Heaving Dead Cats » Skeptical

Occam’s Razor: Part 1 of Our Critical Thinking Toolkit

Neece — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:54:47 +0000

The other day I wrote about Critical Thinking and how important it is. But knowing it’s good for you and actually using it in your daily life are two very different things. I want to put together a Critical Thinking Toolkit.

One important tool is going to be Occam’s Razor: “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). That’s it in a nutshell right from William of Ockham, a Franciscan monk and English philosopher, theologian and logician in the 14th century.
Another way to put it is: The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. But don’t get confused by the term, simple. It means: The hypothesis with the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one. When giving explanatory reasons for something, don’t posit more than is necessary. Or, don’t make any more assumptions than you have to.

So let’s say you have 2 competing hypotheses that are basically equal in most respects. Then this principle would suggest that you choose the hypothesis that makes the fewest assumptions while still sufficiently answering the question. In science Occam’s Razor is used as a rule of thumb (a heuristic) to help researchers develop good models.

In your life it can help you make decisions and choose what to think and what to believe (or not believe). You can use it as a heuristic as well, a great rule of thumb in your Critical Thinking Toolkit.

Sometimes atheists use Occam’s Razor to argue against the existence of god since everything can be explained through natural means without complicating it with the supernatural.

Another example: Crop circles. There used to be 2 competing ideas for where crop circles came from. One was that flying saucers from an alien world made them. Another was that a person (or people) used some type of instrument to make the designs in the grass. Since there is no evidence for the flying saucers from outer space, and given how complicated and how many assumptions need to be made to make that argument work, Occam’s Razor would suggest that the simpler explanation would be that humans did it with instruments. That is the argument that makes less assumptions.

Of course, the second argument could be wrong, but until there was more information, it was the preferable hypothesis. Then 2 guys admitted to the crop circle hoax in the 1990′s. So that ended that debate for most people.

A quote by Carl Sagan is appropriate here: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. When it comes to the supernatural, Occam’s Razor is a very valuable tool indeed.

Sources:

Critical Thinking For Everyone

Neece — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 07:43:15 +0000

For some time now, I’ve wanted to talk to you about critical thinking. I remember the bad old days when most of my thinking was emotional and reactive and I had no idea that such a thing as critical thinking even existed. It wasn’t a happy time. Over the last few years I’ve learned to think for myself and I can’t express how liberating and empowering that is.

If there is one gift you can give to a child or anyone else, it is to teach them to think for themselves. The educational system doesn’t teach this important skill. It teaches rote memorization and focuses on test taking. Therefore it’s up to you to learn it for yourself.

Unfortunately, I’m self taught and have no formal training in this realm. Which means sharing it with you is harder. So instead of putting it off even longer, I thought maybe we could explore the subject together and develop a plan for sharing with others in our lives or on the web. First, let’s define it.

Here is a quote: [Critical thinking is a] desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture. ~ Francis Bacon (1605)

Here is the short and sweet definition:

Critical Thinking: n: the mental process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion.

But I’ve found that there are many different interpretations for this concept. You can see a whole page of them here.

Here’s another one:
“Critical thinking is best understood as the ability of thinkers to take charge of their own thinking. This requires that they develop sound criteria and standards for analyzing and assessing their own thinking and routinely use those criteria and standards to improve its quality.” Elder , L. and Paul, R. “Critical thinking: why we must transform our teaching.” Journal of Developmental Education, Fall 1994.

What makes a critical thinker? Here are some attributes:

asks pertinent questions
assesses statements and arguments
is able to admit a lack of understanding or information
has a sense of curiosity
is interested in finding new solutions
is able to clearly define a set of criteria for analyzing ideas
is willing to examine beliefs, assumptions, and opinions and weigh them against facts
listens carefully to others and is able to give feedback
sees that critical thinking is a lifelong process of self-assessment
suspends judgment until all facts have been gathered and considered
looks for evidence to support assumption and beliefs
is able to adjust opinions when new facts are found
looks for proof
examines problems closely
is able to reject information that is incorrect or irrelevant

Just about anyone can learn to think more critically. Even more importantly, you can use it in nearly every aspect of your daily living. You already think all the time, but if you are not consciously trying to think critically, your thoughts will be more biased, distorted, partial, uninformed and prejudiced. You’ll make decisions based on your emotions and feelings, you’ll rely on your “intuition” and your gut instinct, which can sometimes be useful but can often be quite flawed.

One way that flawed thinking is noticeable is through Logical Fallacies, which we talk about here at HDC.

Here are some other resources that you might find useful:

Well, that is enough to get us started. Do you have any great resources for learning to think critically that you would like to share?

What Level Of Woo Would Make Someone Undateable?

Neece — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 23:28:37 +0000

Here is a question for you. What level of woo would make someone undateable? What about unfriendable? Do you have a limit that you’ve drawn in your life or do you have a lot of woo woo people around you that you interact with? How do you get on with them? Do you find it difficult? Do you argue with them or are you silent about your woo disbelief?

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!

Logical Fallacies in Advertising

Neece — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:29:18 +0000

Awhile ago I wrote about Advertisements and Logical Fallacies. It was basically just an overview, but this time I thought I’d list some of the actual fallacies in advertising. No matter where we go, we’re bombarded with advertising and marketing. While companies have to follow the letter of the law and be “truthful” there are loopholes and ways to avoid following the spirit of the law.

This is part of a series on Logical Fallacies.

People are highly suggestible. That’s just the way it is. I’m a skeptic and I still fall prey to suggestibility. Usually I catch myself and then put on my critical thinking cap, but it happens to the best of us. The fact that companies (anyone using a marketing campaign, including governments) go out of their way to trick us into buying their stuff, meaning that more than ever we have to be critical thinkers in our everyday lives.

Ad Hominem: often used in political campaigns where some character flaw is brought up. If it doesn’t have anything to do with their ability to do their job, it’s irrelevant, and therefore a logical fallacy.

Appeal to Emotion: any emotion can be exploited. If they manipulate your feelings of sympathy, sexuality, anger, fear, love, pity, pride, flattery, wishful thinking, ignorance, etc., the company then snags you. You make a decision based on that feeling. No logic or real benefit is addressed. This is a type of Red Herring.

The Bandwagon: everyone else is doing it or buying it so you should too. But that is irrelevant. Even if 99 people in 100 buy X toothpaste, it doesn’t mean X toothpaste is a good product. It just means the company is good at marketing. Do your research!

False Dilemma: The either-or fallacy: Only two options are given when in fact others are there but not mentioned. This is black and white thinking. A company makes it sound like you have to choose between one of two extremes, and their product or service is the only choice you could make because the other is awful. In fact usually there is a range of choices or a continuum of how the situation works, not just the two extremes. And they may not even be mutually exclusive as shown.

Appeal to Fear: An appeal to emotion, this is common in politics and marketing. Deception and propaganda are used in an attempt to increase your fear and prejudice toward the competitor. The False Dilemma is implied, because if A is scary then B is offered as your only alternative.

Hasty Generalization: Making a decision based on insufficient evidence. Often there is a broad conclusion using statistics of a small group even thought it fails to represent the whole population.

Red Herring: A diversionary tactic. Bringing an argument up in response to another argument which does not address the real issue. Usually there is an appeal to emotion in there as well. There are many kinds of red herring arguments. Some used in advertising would be Appeal to Tradition, Style over Substance, Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy, Appeal to Authority, and many more.

Appeal to Tradition: An idea is deemed correct based on the correlation with some past or present tradition. Basically, this is right because it’s always been done this way. Two assumptions are made: the old way of thinking was proven correct when it was introduced (when in fact this may be false), and the past justifications for the tradition are still valid at present (but the circumstances may have changed).

Appeal to Authority: Saying something is true because a perceived authority figure says it’s true. This is the opposite of the ad hominem argument because the arguer is appealing to positive characteristics of the person to support their argument. A classic example is a person in a lab coat. The person is probably an actor, but they appear to be a scientist so whatever they say must be true. Another example is a business suit. If someone has a nice suit on, it doesn’t mean they are experts at anything.

Atheists Deserve A Community Too

Neece — Mon, 03 May 2010 07:17:43 +0000

The other day I received the following email:

Without criticizing or judging your page in any way, I just would like to ask you, why are you so vocal about your non-beliefs?
Can you see any correlation to the obnoxious holy-rollers that most people dislike?
Perhaps its just a need for self-expression, expressed. I guess it was the “Atheist/Humanist/Skeptical/Freethinker Group” poll that got me. Why do you need help to think freely? Or company? How is it not the antithesis of a prayer group?
I just think perhaps you need balance. I found mine, or the closest I’ve ever come to it, in the martial arts. Self-defense, but a wonderful integration of the physical and the spiritual, however one defines that, and although its frequently tied to a religion, that can be left to the individual.
I ran across the movie “The Secret” and found your website from a Google search entitled “the secret is bullshit”.
Have a good one.
By the way, I am a political conservative and a Christian, although most would argue (if they were interested, which they are not) I am not a practicing one. Just a believer.

These days, when someone tries to subtly insult me, I usually just brush it off and move on. But this email reminded me that maybe I need to speak louder, slower and more clearly.

First, this blog is for atheists and skeptics, not christians and mindless believers. This blog is by a skeptical atheist for people who like to think and use their minds. If you don’t like it, no one is making you read it. Go mind your own business elsewhere. I’m not coming into your backyard and whining. I’ll thank you to give me the same courtesy.

Second, atheists are growing in number and we need community too. Not only do we need it, we deserve it, just like any other group in this country. In fact, it should be a basic human right to meet and socialize with like-minded individuals, especially for peaceful purposes. Unfortunately in some countries the people aren’t free and atheists are in danger if they expose themselves in any way. Now in Ireland it’s illegal to blaspheme. We’re going backwards!

Even small minority groups should be allowed to meet together and have a community. Why is that so threatening to believers? Why does that bother them so much? Well, here’s something interesting. After christianity, nonbelievers are the biggest group in America, bigger than judaism, islam, and all the others. In fact, we’re bigger than all those others combined. I guess that’s why they worry when we gather together. (Religion in the U.S.)

Third, my atheist meetings are not to help me think freely. I do that on my own. Mainly we get together to share ideas, learn new things, expand our minds, and share in our growing community of like-minded skeptical, freethinking nonbelievers. So only christians get to meet on a regular basis to have a community? You think christians have a monopoly on people spending time together? You think we’re uppity and should sit in the back of the bus? Get over yourselves.

Fourth, we are the antithesis of a prayer group, yes. Most definitely. Because we accomplish things. We get together to learn, expand our minds, stretch our horizons, to challenge our ways of thinking at times, to educate ourselves. And you know what? We also get together to help others. Sometimes we have donation drives for the less fortunate. We also have a campaign to help our local Botanic Garden in progress. One of our goals is to help our community. Pretty nifty, huh?

A prayer group is a bunch of people huddling together, praying to an unknown, unseen entity that has never answered a prayer. Ever. Why? Because he doesn’t exist. In hundreds of years of science, there has never been a rigorous scientific study that has found any evidence of god or the supernatural. Everything… EVERYTHING in this universe that we’ve investigated so far has turned out to be completely natural. No god needed. Especially not an angry local god from the Middle East with a penchant for wholesale slaughter and a bad temper. So sitting in a room praying to nothing does nothing. Nothing.

Why not go out and actually help someone in need instead of clasping your hands in prayer? Prayer merely lets the person praying feel superior for doing nothing but clasping their hands together.

How do atheists relate to obnoxious holy rollers? They don’t. Just because you compare two groups doesn’t mean they have anything in common. It’s completely meaningless.

We have ethics, while they shit on their own high and mighty biblical morals while preaching a hard-line moral code to their flock.
We get together in the name of reason, science, education and community. We are trying to build up good things. They preach and pray, people of one book, eschewing education, learning and critical thinking. They want people to stay the sheep that they are so they can bilk them for money. It’s greed and power, nothing more.

The list goes on and on. I don’t need to explain the good that our group does, even just by letting other atheists know they aren’t alone in a sea of religious dogma. That’s why we’re so vocal. There are many of us out there. We are now starting to gather together whether you like it or not. If you don’t like it, it’s probably because you feel threatened. I can see how reason, ethics and critical thinking can be scary.

If you’re a godless heathen, please consider joining a local group, an internet group, or forming your own. I wrote about how to start a group recently. While we aren’t going to agree on everything, you will probably be pleasantly surprised how awesome it is to hang out with like-minded heathens and critical thinkers. Who knows, it might do a lot of good for your community, but also for you! Let me know if you do.

Meditation For Godless Heathens

Neece — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:05:53 +0000

I gave up God long ago. Awhile after that I gave up spirituality and all things “airy fairy”, like the idea of reincarnation, the concept of the universe having some kind of intelligence and connectedness, and the belief that “energy” was in everything and could be tapped and manipulated for healing and other magical uses. Now I use my skeptical powers and scientific wonder to evaluate new information. It gets much easier with practice.

One thing I never gave up was meditation. That’s because I was never able to do it in the first place. Long ago I tried it and hated it. I was a dismal failure at it.

But, as a science-minded skeptical atheist, I love to learn about new research. For that I use keep an eye on Science Daily and Scientific American. Recently Science Daily reported that Brief Meditative Exercise Helps Cognition (see below for some of the report)

This intrigued me, because it said brief, not expert meditation. As a middle-aged woman, I find myself increasingly struggling to think clearly when it comes to reading or processing information. It’s alarming and disturbing. So when I saw this study I thought, what the hell, that’s something I can experiment with myself. Why not just try it and see if I can then think better?

So, based on the information in the report, I looked up Samatha Meditation and also found BuddhaNet.

So I tried it, just focusing on my breathing. I said I’d do it for 1 minute, just to see if I could. I read that doing a short burst of it often is better than trying to force yourself into a long session. So here’s the amazing bit, I comfortably meditated, focusing on my breathing and letting thoughts go, for 10 minutes! I think I can do this! After I opened my eyes I felt refreshed and happy. I think I like it!

~Later: I tried another two times today. Once I meditated easily for 20 minutes which refreshed me as much as a 3 hour nap. A bit ago I wanted to wash dishes but my shoulder was burning (a recurring problem I’ve had for awhile now). Normally nothing makes it better, not painkillers, stretching, nothing. I thought, hey, what if I meditate for 10 minutes? I’ve heard that can help with chronic pain. I’ll be damned 10 minutes later I was stretching and feeling pain-free. It came back but only after an hour and not nearly as bad. I think de-stressing and relaxing is very healthy for such things.

Here’s the thing. The information I found was all stuffed full of “musts” about some god or other and mystical energy, and a bunch of other nonsense. Getting through all of that to get to the instruction on the actual meditation technique is a challenge.

It would be nice to find online instruction on mindfulness meditation from a secular point of view. Does anyone have any resources?

An excerpt of the report:

…new research now suggests that the mind may be easier to cognitively train than we previously believed. Psychologists studying the effects of a meditation technique known as “mindfulness ” found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills (and performed significantly higher in cognitive tests than a control group) after only four days of training for only 20 minutes each day.

“Simply stated, the profound improvements that we found after just 4 days of meditation training- are really surprising,” Zeidan noted. “It goes to show that the mind is, in fact, easily changeable and highly influenced, especially by meditation.” The study appears in the April 2 issue of Consciousness and Cognition.

… The meditation training involved in the study was an abbreviated “mindfulness” training regime modeled on basic “Shamatha skills” from a Buddhist meditation tradition, conducted by a trained facilitator. As described in the paper, “participants were instructed to relax, with their eyes closed, and to simply focus on the flow of their breath occurring at the tip of their nose. If a random thought arose, they were told to passively notice and acknowledge the thought and to simply let ‘it’ go, by bringing the attention back to the sensations of the breath.” Subsequent training built on this basic model, teaching physical awareness, focus, and mindfulness with regard to distraction.

Zeidan likens the brief training the participants received to a kind of mental calisthenics that prepared their minds for cognitive activity.

“The simple process of focusing on the breath in a relaxed manner, in a way that teaches you to regulate your emotions by raising one’s awareness of mental processes as they’re happening is like working out a bicep, but you are doing it to your brain. Mindfulness meditation teaches you to release sensory events that would easily distract, whether it is your own thoughts or an external noise, in an emotion-regulating fashion. This can lead to better, more efficient performance on the intended task.”

Boobquake: Dress Immodestly For Science April 26

Neece — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:36:37 +0000

Update! Boobquake results are in: Our immodest hair and cleavage did not cause any earthquakes. In fact, the mean magnitude of quakes actually went down during the experiment. Read the full results over at Blag Hag.

Some ideas strike me as terribly clever. Jennifer over at Blag Hag decided to start something by asking women to dress immodestly to show that it doesn’t cause earthquakes. It was spurred on by some little Iranian man who said:

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media. Sedighi is Tehran’s acting Friday prayer leader.

Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head to toe, but many, especially the young, ignore some of the more strict codes and wear tight coats and scarves pulled back that show much of the hair.

“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon Friday. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

“A divine authority told me to tell the people to make a general repentance. Why? Because calamities threaten us,” Sedighi said.

Minister of Welfare and Social Security Sadeq Mahsooli said prayers and pleas for forgiveness were the best “formulas to repel earthquakes.”

“We cannot invent a system that prevents earthquakes, but God has created this system and that is to avoid sins, to pray, to seek forgiveness, pay alms and self-sacrifice,” Mahsooli said.

So on April 26, I will show my cleavage for science. I dress for comfort, not looks, so I’m a perfect person to “tip the scales” towards total devastating earthquake on Monday April 26. This is a scientific experiment.

You can read the whole thing over at Blag Hag. She also clarifies that she’s not trying to offend anyone in a follow up.

There is a Facebook Event and you can twitter about it: #boobquake.

Here is what Jennifer says:

Sedighi claims that not dressing modestly causes earthquakes. If so, we should be able to test this claim scientifically. You all remember the homeopathy overdose?

Time for a Boobqauke.

On Monday, April 26th, I will wear the most cleavage-showing shirt I own. Yes, the one usually reserved for a night on the town. I encourage other female skeptics to join me and embrace the supposed supernatural power of their breasts. Or short shorts, if that’s your preferred form of immodesty. With the power of our scandalous bodies combined, we should surely produce an earthquake. If not, I’m sure Sedighi can come up with a rational explanation for why the ground didn’t rumble. And if we really get through to him, maybe it’ll be one involving plate tectonics.

So, who’s with me? I may be a D cup, but that will probably only produce a slight tremor on its own. If you’ll be joining me on twitter, use the tag #boobquake!

I think it would be good to post pictures to the facebook or twitter pages for scientific verification on the 26th, and to make sure to attend the event on Facebook, etc.

If you’re a skeptic woman, this is a good experiment. We’ll look for a significant increase in earthquake activity on April 26th to see if our immodesty pisses off God enough to tear the Earth apart in his jealous rage.

Again from Jennifer:

Dressing modestly won’t end earthquakes, so help out the victims of inevitable natural disasters at the Red Cross: http://www.redcross.org/

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