Excuse me for arriving late to the "elevatorgate" brouhaha. (Am I lazy, or was I waiting for a cooler head to prevail? Maybe both.)
For those of you unfamiliar, the skeptical/atheist online community was sent into a tither over comments made by popular blogger and podcaster Rebecca Watson* in a YouTube video (she of Skepchick and the Skeptics Guide to the Universe). Rebecca had related an experience of being propositioned in an elevator at 4:00 in the morning. She said, "Guy's, don't do this." Rebecca had very recently given a talk (sat on a panel?) about how to better invite women into the skeptical community.
Cue shitstorm.
I must admit, the whole thing kinda got my goat as well. For two reasons.
1) A lack of skepticism.
Both sides got heated about what happened and how bad or benign it was. Ah, excuse me, but don't skeptics realize that personal anecdotes are a very unreliable source of data? We have no idea what really happened in the elevator (was it closer to near rape or a bad joke?). Was the experience a fluke, an outlier, or truly representative of what women experience? What does stronger data say about male and female relations today?
2) Feminism and skepticism don't mix.
Before anyone gets their undies in a bunch -- at times I consider myself a feminist. My political blood runs liberal. But I understand that any cart-like agenda, any "ism," must be put after the horse of skepticism. If the horse is to work most effectively.
Agendas pose a threat to skepticism. With an agenda comes motives beyond just wanting to understand "how things really are." With an agenda comes a potential conflict of interest, conscious or not.
In a similar fashion, this is also why I feel slightly threatened by the agenda of religious accomodationists: The idea that we must reach out to those who ascribe to more moderate and liberal belief-systems so that we can make better progress toward some social goal. Like fighting the push to include Creationism in public school science classes. While that is all well and good, I believe even that agenda does not fully mix with 'pure' atheism/skepticism.
In my way of thinking, there should be no alliance between full tilt skepticism and any agenda beyond asking questions and attempting to determine the validity of claims.
Do feminism and skepticism mix. No. Do skepticism an atheism mix? Same answer, really. Skepticism should come first. Whatever conclusion follows, follows. But if you start with an agenda -- that's trouble.
Switching metaphors here -- What are skeptics who have agendas (as we all do) to do? For starters, strive to make it more clear to ourselves and others when we are wearing our "skeptic" hat and when our "agenda" hat.
[cartoon thanks to JesusandMo]
Religion is often criticized for piously presenting and clinging to ridiculously simple answers. Unfortunately, many in "my camp" -- anti-theists, atheists, agnostics, skeptics -- are guilty of the same. They will trump "reason" as . . . er, the reason for their personal enlightenment on the god question. And a lack of reason on the part of believers. That strikes me as ridiculously simplistic. Quite often the reasoning comes after a conclusion is adopted. It functions more like rationalization. Frankly, some theists are incredibly adept at using reason. They can weave what they see as a beautiful and strong belief with it.
I see dogmatic belief more as a question of values. It least in the academic/intellectual dimension of belief. What kind of evidence do you value? What kind of worldview do you treasure? Many years ago I penned this line:
Treasure bends the lines of thought. How can one think straight if it means to much?
[click to enlarge]
As the above comic illustrates, scientists aren't robotically-free of values. They have different values. And, gasp, some of them aren't what we could call logical or rational.
One value most people share is integrity. We value consistency in word and action. [It seems not so much in ourselves as in others.] Why? For one, it helps make our social environment less complex. And while a person may value integrity, he or she can have difficulty attaining/sustaining it when they harbor conflicting values. I love my religion; I love sensual pleasures. Of course, it is fully reasonable to criticize hypocrites. You can't trust a hypocrite.
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[cartoons thanks to JesusandMo, xkcd, and Atheistcartoons]
In the now nearly infamous concluding passage to his book, The First Three Minutes, physicist Steven Weinberg wrote,
"The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless."
These words bring to mind Shakespeare's line about life being a tale full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. You could say that cosmologists study the electromagnetic, nuclear and gravitational sound and fury of "the heavens" -- something anthropocentrically-inclined folk consider to be but majestic props under which the human drama unfolds.
Decades ago the French theologian Teilhard de Chardin attempted to infuse a human point into the universe, and not a modest one, for his point to it all was humanity. A god is customarily what pulls our kind out of the big pot of cosmological insignificance and sets it into a manageable soup of local events and aspirations.
I read de Chardin's The Phenomenon of Man during my college years. One evening, after closing the book and shelving it, I had dinner with a friend. Chris and I worked at the same facility for the mentally handicapped. He had also recently read the book and was high on the idea that the purpose of evolution is consciousness, and the purpose of human consciousness is . . . to "know God."
Does evolution have a purpose? Or does "what works" simply persist and manifest change? To a giraffe, would the purpose of evolution be a long neck? To the lion, would the purpose of evolution be to become the universe's best predator?
According to some humans, the purpose of evolution is increased knowledge -- to know their god and/or to understand the universe.
But rather than as a stairway to purpose-in-life, perhaps the lump of gray matter balanced atop our neck, encased in a crockery-hard bone, should be viewed as a Swiss Army knife. It has been used very successfully to facilitate survival whatever the environment. Additional uses are daily found and invented.
Some continue to insist that our cognitive can-opening capacities aren't for removing the top from a tin of beans, but for opening Campbell's Creamy Mind of God. Of course, these people are free to use their multi-blade minds as they desire. I guess I'm just more pragmatic in my outlook. Although it may be dramatic to conjecture about it, we can't really claim evolution has a purpose. The forms of biological life that successfully feed themselves, avoid predators and parasites, and procreate, endure. Period.
It was not purpose that dragged the progressively less fish-like precursors of reptiles out of the oceans. It was hunger. Or maybe hot pursuit by a set of teeth. Does the reptile represent progress over the fish? Likewise it wasn't purpose that drove the mammalian precursors of the whale into the oceans. It was hunger, or predators, or perhaps a number of environmental pressures. And if evolution does have a progressive purpose, someone please inform the horseshoe crab, a species virtually unchanged for millions upon millions of years. "Get with the program, crab. Climb a tree, or something. Sprout feathers!"
Because the human life-span is short, it is difficult to recognize that evolution is not a race already won. The super slow-motion dash continues. Will human beings remain in the penthouse suite of intelligent life-forms for centuries, for millennia, for millions of years? It depends on how well they fit the environment they operate in and, to a great degree, create for themselves. Even if our kind does persist for millions of years, do we deserve a blue ribbon for it? Does it mean we have reached some goal or made progress toward a most grand of goals? What is the goal? Is there a goal?
It may be a blow to our self-important worldview, but finding meaning in evolution requires a mind to inject that element into an otherwise fully mundane mix.
For every good point, is there a counterpoint? Can a big change for the better carry along smaller for the worse? Likewise, can a small change for the worse bring a better big?
[cartoons thanks to atheistcartoons.com, treelobsters.com and thewharehouse.carlh.com}
As a liberal, I have empathy for lesbians and gays. They are 100% human beings, differing from heterosexuals simply in the focus of their sexual feelings. In the very least, they deserve to be left in peace, to not be vilified and treated with prejudice. Better still, they should be accepted into society at large with open arms.
As a critical thinker, I believe the science supports my position. Homosexuality is not some infectious disease, not a symptom of a freely chosen sinful lifestyle. That some people believe otherwise is irrational. They need to be better educated on the intellectual and emotional levels.
Greater visibility is likely helping the cause of gays and lesbians. No, they are not dangerous strangers; they are us. Perhaps their plight resonates with me because atheists are now in the same process of coming out of the closet. Of identifying ourselves and saying, "We're here, you may think it's queer that we worship no god, but get used to it!"
A recent study has addressed the potential downside to "coming out of the closet." The headline caught my eye, in part due to it's use of a red-flag word. I assume you can spot it:
Is Coming Out Always A Good Thing?
Yes, always. When it comes to human thinking, feeling, and behavior -- particularly in a social context -- it is crazy to believe "one size fits all." Particularly when social contexts vary as much as individual variables if not more.
The finding:
Coming out as lesbian, gay, or bisexual increases emotional well-being even more than earlier research has indicated. But the psychological benefits of revealing one's sexual identity — less anger, less depression, and higher self-esteem – are limited to supportive settings, shows a study published June 20 in Social Psychology and Personality Science.
So is openly identifying yourself as a gay or lesbian always good? No, not always. When you lack social support, it could be harmful to you. As a tangential thought, coming out in that circumstance might be good for the social setting (educating them to true differences), yet at a cost to the individual.
While this finding is interesting, and strikes me as quite plausible, I'm not terribly impressed with the source of the data:
To measure these different effects, the researchers asked 161 lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals detailed questions about their experiences with five groups: friends, family, coworkers, school peers, and religious community. The participants were recruited from discussion boards, community and social networking web sites, and university LGB alliance listservs. They reported their answers anonymously online.
Still, some data is better than no data coupled with pure conjecture.
While the data quantity and quality wasn't so good, I did appreciate the inclusion of some specific numbers. And as an atheist might guess, the least supportive social setting was . . . religious communities.
Across all contexts, participants were more closeted in environments they rated as controlling and judgmental. They kept their sexual orientation hidden the most in their religious communities (69 percent), schools (50 percent), and at work (45 percent) and were somewhat more open with their families (36 percent). Friends by far represented the most accepting group for most lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. All but 13 percent of participants had come out to their friends, and they reported feeling significantly less anger and greater self-esteem with friends than with any other group.
I wonder if atheists would report similar experiences about coming out, in terms of most supportive social settings, and least.
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