Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Gapfilla God

A conversation about a moving God
 
JohnSo you believe in God?
MaryYes. Of course. Can't you see him all around, in the birds and trees. Isn't it wonderful?
JohnQuite wonderful. So God is in all the natural things around, even the ground. How do I tell him apart from the natural world? Sounds like you mean God is the wonder you feel when you observe that natural world.
MaryNo, no silly. God isn't the trees and bees. He's in them but isn't them.
JohnRather confusing really. So if I keep investigating the universe by looking further and further inside, I will come to God. We haven't got there yet. So, in the mean time, how can you be certain he is there?
MaryOf course, he's not in there in a sense that science can find. He's in there sustaining the universe, beyond the reach of science.
JohnAh, a kind of force behind everything. Still, we've found them before. Must be a matter of time before we find him. Meanwhile, how can you be certain?
MaryNo. You've missed the point. You won't find him, because he's outside the natural universe. We can't find him with science.
JohnOh, I see. An unknowable God outside what we know and can know. Makes it rather hard for you to know he's there. If he's unknowable, he might be anything, like a large bird or a fart from a monkey.
MaryNow you're just being silly. He's not either. He's God - unknowable and beyond the universe.
JohnStill, you speak so confidently. As if you do know. Rather a contradiction, don't you think?
MaryNot at all. God has revealed himself to me.
JohnHow?
MaryWell, he wrote a book called the Bible. It tells me all about God.
JohnNot bad for an unknowable God. How did you know it was God writing?
MaryOf course it was. It says so in the book.
JohnBut it might have been a clever person masquerading as God.
MaryIt wasn't. It is inspired writing. No person could write that.
JohnHow was it inspired?
MaryWell. It talks all about where the world comes from, who were the first people and their descendants and the wars and the travels.
JohnThat's inspired? Sounds like most history books and myths written by people throughout the ages.
MaryNo, God wrote it. In it he claims he is God.
JohnAre you sure? Don't humans claim he is God, like you are doing.
MaryBut I know its God.
JohnHow?
MaryGod revealed himself to me.
JohnOK. What was that like?
MaryI had a moment of great inspiration. God said to me "I am here"
JohnWow. That must have been exciting. How did you know it was God?
MaryHe spoke to me.
JohnBut what if it wasn't God? What if were a trick or something in your head?
MaryOf course I wasn't. It was God.
JohnWhat did he sound like?
MaryHe didn't sound like anything. I just knew it was him.
JohnSo you just recognised him?
MaryYes
JohnSo, you must have seen him before.
MaryYes, all around me in creation. In the birds and the trees.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Burning witches

Recently, my brother-in-law 'gleefully' posted this apparent rationale for believing in God.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism by Austin Hughes.

I was less than impressed and, in my Facebook response, a little immoderate in my language. This is my simplified reply:

Reason has no regard for categories such as scientism. It rejects anything unreasonable. Reason requires no falsifiability. It is reasonable to accept as fact that I am the father of my children, given all available evidence.

Maths does not require falsifiability, as it is propositional by nature. It does not poll real circles to arrive at a relationship of radius to circumference (Tau) - it simply proposes an ideal circle, then applies a proof to that. This is then overlaid onto the material universe and found to be profoundly useful. Is Maths wicked 'scientism' because it has explanatory power and utility?

Forensic science begins with an outcome and verifies the likelihood of a set of beginning states and events producing this outcome. Historical discovery does the same. 'Fact' in these studies is necessarily provisional and makes claims only in a limited way. I don't think we ought to load sets of people in aeroplanes and crash them in order to establish the cause of the crash. That would be unethical, without even having to ask a scientist or a sciencismist.

That sort of science IS unethical and also stupid, precisely because we already know the outcome and therefore prediction is unnecessary. But you have to be bold to tell those folk doing the investigation that they are just products of that rampant fad 'scientism'.

Ethics should not be bridled by scientific experimentation but it would be stupid to ignore its contribution. Ethics without science can simply tell me an alcoholic is a bad person. Ethics with religion can tell me an alcoholic is a bad person because he sins. Ethics with science can tell me an alcoholic has a mechanism that I share and thence I can boldly claim "there, but for the grace of god, go I" (ie. true grounds for forgiveness). Woops, guess the professor didn't want his shallow evaluation of Harris busted.

Name-calling is boring. Hughes should stick to science, which, on the evidence, he is brilliant at. He should leave reason, ethics and discourse to the rest of us, because he is bad at it. Did he not talk about the "typical scientist seemed to be a person who knew one small corner of the natural world and knew it very well, better than most other human beings living and better even than most who had ever lived. But outside of their circumscribed areas of expertise, scientists would hesitate to express an authoritative opinion." but somehow manages to critique the work of Hawking, the physicist? Mmm, that seems a little inconsistent.

Facts help as well. No falsifiability required, but 'memes' were a tiny element of Dawkins' work, mainly referring to work others had done. Meanwhile, he devoted several books and a three part series to debunking superstition via reason. Forgot to notice that part of Dawkins' work? Woops, do we see spin in the good professors critique? He's not very good at it if a quick Google search can prove otherwise (and expose his naked arse); maybe he should stick to science.

Oh, and he is oft quoted by the ID people. Where did he mention them as the peddlers of superstition that they are? I guess he couldn't bring himself to a balanced assessment of scientism. Still a good atheist bashing has the same delightful smell as a witch-burning.

Dear, dear. Rather a large member exposed when his pants are so low! Now, there's a bit of hard science that could be done, Austy. Do we really go blind with too much masturbation? How would you do that science?

The folly of (stupid) scientists.

How stupid of him to trust the plumber when he said the toilet was fixed. No, Austin. Get down and dirty and lets find out if it is fixed using hard science. Don't go believing that 'cold reading' plumber who just said something to please your superstition that the toilet worked. No, no. Don't apply reason or experience or probability or even pragmatism. Only 'hard science' will do!

Abandon logic all who enter this argument

Some reject Sam Harris's ideas because he is an atheist and they are single-minded theists. Some even consider his ideas as representative of 'pop science' (Hughes:  The Folly of Scientism, http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-folly-of-scientism).  Some simply question whether, on occasions, in pursuit of a point, Sam Harris simply abandons logic.

As Sam admits, "I own several guns and train with them regularly." Nothing is quite so compelling in holding an opinion than personal investment in one side of the argument. In what appears superficially to be a well thought and balanced response to the events of Newtown, Sam writes what turns out to be one of his most poorly argued pieces yet - but one so entirely predictable, given he lives in the US.

Just to paint a quick picture of some of the ridiculous arguments, let us look at Sam's ' self-defense arguments in aggregate. "Had an armed guard been at the school, this could have allowed for a defensive response." Although this quote is taken out of context, it does faithfully represent Sam's notion that being armed in self-defense provides an advantage if your weapon and training is greater than your opponent's.

It is a narrow and ultimately stupid argument, even if initially emotionally compelling. An average Year 5 class, given 10 minutes, could come up with arguments that would knock it out of the water.
First, the principle of "he who shoots first, wins." Regardless of Sam's investment in his own protection, quite understandable though irrational, if I hold a shot gun even at a reasonable distance and I shoot first, I have a very good chance of rendering him defenseless because he is either dead or in pain or blind.

Second, the principle of "he who has least to lose is the most dangerous". If I am a disgruntled student of a school, confronted by an armed guard who will almost certainly kill me before I can wreak havoc, my best strategy is to play on a vulnerability that all good people have - the protection of others. As I walk into the school with my concealed handgun, I target the most innocent of children and hold a gun to their head. Despite the officer's superior training, more accurate or effective weapon, if I have nothing to lose (I'm going to shoot myself in my drug addled brain anyway) and I know he will respond properly by laying down his weapon, I win.

Third, the principle of "three vs one wins".  Confronted by 3 armed intruders in a home invasion, unless Sam conveniently employs 2 other armed guards 24/7, then even if he is good enough to take out 2 before he is shot, he is still dead.

Fourth, the principle of "if you can't see me, you can't shoot me".  In a home invasion, a heat triggered siren, flashing searingly bright and blinding lights and a pack of enraged dogs trumps the best weapon because of the confusion of the intruder. Why put yourself in harms way?

To follow Sam's logic to its logical extreme, if we really want security at our home, we will of course deploy land mines around our house. After all, the concern expressed by my neighbours will only prove how un-American they are. And our children would go to school in a tank and be educated in bunkers.

But this is only one posture that Sam adopts in this debate that is premised in shabby logic. Consider the argument from "the context of other risks".  Certainly, the drama of a Newtown not only elicits specious claims from both sides, (as well as dumb blogs), claims that ignore the simple fact that we are surrounded by risks and we accept many activities more risky.

But risk is more nuanced that simple quantitative comparisons. If you want a really dumb comparison of risk numbers, compare those who die from gun massacres to those who die of old age in hospital. Clearly living beyond 70 should be avoided at all costs because of the very real risk of dying abruptly. So many more people die of old age than guns - can't we just understand the relativities? 
Risk falls into two general categories - those we choose and those we don't. We choose to travel in speed and comfort along roads where other vehicles hurtle towards us at 200km/h (relative). We choose to urinate in public toilets. These are risks that we endure for convenience and comfort sake. Broadly, we call them lifestyle.

Other risks, like home invasions and school shootings , don't have a choice component. The parents of a six year old probably doesn't send their child to school contemplating the risk of a shooting (although they might choose to live in the US, which makes this incredibly more likely). The risk of their child falling from the monkey bars, slipping on concrete or stepping under a vehicle seem like the risks that are actively embraced for the convenience of having a child at school.

Of course, risks that are chosen are usually those which are analysed, legislated upon and which simple protocols and procedures can all but remove. Teaching kids hand washing procedures minimises risk of contagious diseases, supervision on monkey bars and protocols that constrains the sizes of children who play together usually bring risks to an 'acceptable' level. Creating drop-off zones and properly structuring spaces and times for children to be in the vicinity of traffic usually stops these kinds of accidents.

Comparing (and thus confounding) risks is a fairly worthless activity because each kind of risk requires a proper assessment, not the kind of 'folksy' analysis that Sam brings to bear. We can and should examine the risk of guns pretty much in isolation if we claim any kind of care for their victims, just as we examine in great detail each aircraft crash, even though we know, without equivocation, that travelling by plane is the safest form of transport in comparative terms and way safer than extreme sports.

The only riddle I can extract from Sam's piece is his inexplicable lapse into pop logic. Why is knowledge of guns even remotely relevant to the discussion of gun control? I really do not have to be aware of a vehicle's engine size or top speed in order to form an opinion on traffic control. And even with such knowledge of guns, I may easily fall on the side of gun control. Thus, of itself, relative knowledge or ignorance of guns doesn't qualify one to enter the debate, nor negate the worth of what one might say even from the point of ignorance. This is a classic failure in Sam's reasoning  that a class in Logic might solve - Fallacy #7.

Once upon a time, when I lived out west in Queensland, Australia, I went roo shooting. Everybody went shooting. I had a high powered rifle which was lethal to a kilometre. My best shot was a monster red kangaroo at 800 metres. I could barely see it through my scope. But I was a very average shot.

The property on which I went shooting was owned by a Sri-Lankan family. The youngest member of this family could make a head shot on a moving kangaroo with a (legal) revolver with his left hand while riding a motorbike at speed. It was a wonder to behold. I guess, if you have done this a thousand times, it is habitual. No-one needs to think a highly trained autonomic nervous system is not capable of breath-taking accuracy.

I reloaded my own cartridges to make them more powerful than standard over-the-counter cartridges. The skins of the kangaroos I shot were tanned and became good mats (kangaroos skin has it all over bovine hides for leatherwork) and the meat was loaded into the fridge as almost-free dog meat for the next x months. In a time when the zeitgeist says that shooting kangaroos is unacceptable, I am a dissenter.

When I moved to the rural area in the quiet valley in which I now live, one single shot with my rifle convinced me that it was not acceptable to shoot in this valley with this weapon. I simply had no way of telling where the projectile would end up, especially in ricochet. There are simple too many houses, people, horses, dogs and cows around in the thick vegetation to make it responsible to own this weapon any more.

I traded this weapon for a pump-action shotgun. In my mind, I wanted a second go at the wild dogs that roamed the area in which I live and I didn't want to miss, regardless of the condition of the wounded animal. In fact, I wanted to make sure I didn't wound a wild dog and not be able to kill it. That seemed inhumane.

As I stood in the gun shop, the attendant beside me was dealing with a man who was boasting of a cache (he mentioned a shipping container) of semi-automatic weapons he was selling. Since that was illegal, the attendant was, predictably, nervous. This convinced me that no place on earth is immune from nut-jobs who will happily break the law in relation to guns.

Later, in the gun buy-back that should prove to the world that gun control is both possible and practical, I handed in my gun and made a tidy profit on my original purchase. The wild dogs have been poisoned and have largely disappeared, I have educated my children to run away from snakes and I still battle with goannas who steal eggs. I could, if I pleased, legally purchase a shotgun and control "vermin".  But I haven't, because, in the end, the dangers of a gun outweigh the benefits.

On the surface, my experience would seem to serve Sam's arguments. The responsible citizen and the dangerous nut-job. Gun control only limits the responsible citizen. But, of course, that is bullshit. Responsible citizens limit themselves. Laws empower police and magistrates to make the balance of power marginally in the hands of the state. No-one even pretends that a determined killer will not kill. Gun laws are not about certainty but about probability. The equations are surprisingly simple. Access to guns increases the chances of them being used.  The use of guns is more likely to cause death than other means. If it proves nothing else, Newtown shows how legally held guns can be put to horrific use through no other mechanism than access.

Regardless of the nuances of context, gun type, relative power, gun training and state of mind, the common element of school shootings in Norway, German and the US is access to guns. The common element to homicides world wide is access to guns. You don't introduce gun laws to prevent homicide, you introduce them to reduce them, considering  each life saved worth the inconvenience.

The most insidious bit of spin that the gun lobby has produced and to which Sam subscribes is that gun controls do little except restrict the freedoms of law abiding citizens. In Australia, the work of Baker and McPhedran is toted by the gun lobby as proof that the gun buy-back in Australia, where 600 000 guns were recovered from a population of about 18 million (making it possible that at least 1:30 guns in the US, or 10 000 000 weapons, could be recovered), was ineffective in changing homicide rates where guns were used.  Baker and McPhedran's work is both academic and mischievous.

They are careful to fully disclose their association with gun groups, as if that then necessarily means their arguments will be without bias. While they are happy to tout ABS figures to support their flawed conclusions, they make quite a case for these statistics being  suspect in relation to suicide. It seems they like the idea of having their cake and eating it too.

Their conclusion is superficially credible. The trend in both homicides and homicides where guns were used, derived from the graph shown on page 3 of this document, "clearly indicates" a downwards trend prior to the 1996 buy-back in gun-related homicides. This, they conclude, shows that the sharp drop after 1996 can just as easily to attributed to a general trend as to the buy-back.  They somehow manage to ignore the Victorian gun law reform of 1988; but then, don't let fact get in the way of the conclusion you wish to make.

Before I address this 'finding', let us first consider the notion of trends. Imagine you are a ship builder from early last century. As a result of better communication and detection systems, rates of collisions ships on icebergs has trended downwards for about 2 decades. As it is clear that communication and detection is the key, do you now decide that building your Titanic without separate flotation chambers is worthless?

Since a failure of detection and communication was at the core of the sinking of the Titanic, such thinking would be foolhardy. Clearly, downward trends do not provide an exhaustive reason for any decision - only careful analysis, such as that demonstrated so elegantly by the aircraft industry and its crash investigators, can really provide a substantial claim in regard to the effectiveness of measures. Additionally, legislators do not wait for the next disaster to act - even if the outcomes of their legislation don't immediately 'stack up'. This is erring on the side of caution, a strategy that does so well in keeping us safe and secure.

The major error, however, in Baker and McPhedran's work, is not in the logic of how trends should translate in legislation. It is more fundamental.  It falls within the scope of the "lies, damned lies and statistics" problem. An easier-to-read graph can be found at the AIC's http://www.aic.gov.au/statistics/homicide.html and a similar erroneous conclusion (beneath the graph), which perhaps Baker and McPhedran simply took 'as read'.

Fluctuations up and down, considering the low number of homicides anyway, are likely to appear dramatic. If you were to ask me what the rate of gun related homicides in Australia was in the first half of last century, I would say about 35%. The number of peaks above is roughly equally to the troughs. The period from 1930 - 1950 roughly matches the period 1975 - 1995. Both have a high followed by a low, with fluctuations . The first period is followed by 10 years of relatively high and the second, if we extend it to 2010, a sustained period of low; in fact, a continued downward trend to 13% in 2010. After a century of 35%, how do we make a 23% difference virtually permanent? Why does the trend continue downwards and not rebound to its 'normal' level of 35%?

Only two factors feature in homicide that can possibly be relevant to this trend - preference of weapon and access to a weapon. Don't be distracted by the total number of homicides, as this is a proportional figure.  No doubt, the total number of homicides  would be susceptible to community attitudes or policing methods. But these attitudes can't explain the change in the proportion of gun homicides.

Are we really meant to believe that murderers for the last century have chosen guns and that only now a small percentage choose guns? That's right, 'choose'.  Implicit in the notion of this being a trend downwards, that  was already in place and therefore a continuation of this trend is not significant, is the necessary notion that murderers have changed preferences. Or is the other factor - access - more likely to provide an explanation of the change.

Baker and McPhedran would have us believe that social attitudes towards guns have changed and this could account for lower rates. Apart from affirming that legislation may well work by changing social opinions, can we consider that as the agent of a permanent 23% change? Frame this in your imagination for a moment. "Murderers don't use guns to murder anymore because its not socially acceptable. " I intend to kill you, but I'm squeamish about shooting you? Credibility is strained somewhat.

Prior to Victoria's 1988 legislation, gun ownership was relatively unrestricted and access fairly loosely controlled. Since the 1988 legislation, the tightening of access to weapons progressively across Australia has made access difficult. This translates directly into lower gun homicide rates. No reasonable person would conclude otherwise.

Sam Harris's personal feeling shape his rhetoric.

"But when I contemplate atrocities of this kind, I do not think of "gun control"-because it seems extraordinarily unlikely that a deranged and/or evil person will ever find it difficult to acquire a firearm in the United States. Rather, I think of how differently the situation might have evolved if the school had had an armed (and, I have to emphasize, well-trained) security guard on campus. I also think of how differently things might have gone if the shooter, who seems to have shown signs of mental illness for years, had been more intrusively engaged by society prior to the attack."

This is not an unrealistic response; just irrational.  Conceiving big events as incredible doesn't make them incredible - the USSR disarmed unilaterally. False hopes of a saviour in the form of a guard don't wash when it comes to public policy decisions. Intervention in mental illnesses, although having come a long way to managing these illnesses, doesn't actually work unless you lock these people in jail for the term of their natural life. Kneejerk reactions don't make good arguments.

I have faced an 'atrocity' of far less consequence than Newtown but one in which the same principles applies.  Two young workers on a building site at the school that my children attend began calling out sexual innuendo and, according to some students, exposed themselves to some of the girls. Whatever the facts of the event in regard to sexual assault, these two youths found two key weaknesses in the security and supervisory structures of the school. First, they were legitimately on the campus and second, they waited until supervising teachers were out of sight to act. I know that, because I was the teacher on duty.

In the end, no amount of 'guarding' can keep our children safe. Those who set out to harm will probably manage it.  Harm reduction, by procedures, protocols and vigilance are our primary tools. Changing the ability of the harmer to harm is the a parameter along which we can surely achieve some measure of success. Glass-free zones takes a weapon out of the hands of crazed football fan, but football fans can still wreak havoc. Removing alcohol from a driver reduces harm but doesn't prevent accidents. Taking a gun from a lunatic makes harm less likely but won't provide certainty.

The arms race was never won, but it was pursued with a vigour that is unquestionable. The doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction arguably kept us safe during the Cold War. You can probably depend on someone who is better armed to have something over someone who is armed with something less powerful but matching someone else's arms gives you some persuasive power.
In the world of crime, the mentality of ever increasingly powerful weapons comes into play. If you are going to commit a crime, knowing that you have a bigger weapon than the victim is important.

Most criminals don't go armed with intent to be killed first. The argument put forward by the gun lobby that criminals will simply choose the least protected sites cuts both way. If everywhere is equally protected by ever vigilant guards, the criminal must choose a weapon of greater accuracy, reload or ability to be concealed. The long term outcome is more weapons and more danger. War zones prove this daily.

The saddest element of Sam's piece is his lapse into simple name-calling and ad hominem.

" The liberal commentariat seems to have no awareness of what "well-trained" signifies. It happens to include an understanding of what to do and what not to do when the danger of shooting innocent bystanders exists. The fact that bystanders do occasionally get shot, even by police officers, does not prove that putting guns in the hands of good people would be a bad idea. Gun-control advocates seem always to imagine the worst possible scenario: legions of untrained, delusional vigilantes producing their weapons at a pin drop and firing indiscriminately into a crowd."

In the end, even if liberals happen to say stupid things or religiously follow a doctrine in a thoughtless way, the rules of logic tell us this does not negate their propositions. The irony of Sam's name calling is that the most conservative prime minister in Australia's recent history introduced gun law reform. Your political views are a poor measure of your opinion on gun control and an even poorer measure of how well-formed the arguments will be. The NRAs gob-smackingly stupid argument regarding placing guards at schools and transforming schools into warzones can be assessed as dumb for all these reason I outlined throughout this blog. The NRA alignment with Republicans is largely superfluous and introducing this political angle is about creating spin, not argument.

I have already written a piece on the historical reasons for the high gun ownership in the US and the peculiar (in the sense of being unique, not stupid) mentality of self-defense in the US. I am not unsympathetic to a cultural position derived from three centuries of tradition. Changing this tradition is not something that is likely to occur in my lifetime.  But even minor changes are unlikely while smart people like Sam Harris relinquish logic to private investment in the arguments over gun control.