There’s also an epistemological point in Michael’s post, which is interesting too.

The issue of the day is sexism/feminism and the debate is splitting down two rough sides: those who find religion immoral or irritating and want to campaign against it with no time devoted to anything else, and those whose objection to religion is part of a generally progressive agenda (frequently called ‘social justice’), and who feel that organised atheism is in danger of replicating the same old problems which religions have perpetuated.

Part of the problem here is that skepticism and feminism are coming from different traditions: feminism has historically been less concerned about evidence and more about consciousness-raising, while skepticism treats evidence as a gold standard and denigrates anecdotes (valued in feminism as ‘lived experience’) as meaningless. Many feminists treat a speaker’s identity as central to their credibility (this is where concepts like ‘mansplaining’ come in) while skepticism is about ignoring the identity of the speaker and focusing solely on the quality of evidence or logic they present. It’s easy to see how these different ways of looking at the world could magnify any argument and turn mild disagreements into longlasting bitter hostility, even before the current level of childishness, name-calling and abuse started.

I hope skepticism doesn’t treat anecdotes (and/or lived experience) as meaningless for all purposes and in all contexts. If it does, that sounds like what people mean by “scientism,” those who use the word without quotation marks, which I never do. Anecdotes are out of place in science, but they’re not meaningless in all senses and for all purposes. Anecdotes and their larger cousin, fiction, are often very meaningful. Imagine life without them!

Also, feminism is political while skepticism is epistemological. One is about what we value and how we think things should be; the other is about how we can figure out what there is and what we can know. They’re not radically different – feminism can be seen as skepticism about traditions and rules, for instance – but they’re not side by side in the library.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Headline just seen on the LA Times website.

Romney hits Obama for calling Middle East troubles ‘bumps in road’ 09/24/2012, 2:17 p.m.

Guys…take it outside.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Pakistan is working hard to model mindless slavish submission to religious mandates for the rest of the world, and to bully everyone else into doing the same.

Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf ordered Internet service providers to block YouTube — all of it, not just the offending videos. Interior Minister Rehman Malik has asked Interpol to take up the matter. And he wants the United Nations to develop international legislation to stop the circulation of material deemed blasphemous.

Think of all the religions in the world. What a lot of material could meet the description “deemed blasphemous.” Just imagine a world in which all such material was forbidden to circulate. Just imagine the mental poverty.

…it’s not just Islamist extremists and radicals who are offended by the video. One of the groups marching to the US consulate in Karachi on Friday will be the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf. The party is lead by Pakistani cricket legend Imran Khan, and boasts a significant following among the country’s Western educated upper class. Arif Alvi, the party’s Secretary General, said the western, Christian world should understand that Pakistanis, and Muslims in general, have a distinct way of thinking.

“You can’t come in to a society and say ‘this should be painful and this should not be painful.’ What is painful to us is painful to us. And we expect countries to recognize that,” Alvi said.

That’s an appalling, self-destructive thing to say. You don’t want to claim a “distinct way of thinking” – it’s an invitation to contempt. You don’t want to claim it’s a national characteristic to get upset about farfetched offenses to a long-dead human being.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Michael Nugent tells me a bit of news I didn’t know – that the EU has joined the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Arab League and the Commission of the African Union to release a statement “expressing ‘the importance of respecting all prophets’, and ‘strongly committing to take further measures’ to work for ‘full respect of religion’.”

What?!

The joint statement begins by saying that ‘we share a profound respect for all religions,’ and absurdly adds that ‘we believe in the importance of respecting all prophets, regardless of which religion they belong to.’

Or to put it another way, we believe in theocracy, and if you don’t we want you to keep quiet about it.

Why is the EU teaming up with the OIC to do anything at all?

The world has gone mad.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

They’ve added a great new blogger at Talking Philosophy, Claire Creffield. Alert readers will figure out quite quickly that she is a woman, a type which is generally in short supply there. She’s a dazzling writer, with interesting thoughts.

She is wasted on some of the he-man commenters there, like Michael Reidy.

The question is: What is it like to be woman? Is there a what it is like’ness to the consciousness of a woman? This is a deep question. Is there such a thing as female qualia? Is there inversion in the moral spectrum so to speak? These are bold speculations which led philosophers and others to perhaps consider whether women were ready for the onerous task of voting and the grave responsibility that property brings in its train. You can’t be too careful to whom you allow free speech.

Hawhaw; by jove old chap; pass the cigars.

I’m not allowed to comment there but you are; make her feel less amid the alien corn, if you have a moment and feel like it.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Speaking of Maryam, she has her talk yesterday at the NSS conference posted. Richard Dawkins said on Twitter that she was on good fiery form.

A taste -

Hiding behind ‘rights’ and ‘choice’ to excuse misogyny is a betrayal of human principles. After all, years ago, certain men only had the ‘right’ to vote and own slaves.

Remember good old fashioned international solidarity – how I miss it – when we actually joined forces with those suffering under racial apartheid in South Africa for example.

Nowadays, many liberals and post-modernist leftists side with those imposing apartheid – sex apartheid – because it is considered the ‘right to religion’…

It’s a betrayal of human solidarity.

And this solidarity is fundamental particularly given that Islamism and Sharia law have killed a generation in what I call an Islamic inquisition. There is a difference after all between Christianity today and one during the inquisition.

Under an inquisition, there is no personal religion. You are merely told what to say and do and if you don’t abide you will pay the price for your dissent.

And then there’s Islamophobia. I keep telling people – it’s not just me…

When the Saudi government arrests 23 year old Hamza Kashgari for tweeting about Mohammad, it doesn’t accuse him of racism, it accuses him of blasphemy – an accusation punishable by death.

But that same government will accuse critics of Saudi policy at the UN Human Rights Committee as Islamophobic and racist.

What I’m trying to say is that Islamists and their apologists have coined the term Islamophobia – a political term – to scaremonger people into silence.

These bogus accusations of Islamophobia and offence serve Islamism in the same way that Sharia law serves them where they have power. It helps to threaten, intimidate and silence criticism, solidarity and dissent.

They work like secular fatwas and are used not to defend Muslims from bigotry but to defend Islam and Islamism.

Good old fashioned international solidarity. Link arms, comrades.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Marianne (Noodlemaz) tweeted a very nice picture from the Free Expression rally organized by Maryam in London last February;  it’s of her and Rhys. She gave me permission to post it.

She has a great post on the rally, full of pictures and videos. In the second video there’s Rhys telling about his adventure in censorship-by-being-offended, and there’s Richard Dawkins in the background, cool in shades.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Thomas Nagel explains about Alvin Plantinga and his goddy epistemology.

You know how it goes. Having reliable cognitive faculties as a result of natural selection is not credible, while having them as a result of goddy selection is. (But then explain God. I know, that’s old news, but still – if the first thing isn’t credible, why is God credible? Why is the first any less credible than the second?)

We form our beliefs in various reliable ways – perception, rational intuition, memory. Also one more way.

So far we are in the territory of traditional epistemology; but what about faith? Faith, according to Plantinga, is another basic way of forming beliefs, distinct from but not in competition with reason, perception, memory, and the others. However, it is

a wholly different kettle of fish: according to the Christian tradition (including both Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin), faith is a special gift from God, not part of our ordinary epistemic equipment. Faith is a source of belief, a source that goes beyond the faculties included in reason.

A special gift from God? Not part of our ordinary epistemic equipment?

Why? Why make it a special gift? Why do it in that patchwork way? Why not include it as part of the standard equipment? Why make it a special upgrade?

And if it’s a wholly different kettle of fish, why include it as another basic way of forming beliefs? Why treat it as basic at all?

God endows human beings with a sensus divinitatis that ordinarily leads them to believe in him. (In atheists the sensus divinitatis is either blocked or not functioning properly.)

Uh huh. It’s the same old cheat. If you don’t believe in “God” (meaning the local God, because of course it’s not good enough to believe in the wrong one), something is broken. It’s not part of the ordinary equipment, but on the other hand if yours doesn’t hook you up to the right god then the only explanation is that something is amiss.

If all this is true, then by Plantinga’s standard of reliability and proper function, faith is a kind of cause that provides a warrant for theistic belief, even though it is a gift, and not a universal human faculty.

Well, so you say, but it looks to me like just plain having it both ways. It’s basic but special, and it’s universal but it’s often broken. Giving it a Latin name doesn’t solve the problem.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Yes but. Yes it’s good to point out that “Muslim rage” about the video is actually a tiny fraction of Muslim opinion on the subject, as Avaaz does. But it’s not so good to sort Islamists into the bad radical ones and the “moderates,” as Avaaz also does. Moderate theocracy is still theocracy, and it’s bad.

Like everyone else, many Muslims find the 13 minute Islamophobic video “Innocence of Muslims” trashy and offensive. Protests have spread quickly, tapping into understandable and lasting grievances about neo-colonialist US and western foreign policy in the Middle East, as well as religious sensitivities about depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. But the news coverage often obscures some important points:

1. Early estimates put participation in anti-film protests at between 0.001 and 0.007% of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims – a tiny fraction of those who marched for democracy in the Arab spring.
2. The vast majority of protesters have been peaceful. The breaches of foreign embassies were almost all organised or fuelled by elements of the Salafist movement, a radical Islamist group that is most concerned with undermining more popular moderate Islamist groups.

That looks alarmingly like a wedge strategy, or a move the window strategy – separate the “more popular moderate” Muslim Brotherhood from the Salafists so that the MB will seem not so bad after all. The MB is still so bad after all! Especially if you’re a woman, or gay, or a Christian or an atheist or an “apostate.”

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

In Pakistan, a government minister offers a reward for committing a murder.

That’s right.

In Pakistan, a government minister offers a reward for committing a murder.

A Pakistani government minister has offered a $100,000 (£61,616) reward for the death of the maker of an anti-Islam film produced in the US.

Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmad Bilour told reporters that he would pay the reward for the “sacred duty” out of his own pocket.

He suggested the Taliban and al-Qaeda would be eligible for the reward.

His comments came a day after at least 20 people died in clashes between anti-film protesters and police.

“I announce today that this blasphemer who has abused the holy prophet, if somebody will kill him, I will give that person a prize of $100,000,” the minister said.

Just like that. “This blasphemer” made a movie, and a government minister is saying “somebody please murder him, and I’ll give the murderer a hundred grand.” That’s Pakistan, land of the pure.

Richard Dawkins pointed out a 2010 Pew poll on Muslim views, on Twitter. One item is “harsh punishments.” In Pakistan approval for stoning people to death for adultery is 82%. Approval for whippings/cutting off hands for theft is 82%, for death for apostasy 76% (how liberal!)

That’s purity for you.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

A comment by AJ Milne of Accidental Weblog on “Of course, however”:

My view of mockery of Islam is the same as mockery of Christianity:

That is: it is in everyone’s interest that such mockery be normalized, not discouraged. Whether it’s flippant, silly, rude, juvenile, absurd, insulting, thoughtful, or whatever it might be, people need to get used to the idea that it’s going to be out there if you go looking for it.

And no, I don’t care who does it, how stupid it is, how ugly or stupid anyone thinks it is. Or not much. As in, no, I won’t be writing any asinine fart jokes about anyone’s prophet (tho’ mostly because I can’t make those funny anyway), and, absolutely, if something’s genuinely and clearly racist, yes, fine, I want that discouraged, too. That, I think, is more than fair enough.

But it’s not some abstract ideal that when someone wants to make fun of someone else’s god or prophet, they should absolutely be allowed, nor is it a chip you should even be imagining put on the table. And if someone gets killed because someone takes offense, no, the person who wrote the joke isn’t a murderer, however callous or cruel or even deliberate was the apparent incitement. If someone loses it and kills someone over the mockery of a mythologized god figure that’s been made sacred and declared protected from such excesses, that someone who held the knife or the gun or who lit the fire is the murderer, not the one who scrawled something lewd on the bathroom wall. And the first accessory I’ll be looking for is the one who told them such things are sacred and that such mockery is forbidden in the first place.

In the long run, again: normalization has to be the goal. We have to get to the point that when an extremist imam wants to whip up his flock into a proper rage over random YouTube video X, his protest goes off like a damp squib because they’ve become so used to this stuff, that it’s just not shocking or particularly upsetting to anyone anymore.

We need to stick our elbows out and create space for open discussion of all religions, Islam included. We have to make it harder and harder for people to be raised in a vacuum, unaware that there are no unbelievers, unaware anyone might mock, and utterly convinced that if someone does it’s somehow your prerogative to hurt people and break things. Get to that place, and the voices from the ancient books and the frothers in their pulpits can rage on and on about what a travesty this is if they like; the world will have moved on, and that is how those voices will be made irrelevant. Get to that place, and it opens up people’s lives and minds, gets people thinking, gets people talking. Push that door open, and eventually calm and fearless scholarly secular discussion of early Islam will be that much easier for the academics. Push that door open, and Channel Four can run all the documentaries it likes, and it doesn’t matter how ‘revisionist’ is the historian scripting it. Push that door open, and one more lever for driving people to excesses is taken out of the extremists’ hands.

Religion has ever done this ‘you must respect/you must hush yourselves’ thing. It always will, if you give it even half a chance. It keeps on trying even when it has no chance, because that is central to its survival. Give it any excuse, it will try to sneak through such restrictions on that excuse, and ‘people will get hurt’ or ‘those most insulted are already oppressed and this is additionally hurtful’ will also do just fine.

And the reality about normalization is: we’re partway there already. The increasing ubiquity and interconnectedness of the data networks has changed the game already. It’s been pointed out: those imams could probably find a steady supply of perfectly insulting videos for the purposes of incitement anyway, with very little effort, just through YouTube, right now; ‘Sam Bacile”s flatulent little mess of a trailer was nothing special, in this regard. The reality is probably also: we probably can’t even change this entirely if we were stupid enough to allow legislation directed that way. Such legislation would make a life a misery for those who got caught, and would be entirely unconscionable, yes, but the light would still sneak in around it, now.

Speaking of: while plenty of attention has been paid to the geopolitical dimensions of this, and yes they are significant, and yes there is real resentment that has little directly to do with religion, and yes there’s absolutely some justification, that dynamic of increasing interconnectedness and increasing closeness is also probably significant, here. The world is changing quickly because of it, and those extremists and those religions are fumbling around, trying to work out how to survive and how to work within it. They see opportunities, but the reality is: they also have much to fear: the old formula of hushing entirely dissent and driving it out by the force of social sanction and the plain old iron fist is now greatly complicated by the many additional avenues through which people can see around the monoculture of ideas they try to create, and into a larger world. That, too, is part of what’s happening here.

So they’re off balance, and real human freedom from their previously extremely effective techniques of trapping their flock within a bubble of unquestioned dogma is opening up as a real possibility. Letting the clerics dictate the terms, doing their work for them, joining in hushing the mockery and trying to cooperate and close up the space in which it can be made just because they manage to get a tiny percentage of their population (and yes: these protests are tiny, from my understanding, against, say, the scale of the Arab Spring, and the violent elements tinier still) angry enough about is just incredibly counterproductive, utterly against the interest of anyone who wants genuine freedom of conscience to prevail, and a huge step backwards.

So if they incite by screaming ‘thou shalt not mock’, focus your criticism on them. And, conversely, if the Copts want to make fun of the Muslims, or the Muslims want to make fun of the Copts, I say: shrug and say: that’s your right. Because it is. And it should be. And it’s in everyone’s interest that it should be.

Now: I am absolutely grateful to those trying to tamp down the discord, here get some calm restored, stop people getting hurt. I am beyond grateful to those who step up and say any statement is racist when it clearly is…

But as that former thing, I don’t think we need to compromise the longer view in doing so, at all, anyway. Remember: the protests are relatively small. The Salafists are making a power play, here, and it’s probably winning them a few more loyalists, but it’s costing them, elsewhere, too. There are a lot of people in the countries effected affected who are pissed off those who talked this stuff up, and just want things to calm down.

So it’s back as always to diplomacy and discussion. Calm. Keeping your sense of proportion. Keeping in mind the long view. You probably can’t often say ‘Great video, that’ (and as widely noted, it’s not, particularly, anyway), but you can absolutely say ‘Look, these are our laws, and that is anyone’s right under them’, and people will accept it. There are those of them who don’t see anything wrong with the larger direction I’m seeking here, anyway, others who may not much like it, but probably do realize and/or fear: that’s probably where the wind is going eventually anyway.

So summing up: fine, call out racism, where you really see it. But do not forget this larger direction, in doing so. And do not assist anyone trying deliberately to close in the boundaries of discussion around their sacred cows, whatever you do.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Oy. Via David Colquhoun on Twitter, I’m reading a PhD thesis on homeopathy and Evidence Based Medicine, one that argues that EBM gets it all wrong. I have learned that homeopathy is not just the dilution – tut tut, that’s just silly – it’s dilution that gets dynamized. You didn’t know that, did you. Scientistic bastards.

One might draw an analogy with the relationship between a cake and the cake-mixture. To argue that cake-mixture is a delicious complement to tea because cake is, is clearly to neglect that cake is cooked cake-mixture. And so, to argue that homeopathic treatments are not effective medicines because high dilutions are not, is to neglect that homeopathic treatments are dynamized high dilutions. Of course, this analogy ignores the major point of contention. While cooking clearly turns cake-mixture into a delicious complement to tea, it is controversial whether dynamization really does turn high dilutions into effective medicines.

“Controversial” only in the sense that there are people who insist on ignoring the evidence that it doesn’t.

Proponents of homeopathy contest the Canonical Criticism’s framing of the evidential debate in a variety of ways. Below two of the main challenges are noted: first, that the interpretation of EBM in the Canonical Criticism is naïve and unsophisticated…

It is argued that the interpretation of EBM in the Canonical Criticism is ‘scientistic’, and that focusing only on the results of placebo controlled trials fails to not [sic] provide the range of evidence needed to evaluate whether homeopathy works. That is to say, proponents of homeopathy argue that the question of whether homeopathy works cannot be sufficiently answered by evidence from randomised trials, because other evidence is also necessary…The problem identified here is that randomised trials have, according to proponents of homeopathy, been reified in the Canonical Criticism.

Uh huh. Power-knowledge; Foucault; paradigm bingo.

The conclusion starts on page 260, in case you want to end the suspense.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

So there’s this Catholic priest in Illinois who’s been accused of sexually abusing a boy of 14 and was removed from his ministry because of the accusation. There’s this bishop who is letting him go back to just a little bit of ministering because 14 is old enough to say yes to the priest’s overtures.

The bishop says Rome has decided that at the time Ryan allegedly molested a teen[ager], what he did was not considered a serious crime by the Church according to Church law at the time. For that reason, Conlon ruled, Ryan could not be moved from ministry altogether.

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests says Church law at the time actually said a 14-year-old was at an age of consent.

Ah Church law. Well that’s all that counts, isn’t it. Wait.

Just fancy: Bishop Conlon is head of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ committee on sexual abuse.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Maryam has a post saying Bravo Charlie Hebdo, which alerted me to this cringing piece of crap in the Guardian. It’s by Philippe Marlière, who is a professor of French politics at UCL. The body of the article is a quick history of Charlie Hebdo, then suddenly in the last paragraph he flings himself down on the floor in surrender.

Of course people should be entitled to mock Islam and any other religion. However, in the current climate of racial and religious prejudice in Europe, how can these cartoons be helpful? Charlie Hebdo is waging a rearguard battle.

Helpful to what? It depends what you’re trying to “help,” doesn’t it. If you’re hoping to help defend the genuine right to mock Islam and any other religion, as opposed to a purely notional right mentioned in passing only to be negated in the next sentence, then these cartoons can be helpful by exercising the very right that Marlière pretends to affirm only to deny it in the next breath.

I mean get a bead on what you’re saying, dude. Don’t say people should be entitled when you mean they shouldn’t. Don’t say it in one sentence only to take it back in the next. Just admit it – you think people should not be entitled to mock Islam. Any other religion, yes, maybe, but Islam, no. So say that. Say that and then explain why.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Via Kausik Datta, a satirical video about the exciting possibilities when bosses can fire employees for using birth control.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLFDF2dxerM

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Sean Carroll points out a study of gender bias among scientists.

To test scientists’ reactions to men and women with precisely equal qualifications, the researchers did a randomized double-blind study in which academic scientists were given application materials from a student applying for a lab manager position. The substance of the applications were all identical, but sometimes a male name was attached, and sometimes a female name.

Results: female applicants were rated lower than men on the measured scales of competence, hireability, and mentoring (whether the scientist would be willing to mentor this student). Both male and female scientists rated the female applicants lower.

Not at all surprising, alas. I’m sure I have the same bias.

I’m especially interested that it’s Sean Carroll who points it out, because it was Carroll who said, in that chat about why so few women in atheism on The Point last month, that the goal should be equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I sighed at his production of that particular bromide because of exactly this problem of unconscious bias, which renders formal equality of opportunity worthless.

I wonder if Paula Kirby will see this study, and if so, I wonder if it will prompt her to have second thoughts about her “just try harder” version of feminism. The problem it indicates is precisely why I’ve all along found her version to be surprisingly naïve.

If you want to get your blood hotter, read the comments by “TW”…The first, for instance:

I would argue that experienced researchers use all information available, and sex is additional information in two ways:

1) The woman on average worked harder to get the same qualification, leaving a man with a greater potential for growth.

As mentioned before, women are more conscientiousness. Across my student years, many just got better marks, because they did homework well and studied more regularly. Even though some got better marks than myself for example, I always felt they were closer to their limits.

I recently had a class reunion where I discussed with a female school friend who was the No 1 math student why she never did math at university and “just” became a middle school teacher. I told her: Why did you never do it? You were better than me! She said: No I was not better than you, but I worked so much harder and regularly.  I felt my limits. But you were just totally lazy, disorganized and de-focused and still passed!

2) Women get pregnant. This is a real disadvantage and risk for any project leader. I witnessed myself that a project leader hired a woman with all good intentions, but she got pregnant just after, promised to keep working, but then left. His project was delayed significantly and he said “never again”.

So given the same qualifications, I would rationally go for the man.

Yay. Conscious bias.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)

Deeyah has produced and directed a documentary film about the “honour” killing of Banaz Mahmod in South London in 2006. Deeyah talks to A Safe World for Women.

If you worry about offending the Muslim, Sikh, Hindu or any other community by criticising honour killings, then you are complicit in perpetuating it. Our silence provides the fertile soil and circumstances for this oppression and violence to continue. It’s not Islamophobic or racist to protest against honour killings. We have a duty to stand up for individual human rights for all people, not just men and not just for groups. Let’s not sacrifice the lives of ethnic minority women for the sake of so called political correctness.

Exactly. Not just men, and not just groups; if people within the groups are subject to oppression and violence, then we have to try to do something about it.

It is not OK to shy away from abuses happening against women in some communities, for fears of being labelled racist or insensitive – the very notion of turning a blind eye or walking on egg shells and avoiding to protect basic human rights of some women because they are of a certain ethnic background is not only fatal, but that is actually racist in itself.

We also need community awareness, responsibility and action. We don’t want the reactionary, rigid and orthodox religious leaders. But ones who care for our own communities, based on love, respect, dignity and equality. We don’t need community or religious leaders who will only protect and fight for the rights of the men and completely ignore the needs and struggles of women.

 See the trailer.

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)