I heard about this on The Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, episode 254, from May 26th. If you want to listen to Dr. Steven Novella talk about the three studies, start around the 23:30 minute mark. This segment goes to about 35:20, but the whole episode is good, of course.

The attitudes of parents toward the MMR vaccine and autism: The study concluded that parents had a significant bias toward believing information that they heard from other parents. The parents were mostly affected by their peers, and did not seem to be affected at all by what the scientific evidence said, and they seemed to inherently distrust information that came from the government. Not a surprising result.

Raising a general level of scientific literacy would be the best thing we could do to help this mess we’re in. My fear is that people are so anti-science and anti-intelligence these days that I don’t know how we could go about it, that people aren’t interested in learning anything that goes against their narrow world views. Another thing we could do (as recommended by Steven) is to change regulation so that it’s rational and evidence-based, not based on public opinion.

Popular Appeal vs Scientific Belief study using ESP: It concluded that people are much more likely to accept ESP based on whether they were told it was popular. And, when they were told that science rejects it versus accepts it, they were more likely to accept ESP if they were told scientists reject it. So they went against the scientific consensus.

The Rogues talked briefly about Social Norming, where you use peer pressure of contemporaries instead of scare tactics from authority figures on people (teens, youth, etc) to try to get kids or people to not do something harmful, like smoking or drugs. They also mentioned Scared Straight which didn’t work. People are influenced by social pressure, not rational arguments.

The last study (no working link): If people were presented with scientific evidence which dis-confirmed something they already believed, their response to that generally was to conclude that science itself is untrustworthy. Not just the science that they are being presented (in the study), but the scientific method in general. Therefore confronting people with tightly held beliefs with the scientific evidence, not only does that not work, it turns them off to science in general, even about unrelated topics. It has a huge negative influence.

A related study found that if you tell somebody, “here’s a myth and the myth is wrong”, three weeks later, a significant percentage of people remember the myth as being correct.

To me, science is so amazing and wonderful and exciting. Sure, the daily experiments can be dry and tedious, but it’s all worth it when the results come in. Discovery, observation, exploration, and the creation of new technologies and other neat things that improve our lives or somehow make life better in this universe, well that’s all just fantastic. Sure, we have to be careful to keep in mind that human beings are doing the science and can make mistakes. But that’s where peer review comes in, and other scientists verifying experiments, results and evidence.

It’s not perfect, but it’s the best thing we have to understand the universe and get the most out of our precious time in this world. I wish I could convey the excitement I get just walking through my yard, which I’ve seen for almost 6 years, when I find a new insect or see some plant that wasn’t there last year. That’s just mere observation. That’s not even experimentation or research, and yet still it’s exciting (ok, I’m a science geek, but that’s compliment, not an insult!)

But I guess if you don’t have science and the idea that the universe is a marvelous place in your mind, then how can we interest you? How can we make science exciting and fascinating and part of everyone’s lives? How can we show people that they use the scientific method in some form in their daily lives? Is there any way to turn things around and make science and scientific discovery fun and cool and exciting?

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Woo can be defined as anything supernatural, irrational or lacking in evidence. So it would include religion and any kind of pseudoscience.

On a side note, is there anything that could be defined as woo that you still believe in? If so, why?

For me, I’ve somehow whittled down my friend list from all woo-lovers to all skeptical atheists. I didn’t do this deliberately, but I guess with my skeptical talk and constant questioning (not aggressively, but I really did question all the woo I previously embraced), my woo-loving friends all went their separate ways and avoided me within months of when my quest for knowledge began.

I didn’t have many friends for awhile but then found the Morgantown Atheists where I found several people that have become good friends. Also, having HDC has let me meet new people who were rather like-minded as well.

With extended family, I still have to deal with woo, both religious and supernatural. They know Butch (my awesome husband) and I are die-hard atheists so we have come to an unspoken agreement that we don’t talk about religion. Or politics just to be safe and have nice dinners together.

I think I’m lucky in most respects. My skeptical atheist friends keep things lively by being smart and reason-based (most of the time, we’re not perfect, of course). And my extended family gives me an occasional glimpse into woo-land so I get to see what the majority of people are dealing with and believing. It’s enough.

I don’t avoid anyone based on their woo. But I tend to gently state my skepticism when I can so that I am not being dishonest about myself. Then people who are wrapped in woo tend to avoid me, not the other way around. I can’t emphasize enough that I am very nice about it, not aggressive or “militant” at all. I’m probably way too nice about it. The other evening, I let my sister-in-law go on about her visit to a psychic and only said two things about how cold readings work. When the other sister-in-law said the psychic (a 95 year old woman) insisted she give her her hand (she didn’t want a reading) and told her to never drive, to dump her boyfriend (who she just moved in with and is very happy with) and other negative things, I said a few things then. Mainly that it’s all made up and it’s nonsense and don’t let that upset her. But even though she said it was no big deal, she talked about it all night. I got the impression it really bothered her.

As you may know, I’m happily married to Butch (we’ve been together for 15 years). So I’m not looking to date anyone, of course. But if I did have to date, I think I would be pretty strict about how much woo my partner could be into and still be in a relationship with me. I think it would be such a clash of belief and skepticism that it would cause problems. I think I’d have issues with it.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

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Before I read this paper, I thought Dale McGowan‘s take on Santa to be the best way to handle it. In a nutshell, he says Santa is a dry run for letting kids reason their way through the fact that Santa is a myth, to then figuring out that religion is mythical, as he puts it, Santa is “the ultimate dry run for a developing inquiring mind”. It makes sense in a way. But then my friend Joe told me about his experience as a kid.

Joe really believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc. Then one day a kid in the playground told him it was all a pack of lies. Joe believed him and went home crying. He was devastated. When Joe and I talked about the McGowan philosophy of Santa, I figured out that in theory it seems like a great idea, but maybe in practice it could backfire and cause a lot of unhappiness and pain for kids who don’t get to reason it out for themselves but are told by other children.

And is it necessary to lie to children about a mythical jolly old fat man? Does it increase their happiness, improve their moral fiber? Does it make them better little people, or better adults down the line? And is there an alternative to lying about Santa?

First, there are 3 alternatives, according to Ernâni:

• Disbelief: The parent tells the child Santa Claus is not real
• Neutrality: The parent does not inform the child one way or the other
• Pretense: The parent invites the child to pretend there is a Santa Claus.(page 13)

…inviting to pretend there is a Santa Claus is morally superior to encouraging to believe. (14)

I never thought of this as an option, but it makes sense. You get all the good fun of Santa but you don’t get the lies and beliefs in those lies.

What about short term pleasure and pain? Here is what Ernâni has to say:

The extent to which the pleasure of children and adults justifies the Santa Claus lie depends on the amount of pleasure available from non-deceitful alternatives. The alternative that most closely replicates telling children there is a Santa Claus involves inviting children to pretend there is one. Although pretending something is real is fundamentally different from believing it is, as I have argued, many of the emotions evoked by an object believed to be real are also evoked by objects supposed to be fictional. Children and adults derive great pleasure from creatures of their imaginations, as witnessed by the large crowds at movie theaters. Children who are old enough to know she is fictional still derive great enjoyment from the pretense that Cinderella is a real person with real hopes. And, it is easy to replicate the gift-giving aspect of the Santa experience, which is surely a significant factor in the child’s enjoyment. (15-16)

Interesting and thought-provoking, don’t you think? This is even more important:

One reason the justification of the lie cannot be a matter of the short term pleasure is that the purpose of parenting is not only or even primarily to maximize children’s happiness and minimize their suffering. A major purpose of proper parenting is to foster the child’s moral and cognitive development. Much more important than whether Santa belief is conducive to happiness in the short term is the question whether it is conducive to a child’s moral and cognitive development. (17)

How true! It’s all about raising a child to be moral and to think for themselves throughout their lives. So it isn’t just the short term gain you need to think about, but the long term consequences.

Here is where I really agree with Ernâni:

When parents tell their children about Santa Claus they encourage belief, not imagination. (17) Evidently, insofar as increased imagination is supposed to be what is gained through the Santa Claus experience, this can be much more effectively pursued by having the child pretend that Santa is real, rather than believe he is. (18)

Perhaps belief in Santa Claus is beneficial in that it fosters a “sense of magic” and “magical . . . thought” (Breen 2004). A magical occurrence, in the sense in question, would seem to be one which violates the laws of ordinary reality. Why should it be beneficial for a child to believe that there are things that work in unheard of ways? (18)

The similarity between the child’s belief in Santa and adult religious belief has been widely acknowledged. Children often think of Santa as having many of the same characteristics as God, to the extent that upon discovering the truth about Santa, some children question the existence of God as well.

The resemblance between the child’s attitude toward Santa and religious belief is only an advantage of belief if encouraging this sort of religious belief is beneficial. (20)

An excellent point! Why would any secular parent need to teach a child to believe in physics-breaking, supernatural magical beings at all? One thing I was thinking as I read this; wouldn’t it also sow a seed of doubt into that child that their parents lied to them about Santa? What else have they lied about?

If religious conviction is essentially belief in the absence of evidence, then the child’s attitude toward Santa is not religious conviction. Again, the child has ample testimonial and other evidence for the existence of Santa. (21)

A plausible inference for the child to draw from the entire experience is a certain skepticism about claims of the existence of unseen things: once bitten, twice shy. And insofar as encouraging belief in Santa encourages belief in the absence of and contrary to perceptual evidence, the supposed advantage must be weighed against the tendency of the child who discovers the truth to infer that believing in things in the absence of evidence is a hazardous affair. (21-22)

I would also like to add, many millions and millions of kids who once believed in Santa never extend the thought process to then doubt God or Jesus. They figure out that Santa is a myth but never take that lesson any further to realize God is too. So it’s not a safe bet.

Ernâni makes a great point about morality and Santa:

Although Santa is still supposed to observe whether children are naughty or nice, this activity is rarely emphasized. And, importantly, it is extremely rare for parents to follow through on the traditional threat that Santa will not give presents to naughty children. Hardly any American child in the last twenty years has found a lump of coal in his stocking from Santa Claus. This is, interestingly, one of the few aspects of the tradition that has earned the condemnation of childhood psychologists. (22)

Does the concept that Santa, who the child admires, single-mindedly fulfills that child’s wishes translate to a child being more generous themselves? I don’t think so. Neither does Ernâni:

Nothing in the experience encourages the child to give. The child’s primary role in the ritual is as recipient. Indeed, a child who might otherwise feel inclined to do a generous deed for other children is apt to think that Santa will take care of their needs. The tradition does include the cookies and milk for Santa. But this is a rather limited generosity, applying as it does only to someone who has done very nice things for the child. Nothing in the behavior points to the importance of being generous to people in general. (23)

What are the alternatives to lying to a child about Santa then, if the goal is to teach generosity?

One non-deceitful thing that might be done to encourage the child to be generous is to tell the child about the importance of generosity. One might encourage the child to give things to others. One might reward the child for doing generous things. In the right circumstances, such encouragement is known to lead to greater degrees of the tendency encouraged. Indeed, such a direct method promises a much higher likelihood of success than the roundabout method of encouraging the child to adopt Santa as a role model. (23)

What an amazing concept! Just teach a child directly without subterfuge!

Now, if the child is taught to just pretend in Santa, what do you teach that child about the beliefs of other children?

Any parent who decides not to encourage belief in Santa faces the question of how the child ought to discuss the issue with children who believe. If it is possible to teach formerly believing children the importance of discretion concerning Santa belief, then it is similarly possible to teach children who never believe the importance of discretion concerning believers. Children who are not told there is a Santa can easily be told that other children are told and that it is important not to ruin their fun by denying his existence. (24)

Ernâni then explains his main reason why it’s not good to lie to children about Santa:

The main problem with lying to children about Santa Claus is that it encourages children to lie. The encouragement happens because children inevitably discover that there is no Santa Claus. And although apparently some children at first believe that parents are similarly under the misimpression that there is a Santa Claus, eventually children discover that they have been deceived. As lately noted, when they discover the truth children are encouraged not to divulge the truth to other children and also to lie to them. Also when children discover that they have been lied to, they reasonably infer that such lying is held to be permissible by their parents and other adults whose opinion they hold in high regard. (25)

The first step involves the child’s discovery that the parent has lied. It cannot be seriously maintained that children do not discover that deceit has taken place. Children of seven or eight understand what is involved in lying. And eventually children understand that although their parents told them otherwise, the parents do not believe there is a Santa Claus. Children therefore
become aware of two facts, both of which tend to encourage the child to lie. First, their parents (and many other adults) lie. Whether children imitate Santa Claus is questionable, but they undoubtedly imitate their parents. Since they observe and are aware of their parents lying, they are more likely to lie themselves. Second, their parents (and many other adults) believe that it is morally appropriate to lie. Children notice that their parents feel no moral qualm about having deceived the children about Santa Claus. It is evident to the child that the parent believes so deceiving the child was morally appropriate. (26)

…notice that the deceit about Santa Claus is part of a larger pattern: the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, being the two main other culprits. Together with these other incidents, the child is likely to draw the inference that lying is thought to be permissible in many cases beyond the Santa Claus situation. (27)

While I think that lying is a major flaw in teaching kids about Santa, I personally feel the worst part is teaching kids that a magical being gives them presents. I think all the points Ernâni makes are extremely important, and that together they make a strong case for simply encouraging children to pretend instead of lying to them.

What do you think?

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So these zookeepers over in Jerusalem are trying to sort of reconstruct the animals from the bible (old testament, of course) in Israel. They aren’t trying to repopulate the area with the biblical predators like bears, but they are trying to bring back vultures, even though Levitucus 11:13 called them detestable. Which makes me wonder why they’d want to nurture and breed them. And why cherry-pick certain animals but not the rest from the bible? But why try to get logical now?

Almost 100 animals were mentioned in the bible, according to the fluffy, credulous HuffPo article where I found this ridiculous story, so of course, I am quite skeptical. I guess that’s how Noah was able to get them all on the ark, then. He only had 100 or so to deal with, not the millions found in the world today.

There are nearly 100 different types of animals mentioned in the Bible, many of them key players in well-known stories: the lions in Daniel’s den; the dove that scouted for dry land from Noah’s ark; the ram that was sacrificed by Abraham to save the life of his son, Isaac.

Today, many of them are gone, hunted to the point of extinction or driven away by ongoing conflict. Of the 10 animals that are listed as acceptable dinner fare in Deuteronomy 14 — ox, sheep, goat, deer, gazelle, roe deer, wild goat, ibex, antelope and mountain sheep — only two (the gazelle and the ibex) could still be found in the historical boundaries of Israel in 1960. …

“… I want to keep the vultures because they were mentioned in the Bible that it was a common animal and that’s good enough for me.”

Shkedy, [a chief scientist for the Israel Nature and Parks Authority] has spent the past 15 years trying to repopulate Israel with biblical animals. He works with zoo keepers like Yedveb across the country, closely monitoring and coordinating their efforts to return animals like the Griffon vulture to the wild.

While Shkedy would love to bring back lions and hippopotamuses, he focuses on the animals that realistically stand a chance to thrive again, like Persion fallow deer and vultures. “Israel is now too dense to reintroduce predators, large predators,” said Shkedy. “We lost the bear for example, but who would be brave enough to bring back a bear?”

…In the Bible, vultures are only mentioned by name in a few places; some conservationists believe translators confused them with more frequently mentioned eagles. More recently, vultures have been victims of poisoning. “Farmers want to kill wolves and jackals that hunt their chickens and cattle, so they put out bait to poison them, and because vultures eat dead animals, they get poisoned too. Then they die.”

…For Shkedy, the fight to save Israel’s natural wonders is personal. When his parents emigrated from Europe in 1947, they wanted to fulfill the Zionist dreams of their ancestors by working the land with their own hands. The dream has shifted in subsequent generations, he said. …. “We should keep in mind that we didn’t come to this country just because we wanted to see a sea of houses. We came to this country … because of biblical things.”

Now, I’m all for conservation and preservation of wildlife and the environment. In fact, I often prefer the company of animals to that of most people.   But trying to recreate Zion in Jerusalem with biblical animals seems nutty.

Then again, following a 3,000 year old set of dusty books as the inerrant word of a god that doesn’t exist also qualifies as delusional and nutty, especially when, 2,500+ years later you’re still fighting and killing over a small piece of land that your supposed god gave to you.

So, trying to take care of some animals that once lived in an area is a good thing, but the quacky reasoning is not.

And if you read the article, maybe they need to stop poisoning the other animals which lead to the deaths of the vultures in the first place? Maybe it’s just me, but I would guess that would be really helpful. Raising baby vultures then sending them out into the wild just to be poisoned seems pointless. Fix the real problem first, don’t you think?

I thought I’d share this just to remind us that religious quackery is worldwide. I really wonder if humanity will ever give up its childish need for a sky daddy. Somehow I doubt it.

The other day I was talking to my fellow atheist friends about superstitions. We came to the conclusion that people seem to need their superstitions, and if you take one away from someone who feels their life is out of control, they’ll simply replace it with another one. Of course, that’s not scientific, but it would be interesting to see a study where that was done.

I think you can give up superstitions, even though it can be very tough. Look at all of us atheists and skeptics. Most of us were believers at some point. Most of us gave up gods, Santa and the Easter Bunny. Some of us have gone so far to give up superstitions as well. And have learned to be skeptical, critical thinkers. So it can be done.

But I think for the average person it’s not easy or natural or even wanted. They are happy to believe in the supernatural in a myriad of ways. And that’s just how it is.

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1. God would have to personally reveal himself to me and correctly answer every question I throw at him.

2. God would have to reveal himself to every person on Earth at the same time, in a way that doesn’t make us all think we are suffering from some type of mass psychosis or delusion. Otherwise I might think I was just hallucinating.

3. God would have to demonstrate his power. He’d have to cure me and bring me to total health and fitness, end all suffering in the world instantly (after proclaiming to everyone that he would do so), end all wars, etc.

4. He would have to demonstrate his superior intelligence, and have an answer to every question that we have. He would have to have good answers for all of his stupid past behavior.

5. He would have to predict the future, in rigorous scientific experiments, with 100% accuracy.

6. He would have to bend the laws of physics and the natural world, but only in rigorous scientific experiments.

As you can see, I still won’t have blind faith. I would require testable, repeatable evidence in massive quantities to believe. In this sense, I wouldn’t “believe” so much as accept the evidence that would be available.

Now, if I believed in him, would I worship him? That’s a separate issue. I don’t think so, not the god of the bible. He’s a hateful, childish, vengeful, jealous, petty god with anger issues. I think I’d say thanks but no thanks. I require more godliness and love to actually worship anything. I also require a god that actually does good and not harm.

So what are your thoughts? I know my list isn’t complete. What else would you require to believe in God? And if you believed in him, what would it take for you to worship him?

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Notice how in the demo clips it’s always about some materialistic thing like a bike or a necklace? How shallow and self-serving! Why don’t all believers in this stupid lie wish for world peace or clean drinking water for everyone? Or everyone to be disease free? Instead they have to have a new Shiny. Pathetic!

Oh, and see the waves of rays coming out of the peoples’ heads? That doesn’t happen. That’s a special effect. So when you wish for something your thoughts don’t actually leave your head. Just in case you were wondering. Don’t believe me? Ask a neuroscientist. They have proof your thoughts don’t leave your head by magic (they only leave your head when you speak, write something down or perform an action based on those thoughts)

Oh OH! And when you ask for something, then believe it’s already yours, there’s no invisible man in the sky that says to you, “Your wish is my command.” You know that, right? The Universe doesn’t have a log of every time you wish for that new Ferrari. It doesn’t wait for the wish requests to reach 1,000 before it has it shipped to you. (Don’t move your house because it will get delivered to your old address! LOL!)

Other posts about The Secret:

• The Law Of Attraction – And The Secret – Are Bullshit
• The Secret Divides
• The Secret Divides Part 2

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I like what Iron Chariots says about this argument: It is a form of non sequitur, since the hand of God is posited without proof and often with complete disregard to other possible explanations. In a nutshell, this is an argument from ignorance. But ignorance is never an argument for something. It just means we don’t yet know the cause of something.

This is Part 11 in a series about Logical Fallacies. We are going through one fallacy at a time. There are many types of fallacious arguments. I’m going to try to explain them with examples then find ways to help you refute those arguments when they occur. Please comment or email if there’s a particular fallacy you want me to tackle, or if you have success with refuting an argument using a good technique you can share.

I want to share this video of a talk by Neil deGrasse Tyson from 2006 is about 38 minutes long. He talks about the god of the gaps throughout scientific history, intelligent design and then about Stupid Design. Highly recommended watching:

Neil deGrasse Tyson is an astrophysicist who brings passion to science and scientific literacy. Tyson has written several books.

I’ve shared the Stupid Design part before (where I reproduced most of his slides in the article for your convenience) , but the god of the gaps part in the beginning is also very interesting.

The God of the Gaps argument is one of those, that when confronted with it, vexes me. In my experience when someone sees their god in things they don’t understand, I have found that person to be bound by lazy acceptance of easy answers to complex questions, their minds tightly closed to critical thinking and wonder in the natural universe.

How to Refute:

I usually don’t try to argue with someone who sees god in everything they don’t understand. It’s almost always futile. To make matters worse, as I wrote about before, we naturally justify our false beliefs in any way we can, so many people fortify their belief in their god through confirmation bias or just plain resistance to any new information, just to name a few.

I might mention that science closes the gap more each day, and maybe add a few studies I’ve heard about that are amazing.  You can say this, too: “I’d rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”

Sources used:

• IronChariots.org
• Wikipedia
• Neil deGrasse Tyson

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