SkeptiCamp founder Reed Esau has finally taken the plunge and started blogging at “an illustrative account”–check out his interesting post on “Taking Ownership in Skepticism." Historical Comments Anonymous (2009-12-09): Thanks for the mention, Jim. Some of the fallout that I hinted-at can be found at Why Skeptics Don’t Have to be Atheists with a response by De Dora on Thursday.
While past studies have shown religious believers to be happier than nonbelievers, some new analysis shows that it’s not quite so simple. Luke Galen has found that the convinced non-religious are also quite happy, but people who are uncertain are the ones who are dissatisfied. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn has analyzed data from the World Values Survey and found some more interesting details: Religious people are both happier and unhappier. While a higher percentage of religious people report themselves as extremely happy than convinced nonbelievers, a higher percentage of religious people also report themselves as extremely unhappy.Those who attend religious services and belong to religious organizations tend to be happier. And that’s whether or not they believe–in fact among that group, those with the stronger belief tend to be unhappier. So it’s the social aspect, not the doctrine, that promotes happiness. And this is further supported by:The more religious a country is, the happier believers are, and vice versa. In religious countries, believers are happier; in nonreligious countries, nonbelievers are happier. See more at the Epiphenom blog. (Cross-posted to the Secular Outpost.)
I’ve posted comments about the reasons to be skeptical about Rom Houben’s facilitated communication at a number of blogs, where the response of some seems to be that there is no point of such testing. The reasons for not testing have included (1) that the videos are a “straw man”; (2) that criticisms from a stage magician and a philosopher/bioethicist are not worthy of attention; and (3) the testimony from Dr. Laureys, the facilitator Mrs. Wouters, and Houben’s family is much stronger evidence than what we can see in the videos, and that Dr. Laureys says he already conducted a single-blind test which showed that the communication came from Houben, not the facilitator, and to reject that is irrational hyper-skepticism that assumes they are lying. The first argument makes no sense to me. The videos clearly show the facilitator rapidly typing away with Houben’s finger even while he’s looking away or has his eyes closed, which is by itself a very strong reason to be skeptical, especially in light of the past record of facilitated communication. The second argument is not only ad hominem, but further refuted by similar analysis by a neuroscientist. The last argument is a bit better, but wrongly assumes that the only alternative is that the doctor and family are lying. Facilitated communication isn’t a matter of conscious fraud, it’s a matter of self-deception of the facilitator (enhanced by the expectations and reactions of the family). Given the possibility of unconscious cuing of the facilitator by the doctor, as well as his own vested interest in a positive result, the test he described doing is still far from sufficient to overcome the evidence plainly displayed in the videos. Unfortunately, there is a very strong incentive to believe on the part of the doctor, the facilitator, and the family. To find that the communications are coming from the facilitator would be emotionally devastating, and detrimental to the doctor’s credibility. To test further is to risk a huge potential loss of what has apparently been gained, and I suspect it’s unlikely that we’ll see it happen. But look at it from Houben’s own perspective–further testing is absolutely in his own best interests. For if the facilitator is the one doing the communicating, not him, then he is being further exploited for the satisfaction of his doctor, facilitator, and family, not for his own benefit. He’s not being treated respectfully or as an end, rather than as a means. If he is, in fact, minimally conscious as the brain scans suggest, then speaking on his behalf without his genuine input is doing him even greater harm. If you reject the idea that an hour or so of Houben’s time should be used to do a conclusive, double-blind test to see whether the communications are coming from him or from the facilitator, is it because you want to believe, rather than to know? There is clear possible harm to Hoeben from not doing such a test. There is no harm to Hoeben from such a test, though there’s clearly the risk of painfully dissolving an illusion for the doctor, facilitator, and family. But Hoeben’s interests should be placed above that risk. (Previously on Houben, a post with many links and references.) UPDATE (February 15, 2010): Houben has been put to the test, and it turns out the communications were, in fact, coming from the facilitator. UPDATE (February 20, 2010): David Gorski at the Science-Based Medicine blog has a bit more from the Belgian Skeptics, who were involved in the test. ...
Dana Perino says, “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term." Sean Hannity ignores it. Terrorism is a strategy used by a militarily weak group against a militarily strong one, to create fear, dread, and uncertainty among the general population toward some political or ideological end, such as ending military actions by the strong group against the weak. It’s not clear to me that Major Hasan’s attack at Fort Hood meets the criteria of a terrorist attack, or even a religiously motivated one, though that’s somewhat more plausible. His action did share the element of being an attack by the weak against the strong, but he also appears to have had mental issues and an ongoing battle with the military over his desire to get out and not be sent to Afghanistan. There were clear warning signs that were missed or ignored, but it doesn’t appear that he was part of a broader plot. The Fort Hood shootings were a tragedy, and possibly one that could have been avoided. But it certainly isn’t an event that provides justification for torture, warrantless wiretapping, the revocation of habeas corpus, and the expansion of “homeland security” to the detriment of our civil liberties. Perino and Hannity want to argue that the Obama administration has made us less safe on the basis of this incident, which makes about as much sense as blaming the Bush administration for the Virginia Tech shootings. UPDATE (November 27, 2009): As a couple people have correctly noted, I should also have mentioned the post-9/11 anthrax attacks as another terrorist act Perino forgot about. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was another. UPDATE: Hume’s Ghost notes that Perino has said via Twitter that she meant “since 9/11," and correctly points out how absurd it is to discount 9/11 for Bush (as well as these other subsequent events she’s ignored), while blaming Obama for Hasan’s shooting: “…while there were warning signs about Hasan’s fitness for duty that could have been noticed by those around him, this is hardly something that would have been on the President’s radar. No one was briefing President Obama that Major Hasan was determined to strike a military base; however, President Bush was briefed that Bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States prior to the 9/11 attacks.” ...
Wikileaks is releasing over 500,000 U.S. national text pager intercepts from September 11, 2001, over the next two days: From 3AM on Wednesday November 25, 2009, until 3AM the following day (New York Time), WikiLeaks will release over half a million US national text pager intercepts. The intercepts cover a 24 hour period surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. The first message, corresponding to 3AM September 11, 2001, five hours before the first attack, will be released at 3AM November 25, 2009 and the last, corresponding to 3AM September 12, 2001 at 3AM November 26, 2009. Text pagers are mostly carried by persons operating in an official capacity. Messages in the collection range from Pentagon and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults to their operators as the World Trade Center collapsed. This is a significant and completely objective record of the defining moment of our time. We hope that its entry into the historical record will lead to a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how this tragedy and its aftermath may have been prevented. While we are obligated by to protect our sources, it is clear that the information comes from an organization which has been intercepting and archiving national US telecommunications since prior to 9/11.The Transparent Society getting closer, it appears…
Numerous mass media outlets and blogs are reporting on the misdiagnosis of Rom Houben of being comatose for 23 years when he was really conscious, according to Belgian neurologist Steven Laureys, who has claimed for years to be able to treat patients allegedly in a persistent vegetative state with electric shocks and find that they were really in a minimally conscious state. Videos of Houben show him allegedly communicating via a keyboard which is pressed by a single finger on one hand–but his hand is being held by a facilitator, and he’s not even looking at the keyboard. Some still photos show the facilitator looking intently at the keyboard, while Houben’s eyes are closed. James Randi observes that this looks just like the self-deception of Facilitated Communication that was promoted as a way to communicate with severely autistic people, and Marshall Brain at How Stuff Works seconds that conclusion. I think it’s a bit too fast to conclude that Houben’s not conscious–brain scans could indeed have provided good evidence that he is. But what would be worse than having “locked-in syndrome”? Having somebody else purporting to speak for you with ideomotor-driven Facilitated Communication, while you were helpless to do anything about it. I’d like to see some double-blind tests of Houben, where he’s asked questions about events that occur when the facilitator isn’t present, as well as fMRI results during the process of facilitation (since there are brain activation differences between active and passive activities, which have been used to study such things as the perception of involuntariness during hypnosis–it shows features of both active and passive movement). I’d also like to see further opinion on Laureys methodology and diagnosis–it seems he has significant self-interest in promoting this case. UPDATE: Brandon Keim at Wired Science has finally asked the questions that those who have reported this in the mainstream media should have been asking. Here’s a 2001 review of the scientific literature on facilitated communication. UPDATE: The video on this story shows the facilitator typing for him while his eyes are closed and he appears to be asleep. UPDATE: A Times Online story claims that Houben’s facilitator, Linda Wouters, spent the last three years working with Houben to learn to feel tiny muscle movements in his finger, and that Dr. Laureys did tests to validate the technique: ...
Hackers got access to a trove of private emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit that is being trumpeted by those who disbelieve in anthropogenic global warming as proof of scandal. I’ve looked through the data a bit myself–you can find a searchable archive of the emails here. I suspect this collection of emails may end up being put to good research use as the Enron email corpus was. While I found a few embarrassing things, I found no evidence of outright data fabrication or fakery. The main email that has been cited as such evidence is an email from Phil Jones that says: I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate explains: The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.In other words, “hiding” in this case is using temperature measurement records instead of tree rings as a proxy for temperature records for a period of time where the tree rings are known not to be an accurate proxy, for whatever reason. It’s also claimed that these emails show a concerted effort to subvert the peer review process and stop publications by climate change skeptics, but most of those emails seem to center around an issue where the scandal was actually from the skeptics–the publication of a 2003 paper by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas in the journal Climate Research that was considered by 13 authors of papers cited to have misrepresented their work. Subsequently, half of the editorial staff of the journal resigned in protest at what they saw as a failure of peer review, and the managing director of the journal’s parent company issued an apology (see Wikipedia’s summary). The emails show that these scientists were upset by Climate Research’s publication of bad science and encouraged protest and those resignations. A few blog posts that seem to have good overviews of the issues: Skeptical Science, “What do the hacked CRU emails tell us?"Real Climate, “The CRU Hack” (followed by over 1,000 comments)Real Climate, “The CRU Hack: Context” (gives background on some of the issues, including the above Climate Research issue). Greenfyre’s, “Climate change Deniers hoax themselves… again."Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub, “Smoking guns in the CRU stolen emails: A real tale of real ethics in science” (what the CRU emails show about treatment of an erroneous climate science paper) An interesting comparison to past scientific controversy is: Carbon Fixated, “Newtongate: the final nail in the coffin of Renaissance and Enlightenment ’thinking’"And, to compare to the climate change skeptics: Bishop Hill, “Climate cuttings 33” (summary of the apparent worst issues)Essex County Conservative Examiner, “Hadley [sic] CRU hacked with release of hundreds of docs and emails”Climate Audit, “CRU Correspondence”Watt’s Up With That, “Mike’s Nature Trick”Watt’s Up With That, “CRU Emails ‘may’ be open to interpretation, but commented code by the programmer tells the real story”Watt’s Up With That, “Spencer on elitism in the IPCC climate machine”The last of these posts, from Univ. of Alabama climate scientist and skeptic Roy W. Spencer, notes that: If all of this sounds incompatible with the process of scientific investigation, it shouldn’t. One of the biggest misconceptions the public has about science is that research is a straightforward process of making measurements, and then seeing whether the data support hypothesis A or B. The truth is that the interpretation of data is seldom that simple. ...
Yesterday I heard Joel Garreau speak again at ASU, as part of a workshop on Plausibility put on by the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO). I previously posted a summary of his talk back in August on the future of cities. This talk was based on his book, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies–and What It Means to Be Human. Garreau was introduced by Paul Berman, Dean of the Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law at ASU, who also announced that Garreau will be joining the law school faculty beginning this spring, as the Lincoln Professor for Law, Culture, and Values. He began by saying that we’re at a turning point in history [has there ever been a time when we haven’t thought that, though?], and he’s going to present some possible scenarios for the next 2, 3, 5, 10, or 20 years, and that his book is a roadmap. The main feature of this turning point is that rather than transforming our environment, we’ll be increasingly transforming ourselves, and we’re the first species to take control of its own evolution, and it’s happening now. At some point in the not-too-distant future, he said, your kid may come home from school in tears about how he can’t compete with the other kids who are more intelligent, more athletic, more attractive, more attentive, and so forth–because you haven’t invested in the human enhancement technologies coming on the market. Your possible reactions will be to suck it up [somebody’s still gotta do the dirty jobs in society?], remortgage the house again to make your kid competitive, or try to get the enhanced kids thrown out of school. What you can’t do is ignore it. He then asked people to raise their hands who could remember when things were still prevalent: ...
Personal possession of any drug decriminalized: Spain, Portugal, Italy, Czech Republic, Baltic states, some German states and Swiss cantons, Mexico. Partial decriminalization/minimal criminal prosecution: England, Denmark, Slovakia, Latvia, Croatia, Poland, Austria, Germany, France, Netherlands (see chart in the Economist story linked below–it’s interesting that the Netherlands has the highest percentage of prison outcomes on this list) Unconstitutional to prosecute people for drug possession (any drug) per Supreme Court ruling: Argentina, Colombia Marijuana decriminalized: 14 U.S. states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon) States with some localities that have decriminalized marijuana: Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Washington, Wisconsin Considering marijuana legalization: California, Massachusetts, possibly Oregon Considering decriminalization (any drug): Brazil, Ecuador Source: The Economist, “Virtually legal," November 14, 2009; state decriminalization details from Wikipedia.
Although when it comes to other people’s works, William Dembski hasn’t seen a problem with taking copyrighted material and using it wholesale, dubbing over a computer animated video from Harvard and XVIVO of the inner workings of a cell with his own intelligent design-based commentary, when it comes to his own work he has a different standard. Mark Chu-Carroll points out at his Good Math, Bad Math blog that Dembski is talking about using threats of claimed copyright infringement to shut down criticism of a recent paper he published with Robert Marks. That criticism includes pointing out that sources cited by Dembski don’t say what he says they do, and providing counterexamples to Dembski’s mathematical claims. Rather than respond to the criticism, Dembski would rather shut it down. There are just a few problems with that–first, the criticism may well be fair use. Although it does quote a great deal of the paper by Dembski and Marks, it does so for the purpose of putting commentary and criticism side-by-side with quotations from the paper. Second, papers published by the IEEE require that copyright be transferred to the IEEE, so Dembski lacks standing even if there were infringement. Check out the RationalWiki critique of the Dembski and Marks paper.