The slippery slope argument goes by another name that bugs me even more – that is when people argue that something ought to be taken “to its logical consequences.” As though logic dictates that insane and terrible results absolutely must follow some meagre policy change or other position. This terminology is much more prevalent among the more educated reactionary debaters, perhaps since we must all defer to the apparent truths that are being trotted out.

Now, I don’t think the slippery slope defence is quite a fallacy on its own. While my inclination is to think you’re full of shit, there have been a few cases where slippery slopes have proven true.

In Losing Control, Tom Warner explains how the slippery slope argument was frequently used by the religious right in the battles to include sexual orientation in human rights codes. The fear was that if homosexuality was entitled to be free from discrimination, then it was a quick and slippery slope to gay marriages and adoptions.

How fabulously right the zealots were!

Of course this example brings up the first counter to the slippery slope argument: some slippery slopes end not in the moral decay of society or Armageddon, but rather land in pools of fun, like waterslides. Sometimes the logical consequences are either neutral or a net positive to society.

Gay people getting married means more money being spent on lavish parties and gifts.

However, more often then not, the slippery slope argument seems to suggest to me that people are devoid of compromise. It gives a very dichotomous worldview where it denies that people can be reasonable and will set limits.

A great example is Vancouver’s new by-law permitting people to keep 4 chickens in their backyard for eggs.

I hope the stupidity is apparent if someone were to argue against the allowance on the grounds that pretty soon they’d be allowing entire barnyards and petting zoos in people’s backyards.

In our democratic society we very often have conflicting sets of rights and desires. We negotiate this competition through dialogue and discussion. People are generally okay with modest limits on their freedoms in exchange for greater rights or protections in other areas (cue fundamentalist libertarian disagreement).

Were the slippery slope to be a viable argument, the development of the first atomic weapon would have logically required our extinction due to nuclear fallout. Luckily for us, people are smarter than these apparent logical requirements.

I was mostly trying to just outline the back and forth between PZ Myers and people he felt like disagreeing with.

Phil Plait asks how I parsed that he said skeptics ought to “step aside,” and I’ll admit that is a misreading (so I’ve adjusted my post), but his post seems to tend on the verbose side (not that anything is wrong with that, but his points do seem to get lost in this case – although perhaps that’s just me). He does say:

Skepticism deals with issues of the paranormal, issues with faith, issues where scientific evidence can be used to test a claim. In this case, I don’t see skeptics needing to be involved more than any other interest group.

Fine, I guess, I just disagree with flying the “skepticism” flag sometimes, perhaps this is a humanist issue and a freethought issue. The fact that the church has been knowingly shuffling pedophiles around and using their power and intimidation (which they claim to be divinely given) is more serious to me than just the laws they broke, it’s that they broke them knowingly and continuously. It’s that the workers of God had more right to keep abusing society’s most vulnerable than the children to not be raped.

It’s the arrogance that gets me riled as a human-being (which Phil points out), so perhaps its not a “skepticism” issue but then I guess I’m hoping that we can all be more than a mere skeptic.

Next, I attracted Massimo Pigliucci’s attention. I’d like to clear up that I do not consider him a post-modernist, and I likely ought to have just left that second-to-last paragraph out of the discussion. And I think ADHR responds nicely to Massimo’s concern about PZ “simply hurling insults” by stating:

I don’t think Myers is trying to engage in an intellectual debate, so how is his failure to do good science or good philosophy even relevant? It’s like castigating Sidney Crosby for his inability to score touchdowns.

PZ keeps his science in the lab and classroom and uses his blog to vent, and he apparently found quite the market for those ventings.

So in summary: Sorry Phil Plait, I mischaracterized your article, but still disagree. Sorry Massimo, you’re not a postmodernist.

So, separated by argument thread and then in chronological order, here’s the debate so far (if you have some time, it’s worth the read):

Biology textbook calls creationism a biblical myth

1. PZ Myers: Tennessee twit gets brief moment in the limelight of Fox
2. Michael De Dora: Should Biology Textbooks Include “Biblical Myth” Language?
3. PZ Myers: Witless wanker peddles pablum for CFI
4. Ron Lindsay: CFI: Home to Both Atheist Fundamentalists and Religion-Loving Wankers?
5. Massimo Pigliucci: PZ Myers is a witless wanker who peddles pablum
6. PZ Myers: I shall be no friend to the appeasers
7. PZ Myers: I support philosophy; I criticize philosophy

On whether the pope should be arrested

1. Phil Plait: The Pope, the Church, and skepticism
2. PZ Myers: As long as I’m criticizing my allies…

Now I don’t think that either of these arguments are over, and there will always be those in either the “warrior” or “diplomat” class, but it’s worth noting a few things.

First, PZ Myers acknowledges that both will always be needed. No movement that seeks change exists solely of conservative elements, there have to revolutionary and reactionary types. There is no one tactic that will change the world. Environmentalists need Greenpeace for stupid publicity stunts but they also need green economy business-types who invest in tomorrow’s technology. Without the former there would be less awareness of the issues, while without the latter there would be no change.

Next, I wonder to what extent postmodern philosophy has harmed science education in the USA and worldwide. Specifically I mean the sort of ideas that Pigliucci and De Dora talk about epistemological boundaries which prevent teachers from actually teaching. Do we expect students to understand the scientific method if they are continually told we don’t really know anything for sure and that everything we know (scientific or otherwise) is based off the circular logic inherent in inductive reasoning?

Nevertheless, the dispute will continue, and the mudslinging has either only just begun or eventually one side will give up and ignore the other (my money is on PZ never ceasing to respond to his critics).

Update: Adjusted wording.

Now in class we figure that any “second chance” time travel is logically impossible (assuming one timeline) because it will create logical contradictions (the grandfather paradox), and that’s just not cool.

This is disappointing though. I mean, what’s the fun of time travel if you can’t do it, or if you can that you can’t change anything?

Now, I’ve also just finished Douglas Adams’ (author of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. It starts a bit slow, but once you get past the second half stuff really picks up and ends amazingly.

Here’s a quote from near the end:

“But that can’t work, can it?” said Richard. “If we do that, then this won’t have happened. Don’t we generate all sorts of paradoxes?”

Reg stirred himself from thought. “No worse than many that exist already,” he said. “If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond. And many of course don’t. It’s like a human body, you see. A few cuts and bruises here and there don’t hurt it. Not even major surgery if it’s done properly. Paradoxes are just the scar tissue. Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.

“That isn’t to say that if you get involved in a paradox a few things won’t strike you as being very odd, but if you’ve got through life without that already happening to you, then I don’t know which Universe you’ve been living in, but it isn’t this one.”

Now, Douglas Adams’ work is known for its somewhat off-kilter philosophy (i.e. the God that vanished in a puff of logic) but I like the insight in this quote.

Imagine that you did go back in time and kill your own grandfather.

By this view of time, you’d still exist, and you’d remember killing your grandfather (hell, the whole world could know), but perhaps the rest of the world would convince themselves that either your grandma got around, your parent was actually conceived before he died (slow pregnancy maybe) or one of your parents were a modern Jesus (in terms of virgin births). The opinions of the events wouldn’t have to overlap, but would all come to the conclusion that you exist and murdered your grandfather. They would also all make perfect sense to everyone who believed them.

And remember, people believe some pretty crazy things.

Now, a view that logical impossibilities are possible poses some odd realities, however, by assuming that all conscious beings automatically assume a belief that makes some sense, we’ve essentially made an untestable hypothesis and thus run counter to science. (Remember, scientists have a hard time publishing or even believing paradoxical data).

Interesting, and great for philosophy, but hardly useful for science (which relies on the fact the universe can be made sense of, which, according to its own data, generally does).

I just finished the epoch by Marx and Engels, although that word is deceiving because all-in-all it comes in at a mere 42 pages. My opinion: things have changed a lot since they wrote this manifesto.

The first major problem I encountered was that they assume this diametrically opposed class war. It’s the “us versus them” mentality that has led to many conflicts throughout time. The communists (I’ll use this word to denote the position taken by the manifesto) argue that the only way for the working class to ever gain anything is to destroy the current system. It’s a hugely false dichotomy now, however, may have rung truer in another time.

Today (in Western culture), there is no proletariat-bourgeoisie class rivalry. There is essentially a spectrum of wealth from the homeless to the worlds richest – and most are above the poverty line today.

To give a clear example of how things have changed consider property ownership. One key argument the communists bring up is that the majority (they claim 90%) do no own property, and because of low wages they never will. However, today in Canada about 70% of people own their own home (many own condos). Yet even if today a minority were still property owners, that would be a good argument for increased wages, not outright class warfare.

This brings me to another issue. The manifesto isn’t entirely clear on the action they are recommending. Some parts read as a call to violent revolution, while others suggest a democratic upheaval first. They talk in one section about coordinating to win elections, but then hint that something more may be necessary to take property away from the rich. However the manifesto ends with a line like:

“[Communists] openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

WORKINGMEN OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE!

I should also point out that the use of the all-caps and exclamation marks typically decreases your integrity and ability to claim rational arguments.

One thought that ran through my head as I read the manifesto was that nothing could have pushed me further from the label of communist than the actual manifesto itself.

I do have to credit it with a few things: it advocates briefly for universal education and an end to child labour, also for minimum wages and working conditions, the nationalization of roads and communications, and it gives decent arguments about how communism doesn’t destroy individuality – unless individuality is solely determined by what you can buy and sell. They also point out that the system of the time clearly provided little incentive for the poor, since they could never make enough to own property, yet they kept on working, however he neglects the fact that needing to put food on the table is a damn good reason to work. However, the communists also calls for an even distribution of people across the countryside as opposed to grouping in towns and cities, which makes no sense in today’s society, and likely little at the time in industrializing nations.

All in all I have to say I was somewhat disappointed by the Communist Manifesto. I was hoping that Lenin truly bastardized it and Stalin furthered the destruction of the ideas, however it’s all pretty much in there. And with a modern middle class and social welfare net, I think we can safely declare that communism is dead.

[tags]communism, marx, engels, Communist Manifesto, books, economics[/tags]

His first argument today is that everyone uses faith – the rational atheist has faith he/she will discover everything with science (we don’t, I’m okay with not knowing everything), the irrational-nihilist has faith there is no purpose in the universe (figure that out, having faith in nothing), and obviously the theists have faith.

Garrison sets out to outline an (almost) philosophy of the “non-rational” but resorts to near ad hominens that he was accusing his commenters of in the previous installment.

Considered in view of this backdrop, rationalist atheism is the simplistic, hopeless, drop-bottom dreg way of coping. Seeing the apparent irrationality of rancid religion’s way of coping, and not realizing that such apparent irrationality is but the non-rational working its way in religion, rationalist atheism simplistically concludes that in the face of such non-rational religion and other non-rationality in life and the universe, the god or gods of religion simply cannot exist. [emphasis added]

He gives a little more credit to the irrational atheists (you won’t find too many of them, but Sartre is his favourite example), but only because they are “one step closer to the Christian philosophy of the non-rational”. Now before we go any further, I don’t think there’s any Biblical significance to his non-rational arguments (that he seems to be just making up with no justifications), but perhaps someone with more knowledge might know of some passages that support this idea.

He continues writing (they always do) and begins to deconstruct what’s wrong with our “relativist” secular culture. First, by this he means how we have a very free and libertarian idea of do what you want as long as it doesn’t harm anyone. He claims (utterly baselessly) that:

The downside is that such a culture has no firm moral center around which the community as a whole can unite. Everything seems to float in a void that promotes a destructive form of individualism. The end result is a gradual drift-seemingly by default-toward an ever lowering of the quality of life and behavior, a prevalence of narcissism and loneliness and a pervasive brokenness in the human community.

I don’t know where he gets these ideas from, it’s true we don’t all live like pilgrims anymore, but we also have among the highest quality of life ever. While he could counter with depression and suicide rates being higher (I’m not sure of the data on this so I’m speculating), I would rather be depressed and free than a “happy” slave.

He continues by going into how rationalism developed from Christianity, essentially keeping everything but a belief in God. Although he can look at history through twenty-firt century Christian theologian glasses, many different ideas and philosophies were developed through the Enlightenment. And while the dominant thought of the previous 1500 years was Christian, much of the Enlightenment fought to break the shackles of that thinking and develop entirely new lines of thought. Utilitarianism has no scriptural backing (other than potential post-hoc interperting), neither do many lines of thought that followed.

Now we find the best quote so far:

But as we now are witnessing, rationalism was but a passing phase in culture.

Perhaps there has been a shift from the thinking of the Enlightenment, but the Rationalists are still alive and kicking. He does acknowledge the shift to “post-modernism” which is quite an affront to reason – implying everything is relative, however you’d be hard pressed to find a post-modern naturalist whereas the rationalists have produced quite a bit of late (think Dawkins, Hitchens et. al.)

He begins his explanation of why rationalism is outdated by going to World War I (I’m so glad it wasn’t the other one for a change). He claims that the brutality of that war all but destroyed anyones belief that everything could be understood rationally.

Now I’ll admit, in the face of that much senseless carnage, emotions will run high. Very likely many will assume that nothing makes sense and hence nihilism or irrationality is more plausible – however, just because it’s atrocious doesn’t mean it can’t be made sense of. The reality is that World War I occured at the time when a lot of new technology had been developed (namely the automatic rifle and machine gun), but hadn’t been deployed in a major way. Also, with many countries setting up strong alliances, Europe was just waiting for a reason to fight when the Archduke was assassinated. The war was atrocious and showed a dark side of humanity, but it can be understood rationally.

Of course the next paragraph is about how World War II was so much worse (it was), and so we have to invoke Godwin’s Law. And his final blow for rationalism was the ideas of quantum mechanics (which I complained about last time).

Skimming along (because I’m barely half-way through part 2) we find this gem:

Christianity, viewed as a Jewish religion on the basis of its beginnings, therefore pins all its hopes on the empirical historicity of Jewish Old Testament history. If it can be proven that such Jewish history is an empirical hoax, then and then only will Christianity be proven to be a hoax as well.

Well the foundation of Judaism is Abraham and Moses. Moses is disputed whether he exists, as no evidence of an Exodus from Egypt exists (especially in the time period it was supposed to occur), and even less evidence exists for Abraham. So you may not call it “an empirical hoax”, but it definitely is more fantasy and myth than fact.

To argue away rationality, Garrison uses a quick bait-and-switch by pretending to argue against objective / naturalistic rationalism, but suddenly starts assuming all rationalism is subjective or just in your head. Naturally this new strawman is easier to refute – he claims everything outside the mind is “non-rational” and since (subjective) rationalism exists only in the mind then it doesn’t really deal with (objective) reality. It was pretty slick, but still falacious.

Another random argument comes along in assuming all rationalists are head-in-the-clouds utopian idealists. Although I may think the world would run smoother with more reason applied, I’m far from naive enough to assume there will ever be a society that exists “as a state of being where the living environment is free from anything hurtful, threatening, disappointing, or frustrating.” And frankly, I don’t want to be free from any of those things, because they’re damn good motivators. No human is rational all of the time, and so clearly he’s fighting another strawman here.

Oh no, not this line:

For instance, every dictator and despot, such as Stalin or Hitler, and every dogmatic rationalist atheist, such as Marx or Freud absolutizes rationality.

Sigh.

Clearly Hitler and Stalin lost touch with their humanity when they pursued their absolute utopianisms (of whatever form they saw), and as I said just earlier, I don’t strive for a utopia, I just want to not have to deal with ivory-tower ignorance.

He soon moves to conflating his “non-rationality” with random (shit happens) chance. There’s no rationality behind a tornado’s appearance he claims, while we understand how and why it works, it doesn’t explain why it destroyed her house instead of his. This is intellectual garbage, he’s building a philosophy of half-baked ideas and whatever else pops into his head.

At the end he gives up his attempts to sound intellectual and comes off like a forum troll using the dreaded ALL-CAPS technique of emphasization:

Wait-a-minute…this is not the way the Enlightenment, rationalist script was supposed to play out. Nor is this what atheistic rationalist science was EMPIRICALY supposed to discover. Well SURPRISE boys and girls. Welcome to the real world!!! It is pervasively and incurably non-rational to the core…LITERALLY.

So what now, rationalist coaches and atheists? Got any other half-baked ideas you can try to beat down religion? All I can say to you rationalists is “LOTS OF LUCK!”

His mother must be so proud.

I will likely tackle Part 3 before Tuesday, so look for it then (like the Cosmic Fingerprints I’m writing these in advance and scheduling them so it looks like I write opuses everyday, when really most is written while I wait for science to happen behind me.)

Rather than a confused old-Earth creationist who doesn’t get what information is we come across a blithering theologian who seems to write for the pure intellectual masturbation of it (I won’t confirm nor deny whether that’s my reasons for writing, but I’m sure he’s attempting to “reach” people).

His series is entitled “The Irrelevance of Rational Atheism and the New Philosophy of the Non-Rational” and part I is called “The Two Brands of Atheism.” I’ll also say I found some odd irony with an add for The God Who Wasn’t There on the top and an add for the Scientology Video Channel on the sidebar.

So what are the “two brands”? In typical false-dichotomy style we are informed that there are two kinds of atheists – rational-optimists, and irrational-pessimists. To cut through his long-winded explanation, essentially he believes the optimists worship reason as a false-idol and the irrationalists “take atheism to its final moral, philosophical and psychological conclusion.” He spends a lot of words to get to this conclusion, but that’s about all he says in Part I. He also sets up his own view of “non-rationality” in that he seems to be agnostic about whether the universe is rational or not. However, he still sticks his fit in the ground and cries there is a God, so I’m not sure why he can take a stand on theism but not rationalism.

It really seems more like he’s a balls-less irrationalist. He wants the right to use rational arguments with the atheists who have challenged his faith, but he also realizes at the basis his theism is irrational (he admits his God can be good and evil, because He’s fucking God!). So to argue rationally he calls himself “non-rational” and then wants to play ball with both the theists and the athesits.

Finally, he claims science disproves absolute rationalism, because with quantum mechanics the world is at its very core irrational.

I’ll admit, I didn’t get through this entire article all at once, and I don’t want to go back through it to quote him, because it makes my head hurt. But I did read all of Part I, and will continue with the series.

Back to his point. Quantum mechanics isn’t inherently irrational because Garrison can’t comprehend it. QM is non-deterministic, but still follows rules. We came about to the QM description of the world through rational means, and I don’t see why that means rationalism is self-defeated.

Really, can people who don’t know anything about quantum mechanics stop talking about it. Either schools need to teach a lot more physics, or a lot less. Because this half-assed shit has to stop.

Now, there’s an extra bonus if you read the comments, because Garrison actually responds to a couple of them. The first comment is from an atheist and comments on how Garrison can’t comprehend that people can go through life without worshipping something (getting at the original idea that rationalists worship reason), but Garrison responds by saying its nothing but an ad-hominen while mischaracterizing and insulting the commenter!

Try to read the original if you can, and I’ll be back on Monday with more on Garrison’s strange little world he seems to have constructed.

I am responsible to myself.  I actively try to minimize the harm my actions will cause others, in hopes that they will do the same for me.

I am moral, I am not a sinner. I am not perfect, but I will not live a life of guilt.

I am a leader, not a sheep.

I work to actively improve my own life, that of those around me and the generations that shall follow me.  I do not shortsightedly assume the rapture will come soon.

I seek to expand my knowledge, through reading, writing, higher education and scientific research.

I want to encourage and expand the reality-based community.  I want to fight scientific ignorance, promote rational discourse, and challenge pseudo-scientific claims.

Paul Kurtz and a Mohamed Cartoon

I am a free speech advocate. There is no right not to be offended, and sometimes envelopes need to be pushed to challenge societal norms. This is not discrimination, this is freedom.

I am not angry, but I do get frustrated. I am often optimistic and happy with my life and future.

I am for technology.  Limits and safeguards should be taken, but many suggestions are beyond rational.

I am a social democrat. I believe everyone is entitled to Universal Human Rights. I doubt the ability of corporations (typically out for short-term gain) to provide for the poorest members of our society.

I am many things, but above all else I am a human being. This is something that does not make me unique, but at the same time makes me inherently valuable.

I am a humanist.

Morality requires an absolute reference point.  Without God there can be no morals.

But it occured to me today that this parrots an argument made just over a hundred years ago in physics:

Light is a wave and therefore requires a medium to propagate.  Without the aether in interstellar space, there can be no light.

A bit of a background:

Light was postulated by Issac Newton to be particles that flew like tennis balls through the air.  This dominated until the single and double slit experiment showed the existence of diffraction, which could only be explained by a wave theory.  So after James Clerk Maxwell postulated his famous equations, the world decided upon a wave theory of light.

However, waves require something to move in. Just like waves in the ocean require water, waves of light should require something (be it air or glass) to move in.  But there wasn’t anything in space (as far as people could tell).  So how did the light from the sun get to Earth?

This led physicists to postulate an everpresent aether which filled the entire void of space.  This aether would allow the waves to get from the sun to Earth.

However, this aether should cause the speed of light to be different between a beam propagating with the Earth’s rotation versus a beam propagating perpendicular to the rotation.  This should happen because as the Earth goes around the sun it will “drag” some aether with it, this dragged aether will slow light down that’s going into it, but speed it up if it’s going with it (imagine light getting a tail or head wind), but going North-South the light shouldn’t really experience any net difference.  So when they performed very precise experiments to detect the aether, they found nothing!

The solution didn’t come until 1905 when Einstein was studying the photoelectric effect – basically a current is created when a light of a minimum energy is incident on a material.  Einstein postulated that light existed in photons (discrete particles), which solved the aether crisis and won him the Nobel prize (this was more practical than Special Relativity, which he also discovered in the same year, as well as the cause of Brownian Motion).

So what does this have to do with theological arguments about morality?

Basically, my analogy is that people couldn’t understand how light could propagate the void of space without an aether, in much the same way that people can’t understand how morality can exist independant of an absolute objective standard.

It took arguable one of the most brilliant people of the past century to solve the issue of light in space, negating the need for an aether, however, it is arguablly more accessible to understand how morality can arise naturally.

For more on naturalistic ethics, see some of my older posts:

• Why is God Ethical
• Atheist ethics
• Atheist ethics revisted
• Evolution of altruism

Check out the site and find a list of other assorted posts of godlessness.