False stereotyping of science

By Mathew Goldstein

In the past I have summarized Sean Carroll's argument for atheism. Another one of my favorite atheist philosophers is Victor Stenger. Following is my summary of Victor Stenger's argument for atheism copied from his University of Colorado presentation titled Can Science Study the Supernatural?

Scientists use only methodological naturalism primarily because it works. But it may not always be so. Scientists will go wherever the data leads. Furthermore, methodological naturalism can be utilized to investigate God.  Nothing prevents science from considering non-natural causes.

Take empirical data in the normal scientific way. If no natural explanation is even remotely plausible then we may entertain the possibility of a supernatural process. For example, suppose independent experiments showed conclusively that Catholic prayers heal the sick while Jewish, Protestant, Muslim prayers have no effect. While many published prayer experiments are poorly done and unconvincing, a few are double-blind and "good science": Mayo Clinic 2091, Duke University 2005, Harvard, Mayo, ... 2006. No significant effect found. The world looks just as it would be expected to look if there is no God who answers prayers in any significant way.

All observations have plausible natural explanations, but they need not have them. Observations could have determined that the laws of physics were violated in creating the universe. That the age of the earth was too short for evolution. That the universe and life really showed evidence of design. That the human mind was shown to have extraordinary powers. That revelations contain new information. That natural events followed moral law. That lightening just strikes the wicked. That jails are filled with atheists while believers live happy, prosperous lives surrounded by loving family and pets. Such observations would support the God hypothesis.

Intelligent design, like intercessory prayer, like astrology, etc. is testable, tentative, falsifiable. Scientific studies find that the world looks just as it would be expected to look if it contains living organisms that are not designed but the product of the jury-rigged processes of evolution. The overall universe is mostly random. 96% of matter is dark matter or dark energy which has little structure. Photons in the cosmic microwave background are random to 1/100,000 and outnumber atoms a billion to one.

The universe looks just like it would be expected to look if it is not designed with humans in mind.  Contrary to what some people claim, science can investigate the supernatural and the outcome is not neutral or silent vis-a-vis the God hypothesis.

by Edd Doerr

Isaac Asimov’s first short story in the leading science fiction magazine, Astounding, was in the July 1939 issue. In 1981 Southern Illinois University Press published a hardback facsimile edition of the magazine (164 pp), with an added epilogue by Asimov, who was president of the AHA from 1985 until his death in 1992. (I was AHA vice-president and board chair for the same period.)

Amazon lists a price of $166 for a new copy of the facsimile edition and $66 for a used copy. I have a like-new copy that I will part with for the highest bid.

Isaac notes in the epilogue that he handed the manuscript of the story, “Trends”, to editor John Campbell on Dec 21, 1938, which happened to be my 8^th birthday and Paul Kurtz’s 13^th.

Request Death With Dignity law for Maryland

By Mathew Goldstein

State laws to allow terminally ill patients to obtain medication to hasten their deaths are opposed by the Anglican, Southern Baptist, Catholic, Christian Reformed, Christian Science, Disciples of Christ, Eastern Orthodox, Evangelical, Jehovah Witness, Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, Mormon, Orthodox, and Russian Othodox churches, and by Islam and Orthodox Judaism.  The reasoning for this opposition varies, but it is usually rooted in a belief that humans have a special connection to a god and acting to hasten one's death is contrary to what this god wants.  Nevertheless, several states have passed such laws.  Oregon enacted a death with dignity law in 1997.  This year, a bill modeled after Oregon's law is being considered in Maryland.

Oregon's law has proven to be successful.  Few people avail themselves of this option in practice.  The most common primary motive cited by the people that opted to hasten their death is loss of autonomy.  The availability of this option provides peace of mind to people who never qualify to hasten their deaths under the law, or who qualify but do not opt to hasten their deaths.  It is more ethical to allow people to obtain an aid in dying prescription from a physician after they have been diagnosed to have a remaining life span of six months or less, with procedural safeguards, than to deny everyone this option.

Complete the HTML forms to send an email to your Senator and Delegate(s) requesting that this law be passed in Maryland:  http://secular.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9241bef44976519ab9f9dff94&id=389b463027&e=9f6f3f2c59.  The Secular Coalition for Maryland is currently tracking 27 Senate and House bills.  In addition to the physician aid in dying bill, we are supporting several equal employment opportunity bills, opposing several bills to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, opposing several bond bills, and supporting some Sunday hunting and alcohol sales bills.  To send emails to (or telephone or mail) your lawmakers about these bills please visit the lobbying actions page.

Silver Spring's (MD) Edd Doerr had this letter published in the Feb 13-26 issue of the National Catholic Reporter ---

“Push on climate change”

Pope Francis, Tom Roberts and Brian Roewe (NCR, Jan 2-15) are to be commended for their forward push on climate change. Many of us are hoping that Francis will do the one thing that he and he alone can do about climate change: rescind Paul VI’s 1968  Humanae Vitae encyclical, promulgated in defiance of the vast majority of his own advisers.

Since 1968, there have been 1.5 billion abortions worldwide, 50 million in the US alone. Vacating Humanae Vitae would seriously lower the abortion rate, save women’s lives, and contribute to reducing overpopulation and such concomitants of climate change as resource depletion, environmental degradation, deforestation, soil erosion and nutrient loss, biodiversity shrinkage, rising sea levels (40% of the world population lives in coastal areas), and increasing sociopolitical instability and violence.

In Griswold We Trust

By Mathew Goldstein

David B. Parker is a professor of history at Kennesaw State University who specializes in Civil War history.  As any academic historian steeped in the Civil War knows, there are sometimes two conflicting histories, the history found in the historical record and a popular "history" that originates in someone's head the same way as fiction originates, but is nevertheless promoted as factual by individuals or groups with political, commercial, or other such non-academic agendas, and is subsequently repeated over and over again by growing numbers of other people, and as a result becomes accepted by public opinion as being factually true.  This happens in multiple different contexts.  If you think that Abraham, Moses, and Jesus are likely fictional characters (unlike the historical warrior Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibnʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim (a.k.a. Muhammad) or the historical con-man Joseph Smith) you may want to keep this insight to yourself lest you be mischaracterized as a foolish atheist ideologue who disregards the generally accepted evidence that all sensible people, including non-religious people and people of other religions, allegedly know demonstrates that these were historical people.

And so it is also with the claims that George Washington appended "so help me god" to his first presidential oath of office and all subsequent presidents did the same.  For many years the Senate Historical Office, speaking as the experts on presidential oath history on behalf of the U.S. Senate, and therefore also on behalf of the United States government, endorsed the first claim as historical fact.  For multiple years, starting shortly after we began our correspondence with them, they also published a "so help me God" video on the Joint Congressional Committee for Inaugural Ceremonies' (JCCIC) website that endorsed the second claim as historical fact.  Years after several of us first corresponded with the Senate Historical Office to point out that neither claim is supported by the historical record, they continued to endorse both "facts" on the website. The Senate Historical Office justified their stance by pointing out that historian Douglas Southall Freeman, who won a (posthumous) Pulitzer Prize for his six-volume biography of Washington published in 1954, claimed GW appended that phrase.  We responded that the eyewitness document cited by Freeman in his biography did not assert that GW appended that phrase.  From then on we got no more responses from the Senate Historical Office to any correspondence we sent them. Even though they eventually conceded their second claim was not justified they continued to assert it on the website.  Frustrated by the years of no response from the Senate Historical Office, one day I visited the Senate Rules Committee office, which owns the JCCIC web site.  I was dismissed by the youthful staff there, somewhat rudely, as if I was a crank.

Yet people did pay attention and began reporting the history correctly, and the JCCIC website eventually also followed. Professor Parker subsequently took an interest in the origin of these two related myths about George Washington's first inauguration and about all presidential oaths.  His conclusions were recently published in Common-place The Interactive Journal of Early American Life, volume 15, no. 1 and are available for all to read under the appropriate title "In Griswold We Trust".

Ideoplogy and Religion Mix at the National Prayer Breakfast

by Gary Berg-Cross

The National Prayer Breakfast often stirs up controversy, although different ones in the secular and religious communities. In the past, for example, we had the context of the  Hobby Lobby Case and we found there was a link to  a somewhat
“secretive group" called "The Family” playng a role of hosting the  National Prayer Breakfast. This was reported on the  MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, by author Jeff Sharlet who publicly accused "The Family" of this role.

This year I was at a discussion group after the Breakfast event and the buzz was about Obama’s “crusader” comment:

“And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

As the Post noted, “Critics pounce(d) after Obama talks Crusades, slavery at prayer breakfast”

There was lots of ideas and symbols wrapped up in the spaces between the words and suggestive connections to other parts of the speech.  An example is that patriotic, hot button issue of American exceptionalism. Well, as noted, the Greeks think their country i special, too). Then there is the contrast with uncomfortable Bush-era practices such as those interrogation practices, euphemistically called “harsh” for years, but in the Obama era more correctly called  torture that goes along with the invasion of Iraq a tragic, hubristic mistake. Perhaps we should pray for forgiveness for these things as well as our prior heavy hand in Central and South American.

Are these things too sensitive and ideological to discuss at a “prayer” meeting or ask forgiveness for?  Do they downplay ISIS evil too much?   Well conservatives like The Family and Baltimore’s Ben Carson believe so. Any number of outraged Republicans voices could be heard such as former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore who said,

“The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime. He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”

Well it  seems to some of us as a good use of the Prayer Breakfast pulpit to talk about the moral side of things and for the Religious-American complex to take an historical,  self-reflective stance. It is a timely context seeing something bad done in the name of Religion to humbly note that Faith, and not just one Faith, can be perverted and its name used to justify revenge killing and harm.  It’s about the need for the prayerful to”stand up against those who try to use faith to justify violence, no matter what religion they practice.”

Is the Measles Vaccination Discussion a Teachable Moment?

by Gary Berg-Cross

Fifteen years ago, the CDC was proud to announce victory over measles. More recently there is has been a creeping increase in measles outbreaks attributed in park to the growing number of parents have opted to not to have their children vaccinated. Fear is involved backed by an old claim that there is a link between vaccines and autism. I guess the small success of the flu shot this year also lowers the confidence that they work. And so we have this, according to the CDC, 1 in 12 children born in the United States is not being vaccinated as recommended. That's a huge percent for something the best science seems to say is effective and safe.

The measles vaccine dust up is what Adam Frank called a "teachable moment" for everyone as the anti-vax movement is suddenly thrown into the spotlight. Collectively, we can see the Disneyland outbreak and the various responses for what it could be — a wake up call for informed decisions and rational discussion about science denial and the relation of parental rights (freedom) and responsibility to the public at least.

Below is a portion of what Frank wrote on what he called living in "a strange moment of human history" :

We have this thing called science. Through its fruits (medicines, technology, etc.), many of us live lives fundamentally different from the tens of thousands of generations preceding us. At the same time, through science's unintended consequences, we have also changed the "natural" world in ways likely to pose daunting challenges to our ongoing "project of civilization." But strangest of all, in the midst of these profound changes, one growing response to the tough questions science raises in our lives has been to act as if it didn't exist.

I am, of course, talking about denial. The anti-vax movement, like climate change denialism, rests on the assumption that if you disagree with certain established scientific results you can just ignore them. You call the science lies — or claim the scientists have a political bias."

Indeed people ignore or trump science based on emotional feelings (fight or flight) vague values of freedom and such. So parent's get to chose is proclaimed as an absolute.  It has an ideological-religious fever to it. But on this issue of parent’s choice there is also the question of what is behind the choice and what is a good choice.Recently, NPR's Morning Edition had a 4 minute segment called The Psychology Behind Why Some Kids Go Unvaccinated. We could use some of what was said there as part of this teachable moment.

We can start by asking why do some people believe that these particular vaccinations are dangerous? Can’t they understand the facts?

It turns out that (some) telling parents that are afraid to vaccinate kids the facts makes them less likely to vaccinate them. It’s a general belief phenomena of the emotional brain we can demonstrate and understand to some degree.


Some of it is the near term pain vs. more distant or less obvious gain.  But also Dartmouth research by Brendan Nyhan was cited on the belief dynamics which challenge the teachable moment opportunity for some.


The frame of the research is the idea hat beliefs are shaped by pre-existing views, filtered by motivated reasoning (energized by Worry ) through loyalty to our group allegiance (tribe’s) belief.  For example, take groups and give them facts to show that Obama was born in the US. Some are not persuaded by that facts and believe that Obama was born in Africa. Who? Those who didn't like him to begin with. Not everyone is open to the facts, your ideology filters things and indeed can motivate people to use their thinking in a defensive way.


Once you believe in something strongly with emotions it is hard to debunk. And this theory of child vaccinations leading to autism has that rigidity. It came from a 1998 article in a good Journal, Lancet,

suggesting such a link, but the study was later retracted and has been widely discredited. It was, for example only an 11 kid sample and later couldn't be replicated and then the author was shown to have mad up the data. But it is hard to stop the meme. Especially when it is promoted by tribes with a megaphone.


The Morning Edition talked about the collective action dilemma – We can get a free ride sometimes when others do the hard work like with vaccinations. It means that I don’t have to deal with the risk and this is also called the tragedy of the commons. I’d say it is a general problem we face. Letting everybody act in their own self-interest isn't optimal although some believe that.

How to solve the dilemma?

Some cultures force or apply public-social pressure (e.g. You are a moron–if your child is not vaccinated I won’t invite her over for a play date.)


Social scientists think these (force and shame) are not the best ways. While a little social pressure is good, experts who have studied the psychology of the vaccine doubters say it's counterproductive to be accusatory — or even to try provide a little well-meaning education.



Below is some discussion of this from researchers as part of a different article:



"When you attack somebody's values, they get defensive," said risk communication expert David Ropeik. "It triggers an instinctive defensiveness that certainly doesn't change the mind of the vaccine-hesistant person."

And some of the criticism on cable television, social media and in mainstream newspapers and magazines is starting to look like bullying, Ropeik and other experts said.


"There are millions of people who are ambivalent to some degree. When they hear the people being picked on defend their views, that has the real prospect of turning some of those people against vaccines."


The anti-vaccine movement is nothing new. People have been questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines for decades, especially once the illnesses the vaccines protect against started to disappear, and the risks of the vaccine began to loom larger when there was no backdrop of death and disease.


But simply telling people their views are stupid, or even not fully informed, will not work, said Dr. Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth University (also cited in the NPR story).


"It could make the problem worse. Imagine what calling people selfish and dumb can do," Nyhan said. "If people call me selfish and dumb, it doesn't make me more open-minded, and I don't know why anyone would think otherwise in this case. I think it's really short-sighted. People enjoy lashing out at anti-vaccine folks, (but) it turns into an 'us versus them' thing."

Nyhan conducted a study last year with Freed that found that when they gave ambivalent parents facts that show vaccines do not cause autism, they were even less likely to vaccinate their kids than they were before.

"They are committed to that point of view. You can provoke a kind of backlash reaction if you are not careful," Nyhan said. "That is why it is important to test the messages that we use and avoid the counterproductive type of messaging seen in the wake of Disney."

Telling people they are wrong will just make them dig in their heels, said Nyhan.

"There is a psychological tendency called disconfirmation bias. Information we don't want to hear, we try very hard to reject it. That is especially true for beliefs that are central to our identity," he said.

Most Americans support vaccination. A survey from the Pew Research Center published last week found that 68 percent of American adults believe that vaccinations of children should be required, while 30 percent say that parents should be able to decide not to vaccinate their kids.

But groups such as the National Vaccine Information Center view and position themselves as courageous visionaries who challenge a flawed, mainstream point of view. Libertarian leaders such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., are taking on the issue of vaccination as a question of personal freedom.

Bottom line, how might we get people to vaccinate their kids?

Build relations and trust – acknowledge the fear and discuss it without force or shame.

And, of course, a similar approach may be useful for the secular and intellectual community on other issues.


Note- Adam Frank is a co-founder of the 13.7 blog, an astrophysics professor at the University of Rochester, a book author and a self-described "evangelist of science."

Religion, Faith and Belief – well covered in the Media, but with different slants

By Gary Berg-Cross

Lots of media (newspapers, magazines, radio and online types like blog sites etc.) have a Religion section or its equivalent.  WaPo has it online under the National section where you can read about the “Latest Religion News.

This includes local Religion events from around the Washington area including music

(Dixieland jazz), Martha’s Table, food drives, Super Bowl Fellowship, Bible study, yoga, wellness, organ recitals.

Under the WAPO  RELIGION heading you read how the ubiquitous  (and Controversial)

Koch brothers give big (again) to Catholic University. But you can also find related  coverage under the Metro or Style section which has On Faith.

The NYT has a Religion and Belief section with occasional posting like:

Mark Oppenheimer Beliefs column. A January post observed that many faiths struggle with concept of animal ensoulment; cites proliferation of pet cemeteries throughout the United States.

An earlier one in January was about former NY Gov Mario Cuomo willingness to speak publicly about his religious beliefs.

On Xmas day atheist Mark Bittman Op-Ed article cross-posted there that reflects that 2014 was the 100th anniversary of Christmas truce during World War I, when soldiers from both sides took break from fighting to be festive together.

Also on Xmas dayT M Luhrmann had a cross posted Op-Ed article about people attending God-neutral, growing in popularity movements like Sunday Assembly around Xmas Yes even for atheists group ritual is important to make sense of the world.

Even the Guardian has a Religion section and moving to online phenomena the news aggregating blog site called  the Huffington Post has a Religion news section. It’s under its Voices category. As a liberal site I find its coverage includes a bit more critical tone than most of the others. You can read about “Why Julianne Moore Stopped Believing In God” They break faith down into several categories and also have a  Religion and Science section that features "blog posts and news reports that address the ongoing conversation and tension between religion and science. The page has a pro-science and pro-faith point of view and highlights smart, sophisticated perspectives from all religious traditions on how to best improve relationships between these two fields of inquiry."

These feature research and fact-oriented coverage and not just opinion. Recent examples include, “Children Exposed To Religion Have Difficulty Distinguishing Fact From Fiction, Study Finds”  and “Religious Objections To Vaccines Are A Threat To Public Health.”

Still I find most of these sites could be considered religiously or faith oriented. They are labeled so.

A bit different is the Belief section of the very liberal blog aggregator Alternet.  Here we are beyond a religious and religious faith slant to one of the more general topic of belief including secular belief. Atheism is pretty prominently featured and discussed and discomfort to faith-based belief folks is likely.  They cover issues in a more confrontational way - sort of like a New Atheist style, but they include articles that might take on that topic too.

Recent posting included:

Eminent Biologist: Religion Should Be Eliminated for the 'Sake of Human Progress'

E. O. Wilson: You don't have to be an atheist to know that religion is harming the Earth.

Of course some of the coverage discusses the religio-political connections such as:

People With No Religion Underrepresented By a Factor of 100 in Congress ...

AlterNet-Jan 28, 2015

20 percent of Americans have no affiliation with organized religion. Only 0.2 percent of Congress says the same. By Zaid Jilani.

Another one with political connections was “This Week in Religion: Huckabee Claims God Blessed Him, and Mormons Back LGBT Rights.” 

Dan Arel, author of Parenting Without God and blogs at Danthropology, authors the This Week in Religion section. Just in January he has covered some critical topics:

This Week in Religion: Pope Francis Tells His Flock to Stop Breeding Like Rabbits Jan 23, 2015,

This Week in Religion: Christians Continue Their Assault on LGBT Community Jan 17, 2015,

The Past Week in Religion: God Pronounced Owner of an Alabama City Jan 11, 2015, and 

This Week in Religion: Bristol Palin Decries Separation of Church and State: Jan 2, 2015,

Other recent posts on Alternet.org include some overviewing non-belief in a bit of the way other media feature an established religion.

The 6 Types of Atheists and Non-Believers in America

AlterNet-Nov 17, 2014

The answers tell us a lot about religion and non-belief in America. ... Not all of them identify as atheist or agnostic or a non-believer, but plenty do, and while there are many people offering to defend this particular community, few are willing to speak for them. ...

Still other posts are critical of religious leaders such as:

Billy Graham's Son Is One of America's Most Dangerous Islamophobes. This one by Bill Berkowitz  was aggregated from another liberal blog site TruthOut.

Alternet is one of those challenging sites.  No one is going to agree with everything they feature, but you get some interesting topics, usually documents and well reasoned if a bit argumentative – sort of like the New Atheists. An example is the “12 Worst Ideas Religion Has Unleashed on the World” By Valerie Tarico who argues that these 12 dubious concepts advocate conflict, cruelty and suffering. Among them are things hard to disagree with:

The idea of  Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human. In the Torah, slaves taken from among outsiders don’t merit the same protections as Hebrew slaves.”  Or Holy War – If war can be holy, anything goes.”  Blasphemy the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even question. is of course on the list, but the #1 listed was:

Chosen People –The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept. The New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones. Calvinists talk about “God’s elect,” believing that they themselves are the special few who were chosen before the beginning of time. Jehovah’s witnesses believe that 144,000 souls will get a special place in the afterlife. In many cultures certain privileged and powerful bloodlines were thought to be descended directly from gods (in contrast to everyone else).

Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer. “Gang symbols” like special haircuts, attire, hand signals and jargon differentiate insiders from outsiders and subtly (or not so subtly) convey to both that insiders are inherently superior.

No feel good Super Bowl Fellowship coverage likely at Alternet.org, but lots of thought poking topics.  It not only makes you think, it makes you want to think.