Psst… do you want to hear something amazing? There’s an unbelievably simple trick you can use to get everything you’ve ever wanted, without having to work for it, put any effort at all into bettering yourself or your life, or kill off your rich uncle.
It’s called THE SECRET
Anyone’s who’s taken any type of eastern philosophy course knows about the law of attraction. Basically, the theory is that if you put positive energy out into the world, you will reap the benefits of that energy. Hindus call it karma, Taoists call it the Tao, and skeptics call it a heaping pile of steamy bullshit.
Like prayer, or ‘remote viewing’, or psychics, mediums, Tarot and horoscopes, the law of attraction (karma) relies on some fundamental cognitive heuristics our brains use. The first and most important is called confirmation bias – our brains selectively attend to those events that fit assumptions we’ve already made. The second is a logical fallacy called ‘post hoc, ergo propter hoc‘ or, ‘after it, therefore because of it’ – we see two events and infer that the first causes the second.
For an example of this, think of what happens when you’re waiting for a bus. How many times have you waited for a bus, got fed up and decided to walk, only to have the bus show up a minute after you leave? Have you ever said “of course, as soon as I leave, the bus arrives.” Your leaving has nothing to do with the bus arriving – the two events are independent, but after it happens 2 or 3 times, your mammal brain puts them together.
So when you send out positive vibes and something good happens, the two aren’t necessarily causally related – indeed, there’s no mechanism by which they could be related. The “Secret” is just an appeal to your mammalian brain and the cognitive shortcuts we all use to get by.
“So what?” you might be saying. “It doesn’t hurt anyone to think positively.” Despite evidence that it absolutely CAN hurt people to have unrealistically positive outlooks, it also leads to victim blaming. People assume that if you can think your way to happiness and wealth, then anyone who is poor just has a bad attitude.
It was a big weekend for Vancouver skeptics. On Friday, July 30th, we hosted biology professor, speaker and celebrated science blogger PZ Myers. Sunday, August 1st saw us marching (“dancing” would be a more accurate term) in Vancouver’s Pride parade.
On Friday, July 30th, CFI Vancouver was proud to host biology professor, speaker, and author of the popular science and skepticism blog Pharyngula, Dr. PZ Myers. Dr. Myers presented an hour-long discussion of the role of atheism in the scientific battleground.
As the event was hosted and organized by CFI, this is not the official writeup. Since I was on hand with my camera, I did videotape the entire presentation. Once again, however, CFI laid out all of the groundwork to make this happen, so I will not post the video online, preferring instead to send the traffic their way. I will, however, post a couple of segments and a summary of my own reactions to both the presentation, and meeting PZ himself.
Ethan Clow, head of CFI Vancouver, meets PZ Myers
The Presentation
Much has been made of Dr. Myers’ confrontational style; people seem to expect him to be a fire-breathing ogre who preaches hatred of Christians from a pulpit made of Creationist’s skulls. Having seen video of him speaking before, I went in expecting exactly what we got – an interesting, humorous, and gregarious biology professor from Minnesota. The talk took place at the University of British Columbia’s Wesbrook building, and was attended by about 300 people (CFI will have actual numbers).
The focus of the presentation was in like with Dr. Myers’ usual stance on the issue of how ashamed we should be to call ourselves atheists – we need to be visible, we need to be consistent, and we need to stand up for our principles. He started with a brief discussion of why it is impossible to ‘disprove evolution’:
I really like the Newton/Einstein example, because it’s a perfect illustration of how science is supposed to work – we adjust our models to fit the observed evidence, not chain them to our preconceived notions of how we think they should look. That’s why quantum physics is so weird – because the universe is a weird place.
He then moved on to a topic that was a bit of a sore point for me: the ‘dictionary atheist’. He describes those of us who say that atheism is merely the absence of belief in God, and nothing more. He then calls that out as a bullshit position:
My feelings were a bit hurt, because I have been advocating that exact position. However, as I was to discuss with him later, he makes an important point, which is the basic underscoring of his presentation – namely, that Atheists (note the capital A) do believe in things. We’re not Atheists by accident, or because we haven’t yet heard how awesome YahwAlladdha is, but because we reject superstition and appeals to invisible authority as a basis for building a functioning society. We believe that evidence, reason, and an abiding respect for humanity is a much higher standard to which human beings should be held than the fear of a paternal sky-genie.
I will not do a play-by-play of the entire talk, partially because I don’t really feel like transcribing the entire hour-long presentation + ensuing Q&A, and also because I think Dr. Myers’ speaking style is best captured on video. I will be pushing hard on CFI Canada to release the video in a timely manner, so please stay tuned.
The Post-Event Reception
After the talk, there was an opportunity for guests to sit down and share a beer and some appetizers with PZ. This was the part of the evening I had most looked forward to, so I bought my ticket to the reception early. I was lucky enough to get a chance to ask him about some things that have been on my mind.
Someone made cupcakes, with this special cake-topper for PZ
The so-called ‘Burqa Ban’
Regular readers will know that I have been wrestling with the issue of France, Belgium and Quebec passing law that bar women from covering their faces when interacting with government employees and while in public places. I asked PZ what he thought on the issue. He told me that while there were arguments to be made on both sides, his default position is to side with human liberty – women should be allowed to wear what they want, even if the establishment doesn’t like it.
Being a leader of the skeptic movement
I’ve always been curious to know how people like PZ, or Dawkins, or Hitchens feel about the appellation “leader of the skeptic movement.” Is there a sense of pride of being a senior statesman in a major political and social movement? Does he even consider himself a leader, or just another person with a dog (albeit a big one) in the fight? He replied that unlike any other group in history, the entire purpose of the Atheist/skeptic/humanist movement was to have no leaders (he used the phrase “Atheist Pope”). The whole point, he said, was to motivate people to think for themselves and come to their own conclusions.
His stance on ‘dictionary atheism’
Because I took it personally, I asked him about the virtue of identifying as atheists. He himself noted in his presentation that there were many people who were nihilists, believing that because there is no God, life is therefore meaningless. I suggested to him that even further, there were people who are atheists because they hate religion, or religious people, or out of rebellion against their parents… for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with skepticism. These people are covered by the label ‘atheist’ without being skeptics of any stripe. PZ replied that while those people do exist, as skeptic atheists we can drive the public perception of atheism as people who have deep beliefs that are guided by evidence, not merely a negatively-defining group.
Summarizing thoughts
I really enjoyed my night out with PZ and the Vancouver skeptics. We stayed out late drinking, shutting down both Moose’s Down Under and the Railway Club. We talked about science, atheism, politics (apparently I’m an asshole because I self-define as Libertarian :P) and a number of other topics (including the intricacies of PZ’s spam filter – one of the highlights of the night was reading an e-mail that a local kook had sent him regarding the oil spill in the Gulf). I was lucky enough to also be able to speak with Mrs. Myers (The Trophy Wife) about my own history as a religious person and how to talk to those of us we are close to who still believe.
One of the things I was most struck by was the gender ratio at the talk. There is a general view of the skeptic movement that it is predominantly white males. As a black guy, I have observed this to be the case at many of our skeptical events. However, both the talk and the reception were evenly attended (still mostly white people, but this is Canada). One attendee, when I pointed this out, said that PZ’s decidedly pro-feminist stance on issues was a factor which helped her decide to show up. Skeptics take note: if you want to balance the gender scales, reach out to women.
I am looking forward to seeing the full video available online, as it is a much higher quality than I was able to take on my little camera. As I said above, I will be pushing on whoever I need to push on to get it up and running as soon as possible. For more (and better) photos, be sure to check out Fred Bremmer’s Flickr page.
Thanks to PZ for linking to this page! Welcome to all Pharyngulites.
It was a big weekend for Vancouver skeptics. On Friday, July 30th, we hosted biology professor, speaker and celebrated science blogger PZ Myers. Sunday, August 1st saw us marching (“dancing” would be a more accurate term) in Vancouver’s Pride parade.
Yesterday, skeptics from the BC Humanist Association, the SFU Skeptics, and of course CFI Vancouver gathered at Robson and Thurlow to take part in Vancouver’s annual Pride parade. This parade is ostensibly intended for members of the gay community to stand up and be seen without fear. Over time, it has become a venue for community groups to show their solidarity with the gay community.
What were we doing there?
Humanists have long been in solidarity with the gay community. The central tenet of humanist thought is the idea that the ultimate good is for human beings to be able to determine their own lives. A corollary of that is the belief that the way to judge the morality of an action is its consequences to humankind. Demonizing homosexuals makes no sense to humanists, since being openly gay makes people happy, and hurts nobody.
In addition to our philosophical allegiance to the gay cause, humanists and skeptics see a meaningful similarity between the gay community and our struggle for mainstream acceptance. It’s barely been 31 years since the Stonewall riots, which one might call the beginning of the gay movement. In that short time, we’ve seen major social progress for gay people in North America and Europe, and we’re seeing progress in places like South America and Africa.
Atheists face similar discrimination and misunderstanding in the face of hyper-religiosity worldwide. Luckily, thanks to vocal mainstream atheists like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Michael Shermer, and of course PZ Myers, atheists have entered the public domain and are actively taking part in the conversation. Our presence at the Pride parade was, for us, one more step towards mainstream recognition and acceptance.
What did we do?
About 15 skeptics (sorry, I should have counted and I didn’t) met in the staging area for the parade, with bright colourful clothes, face paint, signs, banners, a recumbent bike, and a great deal of optimism and energy.
In addition to the BC Humanists and CFI banners, we carried a large banner with the now famous slogan “There’s Probably No God, Now Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life” from the Atheist bus campaign. The virtue of this slogan is that while it is definitely an in-your-face proclamation of our position, it is about as inoffensive and positive as any such a slogan could be.
We marched the prescribed parade route in between Worksafe BC and an anti-bullying campaign. Sadly, we were not able to march alongside the religious groups, or what I termed the Cognitive Dissonance Squad:
How did the crowd react?
Honestly, I was expecting the crowd to be either indifferent or hostile. Vancouver is a city with many faiths and many churches, and where people don’t often challenge each other’s beliefs. We were mounting a fairly aggressive and open, unashamed assertion of our position, much the way we did previously with Deepak Chopra.
Once again, however, the people of Vancouver surprised me. Far from being merely tolerant, we had an overwhelming amount of support from the crowd. Everywhere we went, we were confronted by cheering, applause, and people laughing as they read the banner, eagerly pointing it out to their friends. Many (I assume) atheists in the crowd shouted their assent, seemingly grateful that there was a group there supporting their beliefs. You can see what I mean in the following video:
The crowd shots I’ve included in that video are not cherry-picked – they are a fair representation of the entire crowd at the event. The response was unbelievably and uniformly positive. Please forgive the shaky camera work – I was dancing my skeptical ass off.
Some summarizing thoughts
What we have seen in our past forays into ‘skeptivism‘ is that people are generally receptive to new ideas. While I personally fall more on the confrontational side of the confront/accommodate debate, I recognize that a variety of methods are needed, since each individual is different. The city of Vancouver acted, to my eyes, like a group of people who were ‘closet’ atheists, and who were waiting for someone or some group to stand up and say “we’re here, we’re skeptics, get used to it.”
The past few months have seen major growth in the skeptic community here in BC, with the addition of a third Skeptics in the Pub site in Richmond, and the start of a branch of CFI in the Okanogan. We’ve picked up a great deal of steam and visibility thanks to our presence at Pride, and we hope to continue this momentum into the fall. We hope that other skeptic groups, particularly our comrades in the USA, undertake similar acts of open skeptivism, and that they receive the same positive response we enjoyed.
Thanks to PZ Myers at Pharyngula for linking to this post! Welcome to all Pharyngulites.
Today’s movie Friday features someone who can literally claim credentials to the title of greatest stand-up comedian of all time. I can’t say he’s my favourite, but I am not the grand arbiter of all things funny. Billy Connolly is a Scottish comedian who may be most recognizable for those of us not into stand-up as “Il Duce” from the dynamite movie Boondock Saints. When he’s not instructing his sons on methods of death-dealing, he’s a wildly funny comedian and actor.
This whole week’s been about race, so I figure I’m okay to let Billy beat up on religion a bit:
The thing about 53 virgins is spot-on. I’ve been with virgins – they’re much less fun than someone who knows what she (or he) knows what she’s doing and is into it big time.
And while we’re at it, let’s rip on “alternative medicine” too:
Interestingly, Billy was in a movie called The Man Who Sued God which is a great indictment of the role that religious superstition plays in secular society. Well, it is until about 4/5th of the way in, at which point it becomes weak dithering pablum. Despite its lackluster ending, I liked the movie and think it’s worth watching. Anyway, enjoy the videos!
Yesterday I was privileged to join Ethan Clow, the Vancouver chapter president of CFI Vancouver (the handsome devil you saw talking to Deepak Chopra) on his radio show “Radio Freethinker” on UBC’s campus radio. This is a weekly skeptic podcast that looks at skeptic issues in the news and discusses various salient skeptic topics. I was present as a special guest, along with Jakob Liljenwall, head of the Simon Fraser University Skeptics group.
We discussed, among other things:
Belgian police raiding a Catholic Church;
Organic pesticides being worse than synthetic for the environment;
The G8/G20 events; and
Confrontation vs. Accommodation in the skeptic movement
Of course Ethan, Jakob and I have similar views on things, but we had a fairly lively discussion nonetheless. As you listen to the podcast, you’ll immediately notice two things:
Some of the things I talk about have appeared (or will appear, depending on when you’re reading this) on this blog, and
There is a reason I prefer writing to speaking – I backtrack a lot while trying to explain myself.
So if you’ve ever wondered if I have a sexy voice, or you’re a friend of mine and you miss my sexy voice, give “Radio Freethinker” a listen. If the subject matter interests you, check it out Tuesdays at 3:30 on CITR 101.9 FM in Vancouver.
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