The unicellular origin of animals

By Mathew Goldstein

Cell aggregation and differentiation are requisite for organisms such as animals to be multicelled.  Various biological regulatory mechanisms producing the modifications to proteins responsible for tissue differentiation have been identified and studied.  It has been known for some years now, outside of places of religious worship and "education" where knowledge inconvenient to the religious beliefs tends to be ignored or dismissed, that the same cellular mechanisms utilized for animal tissue differentiation are also present in choanoflagellates.  But it has been unclear why choanoflagellates, flagellate eukaryotes (cells with a nucleus and mitochondria) whose full life cycle remains uncertain, posses these gene expression regulatory tools.

Choanoflagellates are not the only unicellular flagellate eukaryotes.  Capsaspora is the genus of another single celled flagellate eukaryote species with a known life cycle that is closely related to choanoflagellates.  A single Capsaspora changes its cell type over time, transitioning from a lone amoeba to an aggregated colony of cells to a hardy cystic form.  A new study explored whether Capsaspora uses the same mechanisms to control cell differentiation over time as animals use to control differentiation of tissues during embryo development.

The answer is yes according to researchers at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, Spain who collaborated with researchers from the Proteomics Unit of the Centre for Genomic Regulation and Universitat Pompeu Fabra. A press release published by Science Daily stated that the "researchers discovered that from one stage to another, Capsaspora's suite of proteins undergoes extensive changes, and the organism uses many of the same tools as multicellular animals to regulate these cellular processes."  

Without logic anything goes because the facts provide no constraints on our conclusions.  Logically, if a god created the many species of life then that god must have been willing to deceive us by leaving us with evidence that multicellular animals evolved from unicellular flagellate eukaryotes similar to choanoflagellates and that humans are primates.  But what is mere human logic as compared to a mighty god?  Gods are supernatural so they can be said to do anything.  Therefore logic no longer applies wherever a god is said to operate.  Theism thus undermines human reason and that is a big price to pay.

Hedges et. al. versus Harris

By Mathew Goldstein

Journalist Chris Hedges slams Sam Harris, claiming that the latter advocates for a nuclear attack against Islamic countries in his book End of Faith.  Donald McCarthy recently wrote an article that was then promoted on this blog.  That article reiterates what Hedges keeps claiming about Harris and further implies that Harris is dishonest because Harris denies what Hedges asserts about him.

An honest reading of what Harris says in his book is that he is worried about the larger implications of the apocalyptic ideology of pro-suicide Islamic extremists, who think it is a strength and virtue that "we love death more than you love life".  In particular, Harris argues that the religious beliefs adopted by Islamic extremists undermines the viability of Mutually Assured Destruction that has successfully prevented a nuclear conflict since the end of World War II.  Harris devotes only one paragraph to this topic in his book.  He says that if such Islamic extremists obtained nuclear weapons then the risk of nuclear conflict increases, an outcome which he clearly asserts he does not want.

Harris ended that paragraph in his book with "... men who are every bit as zealous to die as the nineteen hijackers may one day get their hands on long-range nuclear weaponry. The Muslim world in particular must anticipate this possibility and find some way to prevent it."  Now, if Chris Hedges, or Donald McCarthy, or anyone else, disagrees with that argument then they can make a counter-argument.  They are not doing that here.  Instead, they are misrepresenting his argument, emphasizing a single sentence, out of context, as evidence for what he is allegedly advocating.  Harris is guilty of using provocative "first strike" language, but not of advocating for that outcome.  Some criticisms of some of what Harris argues are constructive, and I like to see that, but some of it is not.

Blocking Immigrants?

Mathew Goldstein

Donald Trump's signature proposal on stopping or restricting Islamic immigrants is, like his other proposals, unclear because it changes and is not fully described.  Is it possible to reliably identify who is Islamic?  I am skeptical.  What is the most effective way to the vet immigrants?  Do we have good reason to think that fewer immigrants would be effective in preventing homeland attacks?  How do we measure the additional risk of threat of attacks from accepting more immigrants?   What level of risk should be required to justify an immigration shutdown?  What are the repercussions?  I do not know and it is because I am an ignoramus that I am inclined to refrain from discussing complicated issues like this.  

Nevertheless, I can say, based on what I have read, that there is solid evidence of ongoing efforts to carry out attacks in Europe, and to encourage lone wolf attacks, that rely on religious belief based appeals.  Therefore, a review of immigration policies that includes considering options to take into account religious beliefs when vetting immigrants is not automatically an example of racism, or a violation the Establishment Clause, or Islamophobia, or siding with the religious right, or whatever the hell the latest knee jerk invective is favored by those who seek to try to shut down discussion.  When we set our immigration policies we should do our best to take into account the needs of refugees in addition to the risks and try to strike a sensible balance.  If more people die in car accidents every week than are killed by immigrants every year then restricting immigration is probably not justified.  Otherwise, in the long term, if reduced immigration succeeded in preventing attacks then we could end up accepting more immigrants than we would have if we had instead experienced major attacks and reacted by shutting down immigration.

Trump is terribly wrong in so many ways about so much, which appears to tragically be an unavoidable result for any Republican presidential nominee in 2016 given how that demographic votes.  The bombastic Trump, given his populist track record, and his divisive rhetoric, taints any proposals he makes while engaging in election year posturing in front of the electorate.  A partial immigration slowdown that tries to reduce risks from accepting immigrants is not inherently crazy or irresponsible, although a policy that rejects everyone who is Islamic, as suggested by Trump, is difficult to justify.  Being Islamic says too little about the person.  But if there is a strong enough positive correlation between criminal violence and being Islamic among immigrants, or good evidence of ongoing dangerous plots and capabilities, then it may be justified to make that one of the considerations.

While Clinton currently expresses opposition to restricting immigration, if the context changed so that risks from immigration became larger in the future then I would not be surprised if she reversed course.  I would prefer that she would say now, as a candidate, that reviewing immigration policy would be one option she would consider in the event that violence by immigrants became a substantial problem. I think Clinton has a track record of being pragmatic and thoughtful with respect to policy advocacy, more so than any other candidate, including the third party candidates.  Regardless of what anyone thinks about the other candidates, this election is between Clinton and Trump.

The above commentary is my opinion alone, I speak not for anyone else, and in particular I am not speaking here for WASH.  

The old Atheism of Madalyn O'Hair

By Mathew Goldstein

Maryland is the home state of William O'Hair, a religious Baptist who is an author of an autobiography that is critical of his more famous mother (I have not read it). He is also a political activist and I watched him testify, along with clergy, at a 2016 Maryland General Assembly committee meeting in favor of a bill that proposed that the government support religion, arguing that it would be good for the state and country by reducing crime and delinquency, and labeling secular humanism a religion, while also criticizing his murdered mother and shilling for his book.  Families with some members being religious and others not religious are common.  I had a religious grand uncle (he was similar to a grandfather to me).  I also have an opinion about William O'Hair's mother.

I requested literature and an application form to join her organization.  After browsing the literature I decided not to join.  She insisted that atheism was defined as having a set of specific beliefs that went well beyond not believing in gods, or believing that there are no gods, or believing that the universe is strictly naturalistic, or believing in a set of general ethical principles.  She claimed that sharing her own conclusions on various political questions were part of the definition of atheism.  She said if you don't profess those same conclusions then you are not an atheist.  For her, atheism was a proper noun so it was capitalized.  Everyone who was an atheist was an Atheist.  Her Atheism was thus a political ideology, and it was so according to the definition of Atheism dictated by the  Madalyn O'Hair.

My reaction at the time was that if I was looking for an ideology I could join a church.  Her concept of Atheism was incompatible with my concept of atheism.  My concept of atheism was (and still is) that it is a result of abandoning ideology, it is a conclusion derived from a refusal to be ideological, it is built upon a rejection of ideology.  There can be no fixed answer to most public policy questions derived only from atheism because every issue must be evaluated independently, on its own merits, to find a best evidence fit with all the available evidence, and all of the relevant evidence is rarely confined to recognizing that the universe is strictly naturalistic.  I became an AA member years later after the organization had mostly shed its ideological narrowness, although I got the impression that some of its membership remained O'Hair Atheists and my membership did not last long. 

Nevertheless, she was smart, articulate, sharp, and she left behind some good commentary.  Reading what she wrote, I cannot help but identify with her thinking more than with that of her disaffected son.  So here is a sample from her writing from 1989:  http://infidels.org/library/modern/madalyn_ohair/fundie.html

A different take on criticism of the "New Atheists"

By Mathew Goldstein

People who make a career of speaking and writing on current events may express opinions on a wide range of topics.  Being concerned with what is happening beyond the borders of one's own country is not a vice and focusing exclusively on what happens in one's own country is not a virtue.  Hopefully people who advocate on current affairs will make an effort to be well read and informed on whatever topic they discuss, but few people are experts on every topic that they discuss. Sometimes their advocacy may consistently fit within a particular group's consensus view, such as a leftist group view, or a libertarian group view, or a centrist group view, or a rightist group view.  Sometimes an individual's advocacy may not consistently fit within any one group's consensus.  Regardless, their advocacy is their own, they do not represent anyone else.  This is true of Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others.  People who publicly self-identify as atheists do not uniquely forfeit their right to speak or write on other subjects.

Some years ago, Christopher Hitchens concluded the world would be better without Saddam Hussein ruling Iraq.  He also said that people who denied that waterboarding was torture were clearly wrong.  His views were not consistently within a consensus of the right or left. However aggravated some people may be about his sometimes straying from the consensus on the left, his advocacy was not for the purpose of siding with "fundamentalists in the U.S." who are not a monolith and who did not all share Hitchens' views on the invasion of Iraq.  Many Democrats voted for the resolution that authorized potential military action in 2002.  John Kerry gave a January 23, 2003 speech to Georgetown University where he said "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator; leading an oppressive regime he presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real."  In early 1998 Hillary Clinton said "The Iraqi leader was "without conscience," having used weapons of mass destruction on "his own people," she told reporters, referring to poison gas attacks on Kurds a decade earlier, "We are facing an extraordinary threat from this man. Something will have to be done."  In December 2003 Hillary Clinton said "I was one who supported giving President Bush the authority, if necessary, to use force against Saddam Hussein. I believe that that was the right vote" and was one that "I stand by." After new evidenced emerged that Saddam Hussein had been bluffing regarding possessing weapons of mass destruction, some people switched their position on that invasion after the fact.

Articles in the monthly WASH have sometimes ventured into discussions on what is happening outside of our country. One WASH member has invited the DC area atheist group to showings of various films in liberal churches that criticize Israel.  One of the films featured a women who also claims that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center were carried out by the CIA.  I have not seen any of those films, but I suspect that they are one sided propaganda which appears to be commonly relied upon among some critics of Israel.  Black Lives Matters, for example, has asserted that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinian population, which even if it were true is not a reason for police shootings in Arkansas or Louisiana.  But while they are wrong about Israel committing genocide, and they harm their own credibility by indulging in such hyperbole, there is longstanding evidence for racial disparities in the U.S. and there are also similar disparities between different groups of people in other countries.  If WASH is going engage in such topics then we lack integrity if we simultaneously shut down conversations on international affairs that fall outside a narrow range or insist that any atheists who take positions outside of a narrow range are tainting secularism.  The people who are actually tainting secularism are those who want to engage in such discussion while restricting the range of views that are expressed to those that promote their own views.

It is a problem that people wrongly and unfairly associate Christopher Hitchens' views on various other topics, or Sam Harris' views on various other topics, or Richard Dawkins' views on various other topics, with "New Atheism".  It doesn't help that some of the criticisms leveled against some of the New Atheists are more hyperbole and slander than reasonable or thoughtful criticism.  People who, five years after Mr. Hitchens has died, continue to spill ink asserting that Christopher Hitchens tainted the New Atheism with his other advocacy are conflating apples with oranges.  He could do no such thing since each different topic stands on its own and is addressed on its own merits independently.  The problem here resides on the side of those who persistently make this odd complaint.  Some people are intolerant of particular opinions.  Such people may then reject everything that a person advocated or did in their life because they sincerely disagree with some things that one person advocated or did.  That narrow-minded stereotyping is what we should be criticizing.

The view that all religions are mistaken, yet some religions are better than others in practice, or even in content, can be a difficult position to publicly espouse because it may be deemed to be insulting by the people who self-identify with the religions being targeted for criticism.  If the people who self-identify with the religions being criticized are numerous and intolerant then their hearing such an argument is likely to upset them, which will generate controversy, and that result in turn will upset other people, who will blame the messenger.  But the disliked messenger is not the problem because the message is untidy.  Sometimes to resolve a problem we need to be willing to confront it head on.  If a problem is fear of heights then exposing yourself to heights is a necessary step to overcome that fear.  If a problem is an intolerance of criticism then we are not going to make things better by shutting down discussion to appease the intolerance.

Sam Harris in particular, among others, has adopted this position.  He says that beliefs matter and therefore details that vary between religions and within religions also matter.  The beliefs promoted by some religions are relatively harmless, or they harm some of the believers and not others, while different beliefs promoted by other religions are more insidious. Obviously, religion is grounded in beliefs, which are not genders, ethnicities, races, or the like.  It is a fact (not a diversionary tactic) that some people, when they hear criticisms focused on the details associated with particular religions, or comparisons among religions that do not reach similar conclusions about all religions, assume that they are listening to a bigot promoting bigotry.  That is a form of prematurely cutting off discussion, it is anti-intellectual, it is a mistake.  Arguments need to evaluated on their merits and not on how closely they conform with our preferences or our pre-commitments.

People are capable of changing their beliefs.  People are not synonymous with their beliefs and we do ourselves no good by elevating some beliefs to a status of being exempt from criticism.  The liberal idea is that people are entitled to civic equality before the law regardless of their religious beliefs, it is not that particular religions as currently practiced are individually exempt from public criticism.  I once joined a discussion that others had initiated about Scientology, with some people being critical.  I sided with the critics.  I was promptly challenged on why I was singling out that one religion.  My reply was that it is in some substantial ways worse than other religions. As liberals and secularists living on a religious planet we undercut ourselves when we refuse to acknowledge that there are differences between and within religions which potentially have significant implications.

Street Epistemology: Slaying Dragons and Spotting Cons

By Mathew Goldstein

This video Street Epistemology: Slaying Dragons and Spotting Cons from the "Skeptrack" of the 2016 Dragoncon conference features Atheist Alliance International president Robert Penczak, also a member of Richmond Humanists who sometimes appears on the Fairfax Virginia podcast Road to Reason: A Skeptic's Guide to the 21st Century, and WASH member David Tomayo who is president of Hispanic American Freethinkers.  It also features John Loftus, an author of ten books, whose blog Debunking Christianity is very good.   I always find myself agreeing with John Loftus when his topic is atheism versus competing beliefs.  Despite the title of his blog he tends to target theism and religion generally.

The aforementioned Dragoncon video advocates for practicing the street epistemology that is promoted in Peter Boghassian's book A Manual for Creating Atheists.  We are told that the partisan book title originated with the publisher as a marketing ploy.  I have read the book and I will say that title has some merit as a description of the book's content.  Nevertheless, epistemology is about the quality of belief justification and learning to recognize and avoid common pitfalls such as confirmation bias. Atheists are prone to employing bad epistemology.  So this topic is more general than atheism versus theism.  It is addressed to, targets, and challenges, all of us.  Atheism is merely a conclusion.  How we go about reaching our conclusions is a skill that can be honed which affects the conclusions we reach across the wider range of decisions we confront.  The web site for volunteer participants is https://streetepistemology.com/

Criticism of the "New Atheists"

A recent article on alternet.org had criticism of the "New Atheist" authors, and Christopher Hitchens in particular:

How the New Atheist Movement Blew a Big Opportunity to Bring Acceptance to Non-Believers

The author, Donald McCarthy, is an atheist but considers the New Atheists to be a "crushing disappointment".  He says that the atheist authors, especially Hitchens and Sam Harris, were so obsessed with Islam that they formed informal alliances with U.S. neoconservative politicians.  In the process of opposing Islam, they supported the pro-Iraq War movement, along with many supporters who were fundamentalist Christians.  McCarthy says that the atheists, particularly Hitchens, should have been more concerned with fundamentalists in the U.S. rather than supporting the war in the Middle East.

McCarthy praises the American Humanist Association for its support for separation of church and state and for its arguments that life can be good without God.

Atheists and humanists should be making arguments against religious dogma. We should try to be convincing to our opponents, rather than advocate force by military arms.  Support for the Iraq War was always ethically debatable, and it was never clear that it should have been directed against the Islamic religion as opposed to specific governments or organization, some of which are Islamic.  The best contribution that humanist groups can make is to debate and debunk the religious principles that cause young people to volunteer for movements like ISIS.  Our arguments lose any ethical foundation if we say that overthrowing fundamentalist governments by force is acceptable, except as the absolute last resort for self defense.  (It isn't clear to me that ISIS has reached this threshold, even though they are fundamentalist Islamist and a violent group.)

It is tempting to argue that humanitarian aid is a justification for military force, for example that there are so many deaths in Syria that the U.S. should be involved to prevent civilian deaths.  But pursuing foreign policy based on humanitarian or altruistic motives is not effective in the long term, as recent efforts have shown.  There is only a humanitarian justification if there is a prosocial agreement, not an altruistic one.  The distinction between altruistic and prosocial motives is that a prosocial group is capable and willing to form a beneficial government or social organization that will provide a long-term improvement in the society.  The effort to set up a representative government in Afghanistan may still be valuable and prosocial.  On the other hand, overthrowing the Syrian government by force without any alternative to take over doesn't look promising.  

But there is a bigger problem with the atheist efforts throughout history that is related to the points that McCarthy raises.  Atheist movements has often been associated with a few individual charismatic speakers, including Richard Dawkins, David Silverman, and Hitchens, but also including Mark Twain and Robert Ingersoll and many others.  These individuals criticize established religions. Atheist movements have been less interested in building organizations.  There are atheist and humanist organizations, but they tend to be specifically concerned with opposing religion rather than trying to replace it.  One of the goals of modern humanist, secular humanist, ethical culture, and other related groups is to set up social groups that have more to do with living a good life for ordinary citizens.  This is a prosocial effort that will lead to long-term improvements in society.  These kinds of organizations can replace religious organizations.  

There is room in the atheist movement for all these types of organizations.  It is unfortunate that the movement started by the "New Atheist" authors is still mostly known for opposition to religions, particularly Islam, rather than for developing improvements in secular society and government.     

The essence of theism

By Mathew Goldstein

The RenewAmerica website describes itself as having "evolved into a significant Christian political vehicle — gathering scores of talented new writers (along with a handful of well-known established ones); promoting the core issues of moral conservatism ...".  As with many such religious conservative websites there are no public comments following the articles.  I suspect that this tendency to not provide public commenting on their articles reflects an attitude that it is better to limit people's exposure to competing ideas, which is not an attitude widely shared among the authors of the U.S. constitution who these same religious conservatives nevertheless claim to be emulating.  Ronald R. Cherry, one of RenewAmerica's writers, is a board-certified specialist in lung disease who works in Tennessee.  His recent article titled The essence of atheism warrants a response.

Dr. Cherry's says that after bring raised Christian and going to a Christian University he encountered atheists in medical school.  This prompted him to consider what goes on inside the head of atheists.  He then quotes John Locke contrasting reason with various faith based religious beliefs thusly ".... These and the like, being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith; with which reason has nothing to do."  

He then acknowledges that the assertion that an eternal God created the universe is a statement of faith.  Up to this point his article is flawless.  He then proceeds to try to justify his religious beliefs with reason by claiming his Christian monotheism is a better fit with textbook physics than atheism.  However, he omitted explaining what role faith alone should have in justifying beliefs about how the universe functions.  It is unlikely that the atheists he encountered in medical school would agree that faith without reason properly justifies such beliefs.  Maybe his reliance on arguing from reason for the remainder of his article is intended to target an atheist audience? But how many atheists read RenewAmerica?  Or maybe he is implicitly recognizing that faith alone is insufficient? 

The abandonment of justifying belief by faith alone may be attributed to the "corrupting" influence of science.  Except this is not a corrupting influence, it is a wonderfully positive influence.  By faith alone is a mistake.  Maybe belief justified on faith alone was more common in the past.  It was also more common in the past for people to live in caves.  RenewAmerica, like many conservative leaning groups, expresses admiration for the past and advocates for returning to what it claims were the principles, values, and practices of the past. This positive depiction of the past tends to be biased and incomplete.  We would not have doctors specializing in lung disease today if we were unwilling to let go of the past.  To keep living in the past, even given that the past was sometimes good, is not a positive or realistic goal.

Dr. Cherry argues that "We know from the law of conservation of energy that without outside force neither mass nor energy can create its self, nor can mass or energy be destroyed; the sum of mass and energy is always constant in any closed system including an un-created universe."  Neither of us is a physicist, and I am not a medical doctor, but I know that the last half about the sum is true.  It is the first half of what Dr. Cherry is saying above that is dubious.  It is dubious since energy is continuously bubbling in to, and out of, existence inside a vacuum.  Energy resides on both sides of nothingness, gravity is negative energy and the other forms of energy are positive.  Energy can thus newly appear in negative and positive pairs that sum to zero and then promptly disappear as the newly separated positive and negative energies recombine. 

Dr. Cherry then argues "Mass can be converted into energy, and visa-versa, so mass and energy are limited to interchangeability (E = MC2), but according to the law of conservation of energy, outside of supernatural power, only nothing can come from nothing."  This time the first half is correct and the latter half is mistaken.  It is unlikely that the conservation of energy is contradicted by quantum mechanics which nevertheless allows for an energy froth in an otherwise vacuum context.  Quantum mechanics suggests that absolute nothingness is unstable, or to put it another way, it implies that absolute nothingness may be a fiction that exists, like all fictions, only in human imagination (like the similarly imaginary concept of libertarian free will).  Zero energy is locally re-manifested as short-lived and short distanced negative and positive paired energies. When the matter and corresponding antimatter particles are paired together with gravity there are briefly three distinct energy entities instead of zero.

Dr. Cherry then asserts that "... matter-antimatter pairs do not self-generate from nothing because they are both composed of actual mass with either positive or negative quantum numbers. The term antimatter is thus a misnomer because the mass (and therefore the energy) of matter and its corresponding antimatter is equal and additive – not subtractive."  Indeed, matter and antimatter have opposite charges that sum to zero but both will have positive energy.  While it is true that mass is a positive energy, mass is accompanied by gravity, and gravity is a negative energy.  Thus there is nothing in the law of conservation of energy that is violated by the addition of positive mass energy together with the simultaneous subtraction of an equal negative gravity energy.  Our universe, with both mass and gravity, is thought to sum to zero energy and thus is itself arguably an example of "nothing come from nothing".

Dr. Cherry then continues with the same argument, pointing out that there is no "anti-mass", that "matter-antimatter collisions produce energy", and that "matter antimatter pairs require energy to be created".  Gravity is the "anti-mass", although it is more commonly presented as a holder of debt in exchange for loaning the mass, with no need for a banker god to administer the transactions.  

If the physics Dr. Cherry asserts were factually true and complete than his argument would have merit.  His logic is good, his reliance on reason is good, and he is also articulate.  But physicists have a somewhat different understanding of what is forbidden and what is permitted by the laws of physics than Dr. Cherry does.  In particular, Dr. Cherry ignores the role of gravity (he never mentions it even though it plays a key role as the negative energy) and he discounts the full implications of all of modern physics.  Here is a quote on this topic from Dr. Stephen Hawking: "The answer is that relativity and quantum mechanics allow matter to be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. And where did the energy come from to create this matter? The answer is that it was borrowed from the gravitational energy of the universe. The universe has an enormous debt of negative gravitational energy, which exactly balances the positive energy of the matter. During the inflationary period the universe borrowed heavily from its gravitational energy to finance the creation of more matter. The debt of gravitational energy will not have to be paid until the end of the universe."