate it with liberals?
Have you ever met a Republican new-ager? In my experience, Republican mystics tend to stick to considerably older franchises, mostly christianity.
-jcr
Posted by: John C. Randolph | October 15, 2008 3:21 AM
religion is the symptom, not the cause,
I agree to an extent, but I've certainly seen some examples of people who had a sudden religious conversion and went off the deep end. A friend of mine has been fighting against the scientologists for many years, and he can cite any number of people who were driven nuts by getting infected with Hubbard's Patented Contagious Insanity.
-jcr
Posted by: Mark Wisniewski | October 15, 2008 3:30 AM
@ #40
Nancy Reagan?
Posted by: Janine ID AKA The Lone Drinker | October 15, 2008 3:34 AM
Astrology has been around much longer then christianity.
Posted by: catta | October 15, 2008 3:35 AM
Welcome to Europe. Okay, maybe I'm overgeneralising a bit here. Still: Every time I hear people in the US say how much they'd like to live in a country not completely dominated by Christianity, this is exactly what I think of. People may not go to church, wait for the rapture and try to cure teh gay all that much. They will insist though, in great numbers, that homeopathy works, Reiki and Acupuncture are 100% scientific, Astrology is truth, dowsing is a legitimate way of detecting water, electricity and nonexistent radiation -- and that fairies/elves/ghosts live at the bottom of their garden/in their basement/next door. This crap isn't any better than organised religion; it encourages magical thinking, is frequently incredibly opposed to science and in some cases kills.
Where the happy-clappy Jesus crowd try to pray away the sickness, these people insist on treating their children for cancer with herbal remedies.
You can't win. The stupid will find an outlet everywhere, even if it takes different forms.
The idea that this is somehow mitigated by atheism doesn't work out either, simply because not all atheists arrive at atheism through reason and logic. Over here, you'll find that once the majority of the population isn't religious, atheism is simply the default status as much as Christianity is in the US. Many, many, many atheists I know haven't actively rejected anything in their life, much less through reasoning.
In other words, SteveC is right in my opinion. At least judging by the New Age BS prevalent in much of Europe.
As to the liberal/conservative connection... I don't think that either is inherently connected with religiosity or superstition. However, if you're conservative you're by definition more likely to adhere to the majority religion. If you have non-majority beliefs of any sorts, you'll define yourself as liberal more easily.
Posted by: AlanWCan | October 15, 2008 3:36 AM
Wow, I see you have met my wife's friends* then... I like your moniker for it: Cargo-cult science. I'll be using that, thanks.*Married to an artist. They're nice people, just a bit ... clueless and credulous.
Posted by: Azkyroth | October 15, 2008 3:57 AM
Liberals are not immune to stupidity, and among liberals, stupidity tends to manifest more in the form of Newagey or "alternative medicine" crap than in the form of Christian Talibanism or Church of Anarchocapitology. It's easy to forget this in fighting the Christian Taliban and CoA.
Posted by: Pelican's Point | October 15, 2008 4:09 AM
Son of a Nonymous said . .
Actually, atheists don't necessarily prefer to think things through logically. Many of us had, if not irrational - then non-rational, emotional reasons for making the decision to be non-believers. I was told once too many times that I could not surf a good break on Sunday AM but must attend church instead. That set up a resentment which I honored as soon as I could. By that time the "rationalist" arguments against religion seemed to make so much sense - and I got to think I was smarter than all those religious dupes too.
My point is that one always makes such important decisions for emotional reasons (i.e. to feel good) and the logic is applied afterward to justify them. In all cases the logic one applies will miraculously be successful for justifying that choice. In some cases it can also be valid.
Posted by: johannes | October 15, 2008 4:18 AM
> I've never seen a New Ager wish death upon
> those who don't share their delusions.
# 18,
I have, and it actually did work. Almost. The person who was the "victim" of the spell did not die, but her boyfriend committed suicide (he had been depressive for years). If a person is VERY stupid and/or deluded, the principle of contingency is actually an improvement. I think this is the foundation of magical thinking.
Posted by: tristero | October 15, 2008 4:53 AM
This has nothing to do with liberalism, of course. It's just a certain kind of stupidity.
As Drs. Watson and Teller demonstrate, even a scientific outlook is no defense against stupidity.
Of course, we musicians are never, ever stupid (grin).
Posted by: Jason A. | October 15, 2008 4:58 AM
AlanWCan #45
Thank Richard Feynman, he coined it in a speech. He talked about how some natives of pacific islands would see westerners build airports and then planes would come and drop off cargo. Not understanding anything beyond the superficiality of this, they created 'cargo-cults' who built fake airports, right down to headsets with bamboo antennas, but planes never came. He coined 'cargo cult science' for those who seek the superficial appearance of science without the substance.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 15, 2008 5:35 AM
I dislike new age stupidity and woo, but unlike with Christian loons, I've yet to see groups of them trying to influence legislation to prevent the rights of others.
Posted by: Peter Vesuwalla | October 15, 2008 5:35 AM
To be honest, I don't care if you yanks put a Montel/Sylvia platform into power. Anything's better than what you've got.
Posted by: Robin | October 15, 2008 5:36 AM
The belief in various pseudosciences is one thing that irritates me about the young leftie scene round here. I think they start from realising that a self-interested political-corporate establishment exists, and that the media are constantly lying to them to protect it, and get from there to seeing anything that seems counter-establishment as being on their side (most of the same crowd are into wacko conspiracy theories too.) They're not all stupid people; I blame a poor science education and too much weed. The irony is that a lot of the pseudoscience they buy into is massively corporate in nature.
Posted by: taiki | October 15, 2008 5:42 AM
I think Al Franken sums it up very nicely, "Progress, not perfection."
It's really one thing to have nuts who believe in derivatives of Phrenology, it's really another to have nuts who outnumber the woowoo crowd on the left. If I have to have a choice between the guy who believes in a young earth, and that God hates gays, or a guy who believes that a national health care system should include homeopathy and chiropractic coverage.
I'll take the leftist. HE BELIEVES WE SHOULD HAVE NATIONALIZED HEALTHCARE. We'll work on the woowoo stuff later.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 15, 2008 5:57 AM
Mormons and Jehowa's witnesses are the two most politically conservative groups in the USA (even more than Evangelicals), yet they do not have majority beliefs.
It's the other way round, it's the particular beliefs and the way they have been imprinted in your youth (and stick or not) that are going to tend to make you more or less conservative.
For instance, if you are absolutely convinced that the most important thing in life is what happens after death, you are generally going to more easily accept inequalities.
If you have received a very patriarchal authoritarian education where you are told not put into question a certain number of unchangeable absolutes, you are much more likely to resist changes of any type.
So, if you accept inequalities of all sorts and reason in terms of unchangeable absolutes, how can you be a liberal, or for social welfare, or for wealth redstribution ?
So it's not a question of majority or non majority, but the specificity of the beliefs, myths and superstitions, and the way they are imprinted in your brain, that are going to drive or mitigate conservatism.
For instance, believing in Homeopathy or Acupuncture is unlikely to have much impact on your political considerations.
But believing that there is a soul in an zygote, life after death, etc... certainly is.
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | October 15, 2008 6:25 AM
Ironically the term was coined by, of all people, Richard Feynman, who I beleive had a pretty good grasp on the meaning of the terms energy, vortex and things quantum.
Posted by: Marc Abian | October 15, 2008 6:26 AM
Catts, maybe because Ireland has a lot of vesitigal christianity, I don't really see many people believing in this new age crap. There are still horoscopes in the newpapers though.
Posted by: BobC | October 15, 2008 6:52 AM
Some liberals are loony, but I have decided to vote for Democrats from now on. Today's Republicans are more interested in making America a theocracy than anything else.
Some great news: Poll Says Attacks Backfire on McCain
The McCain campaign's recent angry tone and sharply personal attacks on Senator Barack Obama appear to have backfired and tarnished Senator John McCain more than their intended target, the latest New York Times/CBS News poll has found.
Posted by: varlo | October 15, 2008 6:53 AM
You can have your new age nonsense. I will continue to predict the future by casting and reading fingernail clippings.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 15, 2008 7:05 AM
Religions are belief systems, myths, that have evolved over time and have been perfected to serve the interests of the ruling classes. Conservatism, ratonalzation of inequalties and group-think is inherently built in, because that's what has always been preferred by the authorities. How can you rule if the masses don't believe in fixed moral absolutes , don't accept ther condition, and to a certain degree believe that their group is better than the other ?
By far the most effcient and perverse new myth that has served the interests of the ruling classes in the 20th century is not astrolgy, nor accupuncture,nor any other new age stupidity, but the myth of "economic freedom", the belief of yet another fixed moral absolute that free markets and competition are good, and government intervention is bad.
It is quite ironic that the most succesful religion of the last century which has served the interests of the ruling classes has been that the ruling classes should not rule.
Posted by: heddle | October 15, 2008 7:51 AM
Son of a Nonymous, #36
Absolutely. And this scientific, rational, intellectual, evidentiary, non-presuppositional, "just the facts ma'am" approach is why atheists come to agreement on the ethics of animal experimentation, gun control, the sensibility of libertarianism, the empirical demonstrability of eastern mysticism, the justness of the Iraq war, the validity of germ theory...
Posted by: SEF | October 15, 2008 7:58 AM
@ Azkyroth #21:
Where's your evidence that teaching critical thinking in theory (including testing under the very leading and enforced context of exams) genuinely leads to people taking on a critical thinking habit in the rest of their life? I know someone else who has unevidenced faith in the power of teaching critical thinking and yet who telling fails to demonstrate in practice the abilities they claim learning about it bestowed upon them, even in a thread partially about critical thinking!I suspect that, like intelligence, critical thinking is much more an innate thing of which some people naturally have more than others. Note that even an intelligent person doesn't always fully apply their intelligence. Similarly, neither does someone who possesses some measure of ability in critical thinking. They are even less likely to habitually think that way if they only have an externalised version of the concept (eg a set of logic rules to obey by rote) rather than an internalised form - exactly as with religious morals!
It would be good if society was at least taught to value critical thinking, along with intelligence and education and rationality, instead of valuing sporting and other physical prowess, ignorance, cheating and rampant emotionality.
Posted by: s1mplex | October 15, 2008 8:16 AM
PZ:
I call Poe.
Posted by: TC | October 15, 2008 8:17 AM
Bad news.
Same-sex marriage ban is now winning in California, 47% to 44%.
Please donate to the NO ON 8 campaign to counter the attacks on California families.
Posted by: SEF | October 15, 2008 8:48 AM
More a realist. Europe already provides the example of a more secular (ie where religious indoctrination is far less guaranteed from birth than in the US) society failing to result in the majority magically being smart enough not to fall for other woo instead (or as well!). Back in the past, when religious indoctrination was the all-pervasive norm, one could be almost certain that every single person who retained or regained their natural atheism did so through their own intelligence, education, rationality and intellectual honesty.The significance of intelligence is that it enables someone to notice for themselves that religions etc are bogus, without having to have someone else point it out.
The significance of education is that it inevitably includes some of the contradictions which would lead people to notice that religions etc are bogus - hence reducing the level of intelligence required to do the same thing on minimal information. So even mediocre people studying theology are at "risk" of becoming atheists as a result.
The significance of rationality is, in one form, being orderly in the application of intelligence to education and not being prone to emotional brain-failures. This allows intelligence and education to work properly. The other version of it, sanity as opposed to insanity, means you aren't swamped by artificial evidence continually arising in your brain which you have to recognise as not being real. Insane people are always going to be at high risk of being religious (and of being preyed upon by the religious).
But the utterly indispensible item is intellectual honesty (or mental hygiene). If you are careful always to check what you know, how you know it and how reliably you know it, then you are less likely to be fooled by other people's falsehoods (or any mistakes your brain makes). If you are scrupulously honest, then you just won't be able to overlook any or all of the numerous contradictions within a religion and between religions (etc) and reality when those arise or are deliberately presented to you. Only dishonest people can be religious. The more religious they are, the more dishonest they are forced to be - lying to themselves as well as to others.
Unfortunately most humans are dishonest (some much more than others of course). Very few are significantly intelligent. Most are disadvantaged by society or so lazy in themselves that they fail to take proper advantage of educational opportunities. Most are emotional rather than rational. Some are even clinically insane but it's quite normal for the brain to make errors anyway (through over-enthusiastic pattern matching and many more side-effects of evolutionary pressures).
So, yes, humanity is largely doomed (to magical thinking)!
Posted by: tsg | October 15, 2008 9:00 AM
You're right! Teach the controversy! Not teaching critical thinking skills might encourage it as well!
Posted by: SEF | October 15, 2008 9:11 AM
There's no point in teaching any such controversy. The only worthwhile approach is to actually test whether or not there's a significant and lasting improvement in the real-world functioning of people exposed to critical thinking teaching. If they don't perform noticeably better than those without it, then it's a waste of money (compared with, say, forcing them to learn what their local religion actually says, ie theology, and how that is already self-contradictory and contradicted by other religions and by reality, eg science, since those things do have some evidence of working on people throughout history).
It's just the same as with the abstinence programme (promise rings, dancing with daddy, religious threats etc etc) vs proper sex education. The former has been shown to be totally ineffective (just as it always was!) and shouldn't be having further money wasted on it, whereas the latter has demonstrated that it's very effective (eg Holland vs fundy USA).
Posted by: chancelikely | October 15, 2008 9:12 AM
I disagree. The ideal of the Christianity I've observed is a child, too credulous and too ignorant to know any better. (Matthew 18:3; probably elsewhere too.) Perhaps it's for easier indoctrination, perhaps it's just a longing for a Golden Age of simplicity that never existed in the first place, but it seems to me that the highest good in Christianity is one who doesn't need the aid of all the anti-rational memetic defenses like "God's wisdom is not our wisdom" in order to stay in the fold.
Posted by: Paul | October 15, 2008 9:25 AM
I don't get the link between Liberal politics and this stuff? What does this have to do with Liberalism? Why do you even mention them together?
It seems to me you are buying into the "Liberal" as a insulting label thing.
From Wikipedia:
"Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal."
I don't see any mention of nostril shapes in their write up? Can some one explain this to me?
Posted by: Patricia | October 15, 2008 9:27 AM
I agree we need to teach critical thinking more but we also need to learn not to be so judgmental and assume we know someone's complete ideology based on one aspect of themselves. This blog was about Rose Rosetree (an alias) and her face-reading. She doesn't talk about healing crystals, she doesn't speak of aliens. She says she is not a scientist, and calls what she does an art. The labeling of art tells me that whatever she says is left for interpretation. Why does that make her a loon?
I like to remain open-minded and read the article with a "what if?" attitude. But than I read comment#17 by Phoesune and realize that's a good point. That was the only comment that made me rethink what Rose had to say, not the insults and condescending remarks.
I have a high respect for science but also hold some beliefs that may not be proven by science, yet, and I'm okay with that. Credulous, so what. I'm happy. Stupid happy? Who cares. But it does not mean I believe in every New Age crap out there.
There are a lot of people just looking for money (The Secret is a joke and I have disdain for Eckhart Tolle and his new world), but I hope because I believe in a little something like the power of the mind I am not grouped into this new age genre.
BTW, I am a regular reader, just lurk mostly.
Posted by: GK4 | October 15, 2008 9:38 AM
Medical quackery and other non-religious woo is certainly not limited to the (mostly liberal) newage movement. Have any of you ever listened to far-right Patriot Movement radio stations? They're all over the shortwave, and it seems that every show is sponsored by someone hawking "miracle cures" and such.
(And I know that the militias and the Bircher types are not run-of-the-mill conservatives, but they are trying to influence their less-insane pals.)
Posted by: Vic | October 15, 2008 9:42 AM
There's nothing inherently liberal about Quacks. Didn't Nancy Reagen regularly consult an astrologist? Then, there's that other huge scam that conservatives are so big on. What's it called again? Oh, yeah, religion.
Posted by: SEF | October 15, 2008 9:47 AM
That's certainly the ideal prey of the religious. However, not all children are equally credulous and it's very hard to keep them so ignorant, while still telling them enough about the religion for them to count as religious in their own right, that they still couldn't know any better if they were honest in their thinking (and capable of thinking at all - ie more intelligence does help considerably to offset ignorance).They do have to be dishonestly complicit in their continuing indoctrination, even if that's at a very minimal level of dishonesty while the information available to them is minimal. There are just so many little clues that religion is false. Eg prayer or similar ritual can be seen not to work, angels etc don't turn up, parents may have lied to them about Santa too and hence shouldn't be considered trustworthy etc etc.
At the extreme, a totally ignorant person, eg a baby, is not religious. They have to be informed of the religion in some measure of detail before they can really and meaningfully go along with it (it's very telling that no gods are available to perform this task). They even have to acquire a certain amount of proficiency with reality (and other people's fantasies), ie become relatively non-ignorant, before they are capable of inventing any woo of their own.
In a similar extreme, a very unintelligent thing, eg a rock or a vegetable or an anencephalic person or someone in a persistent vegetative state, can't be counted as meaningfully religious. They can't be indoctrinated with anything much more than anything else. Unfortunately, this also means that deconverting a stupid person won't stick. They're just as likely to believe the next religious predator to come along.
I think the reason you have trouble with this is not that it isn't true but that you don't like what it says about people. People really are largely unthinking in practice - even the slightly more intelligent ones spend much of their lives on automatic and merely reacting. And most humans really are that casually and habitually dishonest (the BBC continually acts as a left-wing example of that). So very few in any generation are able to be habitually and ruthlessly honest about everything. Hence very few are obligate atheists (and rejectors of other woo) rather than merely opportunistic atheists.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | October 15, 2008 9:48 AM
Applied to human culture, all dichotomies are false. Any discussion that revolves around liberal vs. conservative, left vs. right, black vs. white, etc. is already so oversimplified that it's uninteresting.
Posted by: AJ Milne | October 15, 2008 9:55 AM
Stating the obvious (we all need a hobby), among the many things it isn't, atheism isn't a cause, but an effect. Beyond this, of course, it's simply a description of one thing you aren't, and says nothing else about what else you might be or not be. You can be an atheist and still be a spectacularly credulous person--all 'atheist' says is you're not credulous about one thing in particular.
Now in cultures heavily dominated by that one thing in particular, sure, your being an atheist does *suggest* something else about you--it suggests a certain habit of independent thought--but note that it doesn't even guarantee that, exactly, either.
All that's by the way, however. The point is: there'd be little margin in championing atheism for its own sake. What needs championing is reasoned thinking, a healthy awareness of how easily people (and that's all of us) can be fooled, can fool themselves, can be coerced and cajoled to betray their own reason, can bind themselves fiercely to a position for reasons utterly divorced from or at odds with the evidence--from the perceived need to fit into a social group where a certain form of magical thinking is the entrance requirement, from the wish to believe something merely comforting or distracting from realities we don't wish to face. What needs championing is the profound value of learning *not* to fool yourself, the profound value of clear thinking that treats evidence and reason as paramount. You get that right, sure, you'll get more atheists--and less Christians, less Moslems, less people reading newspaper horoscopes, less people buying copies of *The Secret* and going on about crystal healing--but all of that is symptom, not cause. One more person saying 'I'm an atheist' and turning around and declaring homeopathy can cure cancer, that just isn't an improvement. At. All.
So answering that first sentence: I wouldn't go so far as to say you can't win. But you do have to keep in mind which battle you're really fighting, and what really counts as a victory.
Posted by: negentropyeater | October 15, 2008 9:55 AM
Religious myths and new age myths are not at all on the same level :
1. new age myths are not instruments of politcal authorities and ruling classes, they weren't designed and haven't evolved over thousands of years for that purpose
2. new age memes are way less "sticky" than religious memes, because they are not built on fear
So, sure, we already know that there will always be a sgnificant proportion of humans who beleve easily in stupid things, better education and putting more value on culture, knowledge, personal experiences through our lives by opposition to consumption and ownnership of stuff will help, but there will always be a majority of sheeps anyway.
But personally I'm quite sure of one thing, I'd rather live in a society like France or Sweden which has almost gotten rid of religious fundamentalism and maybe has 50% of the population who believes in homeopathy and accupuncture, than one like the US which has 50% Christian fundamentalists and less new age believers, or Saudi Arabia which has 90% muslim fundamentalists and zero new age believers. It's safer.
Posted by: mikespeir | October 15, 2008 10:02 AM
As an atheist who still leans a bit toward the conservative, this is the kind of thing that puts me off. But what I've come to realize is that these people don't represent the best of liberalism. In fact, I'm often surprised to find liberals espousing opinions that I'd always thought of as conservative. The reason I'm surprised is that I'd been taught all my life that the left-loonies represent what liberalism actually is. Clearly, that's not true.
Posted by: SEF | October 15, 2008 10:03 AM
Of course not. What is generally showing up as being a difference (especially if people's beliefs are naively polled rather than carefully examined) is instead merely the effects of the policy that organised religions have of stamping out rivals.So, for example, the Bible both states and implies throughout that astrology, mediumship and various other rival woo practices do work. It just forbids followers from indulging in them (ie giving their money and deference to the rival quack/crank/conman instead of the established religious hierarchy of conmen). Though there's possibly also an element of attempting to preserve mental health in the community by discouraging people from continuing to seek support and guidance from a dead parent on partner.
Extremely religious people who regularly attend highly conforming established churches may still believe in the alternative nonsense to some extent but, being in receipt of repeated reminders and considerable peer pressure, absolutely will not have anything to do with such forbidden things and hence may appear not to believe in them if one only asks whether they do regularly read a horoscope (or whatever) rather than asking in detail whether they believe the stars were put there as portents etc (eg Genesis + 3 wise men story).