Last weekend I attended the Midwest Science of Origins Conference at the University of Minnesota-Morris. It was a good conference, and I’m writing a longer article about my impressions of the event. But I sat down yesterday and this came out, so I thought I’d put it up now.
Last weekend I was at the Midwest Science of Origins Conference, and I was wrong quite a few times. Not in flashy, obvious, foot-in-mouth ways, but in a myriad of little ways. And I’m not talking about having those enlightening “Hmmm…I’d never considered that before” moments. I’m talking about having ideas and preconceptions challenged in conversations with other people and in the lectures.
Last Thursday (10/14/2010) I went to see Michael Shermer speak at the University of Minnesota’s Willey Hall (timely write-up fail!). Dr. Shermer was presenting “Why People Believe Weird Things”. His visit was sponsored/organized by the Campus Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists (CASH) group at the U of M.
Michael Shermer
I liked the lecture hall set-up – the back wall is rounded and the room focuses the audience’s attention down to the center of the room where the speaker is presenting. But instead of having one screen and the people on the sides getting cruddy views, the room has two gigantic screens angled so that no matter where you sit you’ll have a decent view of the material.
Map of Willey Hall
Before the talk Dr. Shermer checked his set up, then hung around up front chatting with people. The presentation started about 15 minutes late, but that was okay because people kept streaming in. Dr. Shermer was introduced by the CASH activities director, and then we were off.
He started by telling us about Skeptic Magazine and the Skeptic’s Society and he did a quick review of the topics covered on the screens up front.
The pre-talk display was these six covers of Skeptic Magazine, of which Michael Shermer is the Founding Publisher
One of the comments that Dr. Shermer made early on really stuck with me. He presented the idea that smart people are very good at rationalizing their non-intelligent choices and beliefs. I think that, like anyone, skeptics can make poor choices when we weigh evidence against our personal beliefs, and we choose gut over facts (I’m still struggling with Penn and Teller’s BS episode on recycling). In the Q&A at the end of the talk, someone asked him to give some examples of the weird things skeptics believe. He chose politics – ask a liberal why they believe what they believe, and they’ll tell you it’s because they’re right about x topic, and that yes, they believe that 50% of Americans who vote for Republicans/conservativism are wrong. Confirmation bias, anyone?
Dr. Shermer showed this slide during his talk.
Dr. Shermer was all about using the humor to get ideas across. He was discussing the need for science education in America, and used this video got a LOT of laughs:
After that Dr. Shermer dug into some basic cognitive science topics like association learning and patternicity. He gave a broad-level overview of some neuroscience studies that have attempted to explain where and what in the brain may be responsible for patternicity. He showed some great illusions that illuminate how our brain handles facial recognition, and he presented his idea for how this might be related to the phenomenon of déjà vu. He demonstrated how granularity, shading and camera position in photos can be used to trick our brain into making assumptions about what we’re looking at, and even into seeing things that aren’t there.
Jerry Andrus’s 3D impossible crate
Nice doggy
Our Lady of the Chicago Underpass
Next he discussed agenticity: the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents. This moved us further into the realms of conspiracy, skepticism and pseudoscience. Dr. Shermer believes that human agenticity is behind animism, aliens, the 9/11 Conspiracy, JFK’s assassination, etc. He discussed mind versus brain (“Mind is just the thing that the brain does”) and the brain’s role in creating near-death experiences and out-of-body experiences, as well as the phenomenon of sensed presence, or the feeling that someone is in the room with you.
He also demonstrated how the priming effect works with a fun example. Do you remember the hysteria in the 1980s when some people thought that if you played rock and roll records backwards you could hear satanic lyrics or chanting? Dr. Shermer played Stairway to Heaven forward and backward for us. When he played it forward he put the lyrics on the screen. Then he played the song backward – without lyrics. It sounded like a bunch of gobbledy-gook. Then he played the song backwards for us again, but this time with these devised lyrics on the screen:
So here’s to my Sweet Satan. The other’s little path Would make me sad, Whose power is faith. He’ll give those with him 666. And all the evil fools, they know he made us suffer sadly.
And it sure sounded like they were singing those words when we listened to it again. Fun with tricking the brain!
Dr. Shermer managed to fit in a few more topics like why cold reading works (when someone goes to a psychic they’ll remember the hits (5-10 hits), but forget the misses (200-300), synchronicity, confirmation bias and expectation violation.
At the end of the talk we had about 30 minutes for Q&A. There was a good mix of Q&A topics – cognitive neuroscience, pseudoscience, belief, atheism. Nobody was too bumbling, although there were a few cringe-worthy seconds here and there while people rambled or struggled to get their question out. There were no confrontational questions.
A few of my favorite moments from the Q&A
Dr. Shermer using Good Kirk vs. Bad Kirk to explain why emotions are necessary to decision-making. Good Kirk is pretty accurate portrayal of what would happen without emotions.
“Don’t teach people what to think, but how to think.”
Someone asked if we could we erase memories like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The answer started out pretty party line (“We don’t yet know how we store memories, so we don’t yet know how to erase them), but somewhere along the line he managed to get to “Aliens are going to be so incredibly different from us.” I don’t remember how we got there, but in reading my notes it seems like a fabulous non sequitur.
I enjoyed the talk, both the material and the way Dr. Shermer presented. I’m really happy that the Campus Atheists, Skeptics and Humanists (CASH) were able to organize the talk and the $4 entry fee was very kind. Next year CASH is bringing Jen McCreight from BlagHag to the U of M – yay!
New Zealand museum bans pregnant women from attending exhibit
A clash of cultures over a rule forbidding pregnant or menstruating women to attend a Te Papa exhibit has been criticised by feminists. An invitation for regional museums to go on a behind-the-scenes tour of some of Te Papa’s collections included the condition that “wahine who are either hapu [pregnant] or mate wahine [menstruating]” were unable to attend.
Jane Keig, Te Papa spokeswoman, said the policy was in place because of Maori beliefs surrounding the Taonga Maori collection included in the tour. She said the rule was one of the terms Te Papa agreed to when they took the collection.
“If a woman is pregnant or menstruating, they are tapu. Some of these taonga have been used in battle and to kill people. Pregnant women are sacred and the policy is in place to protect women from these objects.”
If an object is tapu it is “forbidden” and in Maori culture it is believed that if that tapu is not observed, something bad will happen. Women who plan to attend the tour on November 5 are expected to be honest about whether they are pregnant or menstruating as a sign of respect to Maori beliefs.
So the argument for keeping certain women out of the special tour is because the women are sacred, forbidden, and need to be protected. And if they do go on the tour, tapu will be violated and something bad will happen.
I have nothing to lose in this debate, so I don’t know if I would lie or not to get in. But if I was affected by this ban, I might. Or I might try to organize a boycott or protest. The group imposing the restrictions doesn’t have the right to insist that I respect their beliefs. They have a right to not let me see their private stuff, but do they have the right to open their collection to the public except for the people they don’t want to see it? This particular museum is a public institution that accepts public funding.
Does the owner of a private collection have a right to place restrictions on who gets to see it, even if they allow it to be displayed at a public institution?
If only I had a seestor with a concentration in museum studies…
Act on Principles is a group promoting “Full LGBT civil rights now. No delay. No excuses.” The group is currently attempting to get the American Equality Bill (AEB) filed in the Senate. The AEB would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as federally protected statuses.
Queer SOS is an activist project of the Act on Principles group that is focusing their attention on Senator Gillibrand of New York. Queer SOS wants Sen. Gillibrand to file the proposed American Equality Bill. Last Friday Queer SOS hosted “Flash Mob: Homophobia Kills Die-In” in Grand Central Station:
Aside from hosting energizing flash mob art-performances-with-a-message, Queer SOS is demonstrating daily outside of Sen. Gillibrand’s offices. This is part of the the communication that the AEB Project sent to Sen. Gillibrand on 9/17/10 (bolding is original):
Dear Senator Gillibrand,
I’m writing to request again that you commit to and file a Civil Rights bill for our community immediately.
As you know, it is the prime duty of Government to protect its citizens from discrimination and Congress has failed over 30 million LGBTQ people in this regard.
We can not wait any longer for action to redress this.
To press this issue, activists will be launching a daily, friendly vigil outside your campaign offices starting Sept. 27th until the American Equality Bill (AEB) is filed. If no bill is filed as of October 11th we plan to go 24/7, and then on Nov. 2nd to begin group fasting.
This is a very serious matter as people will be risking their health standing outside and fasting for basic human justice. We should not have to take these steps, but talking about this has failed and there is no other option.
We will broadcast our work daily, seek as much media attention as possible, and try to join you at other public campaign appearances.
Please know that this is not an opposition action in any way and that we are very happy your campaign is doing so well! But we NEED YOUR HELP now! We need this bill to organize around and there is no excuse for not filing it immediately.
rest of letter omitted
I support public demonstrations that do not harm or unduly inconvenience the audience to the point where they are coerced into taking action. Get out there, make your message known, go first amendment-protected speech!
But group fasting?
It appears to me that threatening a fast is a coercive action – Hey Senator, I’m going to hurt myself unless you do what I want you to do. I support the goals of this group and I want to support the group itself, but I have reservations about fasting as a political statement. I know that hunger strikes aren’t new, but why are they okay? Why is holding one’s health hostage an acceptable means of political pressure? Can anyone tell me why hunger strikes are appropriate, or give me arguments about why they are not?
Two Comedy Central funnymen are apparently entering into the partisan political fray with rallies of their own in the nation’s capital.
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have set October 30 as the date for their respective rallies.
On Thursday night’s airing of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” the comedian announced plans for a “Rally to Restore Sanity.”
“See you October 30 on the National Mall to spread the timeless message, ‘Take it down a notch for America,’ ” he said.
Stewart dubbed the event a “clarion call for rationality.”
“A million moderate march, where we take to the streets to send a message to our leaders and our national media that says, ‘We are here! We … are only here until 6 though, because we have a sitter,'” he said.
On “The Colbert Report,” which airs immediately after Stewart’s show, Colbert fired back with plans for his “March to Keep Fear Alive.”
“Now is not the time to take it down a notch. Now is the time for all good men to freak out for freedom,” Colbert said.
Stewart said on his Thursday show that he had reserved a spot on the National Mall.
“The forms have been filled out, the checks have been written,” he said.
[portion of original article omitted]
The announcements come less than three weeks after conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck hosted a much-publicized “Restoring Honor” rally on the National Mall, urging large crowds to “turn back to God” and return America to the values on which it was founded.
That event drew criticism for its timing and location — on the 47th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered in the same place.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson told CNN at the time that Beck was mimicking King and “humiliating the tradition.” And other civil rights activists gathered nearby with the Rev. Al Sharpton and his National Action Network in a “Reclaim the Dream” rally.
Stewart first publicly floated the idea of a counter-rally in a profile in the September 12 edition of New York magazine.
“Maybe we would do a ‘March of the Reasonable,’ on a date of no particular significance,” Stewart says in the article.
The website logos and icons created for the Colbert and Stewart rallies mimic Beck’s, using identical typography and similar stylized images.
“We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard,” the website for the “Rally to Restore Sanity” says.
The “March to Keep Fear Alive” site takes a more alarmist approach: “Never forget — ‘Reason’ is just one letter away from ‘Treason.’ Coincidence? Reasonable people would say it is, but America can’t afford to take that chance.”
