Pet Peeve

This is going to make it very obvious that I am very nerdy, and perhaps show that I spent too much time on Facebook and MSN, but I can't take it anymore.

The equality sign (=) is not a synonym of "is".

We've all seen them before:
"Mexico = awesome"
"Halo 3 = awesome"
"Spiderman 3 = lose"
"Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Dickwad"



I don't understand what would cause someone to misuse mathematical notation like this. It's almost as if they are trying to seem clever by using math symbols, but have no idea what the symbols actually mean.

In case you don't see the problem here, equality is a symmetric relation – meaning that if x equals y, y equals x.

Mexico being awesome does not imply that awesome is Mexico. Think about it. If "Mexico = awesome" and "Halo 3 = awesome" then "Mexico = Halo 3".

The use of arithmetic is even worse. With a little bit of rearranging:
"Audience = Total Dickward – Normal Person – Anonymity"
What the fuck does that even mean?

Please. People already have a hard enough time understanding basic mathematics. Don't exacerbate the problem by abusing mathematical symbols.

Affirming the Consequent

Not many people take a critical thinking course in their lives. This is extremely unfortunate, as there are many fallacies and biases that affect our everyday lives which most people will never learn about.

I’ve decided that occasionally I am going to put up a post explaining a fallacy or bias, as a way to hopefully help a few people learn about some critical thinking errors. With that introduction, onto the topic of this post: Affirming the consequent.

I am currently finishing up a four-month term of working as a computer science tutor (basically a teacher’s assistant) for a second year computer science course at the University of Waterloo. The other day we marked final exams, and I was amazed at how many computer science students (who are supposed to be good at logic, considering the tight link between computer science, mathematics and logic) fell prey to a logical fallacy on one of the questions.

The question was about regular languages and context-free languages (both are types of formal languages). For those without computer science background, fear not. All you need to understand to appreciate the fallacy is that regular languages are a subset of context-free languages. That is, every regular language is a context-free language. Here’s a visual:



Here, A is a subset of B. That is, anything in A is also in B. So any regular language (A) would automatically be a context-free language (B). This means that something being a regular language implies it is also a context-free language. It is impossible to have a regular language that is not a context-free language. That does not mean it is impossible to have a context-free language that is not a regular language, and this is where the fallacy comes in.

Affirming the consequent is an invalid argument of this form:

P implies Q
Q
Therefore, P

It might be extremely obvious, when put this way, that it is not a valid argument. However, this comes up all the time in real life. Back to the formal language example I started with: Students were asked if a language L was regular after answering whether the language was context-sensitive (L was regular, and thus both). They were also required to give an explanation of their answer. A very common explanation (paraphrased) was: “All regular languages are context-free. L is context-free, and therefore L is regular”. One student even drew the Venn Diagram that showed he understood the relation between context-free and regular languages, yet still they affirmed the consequent, contradicting their diagram.

Perhaps this all seems too abstract to be relevant to real life. Here are some more concrete examples:

You are walking down a street towards your friend’s house. You don’t know the area well and it is dark, and only remember that there is a white fence around their house. You come to a house with a white fence and decide “This must be the house.” This is fallacious. It might be the house, but it could equally just be another house with a white fence. It is not necessarily the house (although with other information, i.e. it seems familiar and houses with white fences are rare in this part of town, it might be very likely that it is your friends house).

An example given by my friend after I taught her about affirming the consequent:

I learned something new and that was fun!
Learning is fun.
But not all forms of fun involve learning.
-Amanda Van Mierlo

Last but not least, a fallacy that I think permeates the minds of quite a few creationists:

If Goddidit, evolution is wrong (a false dichotomy, but that’s a fallacy for another day)
Evolution is wrong (cite some faulty pseudo-science for this)
Therefore Goddidit

Just as a small side note, affirming the consequent is closely related to an argument of the form:

P implies Q
Not Q
Therefore, not P

This argument is valid. This is because "Not(Q) implies Not(P)" is the contrapositive of "P implies Q" (see the link for more information and examples of contrapositives), and the contrapositive of a statement is logically equivalent to that statement.

Science and Atheism

I am the enemy
I believe in science over hypocrisy
Let reason and tolerance be the catalyst
We fight these battles to survive and exist
-Crooked Lies by Intro5pect

Recently I was watching a video of a discussion between Dawkins and another scientist. When the inevitable topic of the relation between science and religion came up, a statement was put forth that science is not at odds with religion, but it does make atheism tenable (I did not watch for long enough to see if either Dawkins or his companion agreed with this statement).

Now, there are two ways I could interpret this statement about science, neither of which makes any sense to me.

The first interpretation interprets “atheism”, in this context, to be strong atheism – that is, the positive belief that there are no gods (or that a specific god does not exist). But this makes no sense – in order to make strong atheism more defensible, its opposite positive belief (the belief that there is some god) thereby becomes less defensible. That is, any argument for strong atheism is an argument against theism, by definition. Therefore it makes no sense to say that something can support strong atheism without making theism less tenable.

The second interpretation is interpreting atheism as being of the weak variety – that is, the lack of a belief in deities. Taken this way, science has provided support for the lack of belief in deities. But this doesn’t make any sense – how can you provide support for a lack of a belief? One might say that since science gives us natural explanations for things, it therefore supports the weak atheist view – it fills up the possible gaps where a god might be hiding.

There are two problems with this – first, a gap in knowledge is not evidence for a god, despite how many theist arguments rest on the idea that it is, and therefore a gap in knowledge is in no way a problem for a weak atheist stance. So filling up a gap doesn’t help the weak atheist position at all. Perhaps it could be said that, since in every gap a god is a possible explanation, closing gaps makes atheism more tenable, but this has the same problem as the first interpretation – we can’t make atheism more tenable without making theism less so.

This idea that scientific progress doesn’t make theism less likely reminds me heavily of Gould’s “Nonoverlapping Magisteria”. This position has been criticized by many. It has also been supported by many (i.e. many science institutions which rely on public support and funding). While I doubt I can say anything enlightening on the issue, I might as well give my (predictable) two-cents on what I think the relation between scientific progress and theism is.

First, any conception of a personal god (most impersonal ones as well, but not necessarily pantheist gods or “mystic” gods) makes a fact claim about the natural world. If it didn’t, there would be no point talking about that god. Talking about any god that has no role in our universe is useless speculation. Eventually a theist will claim something like that their god is the source of morality. But this is a fact claim that can be investigated by science – we can see if we can come up with other explanations for morality (i.e. evolutionary explanations), create natural hypotheses, and test them. We can collect data that coheres better with the natural explanation than the god hypothesis, and this counts as evidence against the existence of a god who is the source of morality.

So specific scientific theories provide evidence that specific gods do not exist, and we can justifiably become strong atheists towards those gods. There will likely always be room for theists to wiggle around and make claims about where their god fits in, but at the very least science cuts down the set of possible gods.

Secondly, the success of science (and relative lack of success of revelation) for providing explanations for things is very strong evidence that the scientific method is simply a better way of obtaining information than revelation. As there is no physical evidence for any gods, revelation is really the only way one can claim to have knowledge of a god. As revelation has proven to be at the very least extremely dubious, we should demand physical, scientific evidence instead. In the absence of such evidence, we are justified in not believing in a god even with a lack of evidence against the existence of such a god.

Finally, the evidence that science has provided us with points very strongly to an impersonal universe. Our world is not the centre of the universe. Neither is our solar system. Our planet is one among many in an irrelevant corner of a single galaxy. Living things are not special – there is no “vital spark” that makes living things objectively different from non-living things. Living things are made out of “dead” parts. Among living things the human race isn’t special, metaphysically speaking (we certainly are special in certain ways) – we evolved just like any other species, and the mind is a product of the brain. The universe doesn’t treat humans any differently than other parts of the universe – a human falls, just like a rock falls. There is no reason, other than anthropocentric arrogance, to assume the universe was created just for us or that we are metaphysically special.

Expelled Exposed

The movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is out in theatres today. If you are planning to see this pseudo-documentary, or if someone you know is, please visit Expelled Exposed.

Freedom from Expression?

Fa fa fafa, fa fa fafa,
Raise your voice!
Fa fa fafa, fa fa fafa,
Raise your voice!
Fa fa fafa, fa fa fafa,
Raise your voice!
-Raise Your Voice by Bad Religion

http://www.iheu.org/node/3123

http://www.islam-watch.org/AlamgirHussain/Islam-UN-human-Rights-Council.htm

The Nomenclature of Disbelief

I'm materialist
Call me a humanist
(physical theorist)
and I guess I'm full of doubt,
but I'll gladly have it out with you
I'm materialist
I ain't no deist
It's there for all to see,
so don't talk of hidden mysteries with me
-Materialist by Bad Religion

I am frequently asked what different terms of disbelief mean. As I am the president of a club called “Atheists, Agnostics and Freethinkers of Waterloo”, I guess it should be expected. Not many people have heard the term freethinker before, and many people are not sure about what exactly an agnostic is.

The unfortunate fact is, we have a hell of a lot of terms for non-believers. Here is a short list of some of the different terms a non-believe might use to describe their religious views:

• Agnostic
  
• Atheist (with possible quantifiers: strong, weak, specific, general, natural, implicit, explicit, agnostic)
  
• Bright
  
• Existentialist
  
• Freethinker
  
• Humanist
  
• Ignostic
  
• Materialist
  
• Naturalist
  
• Non-theist
  
• Objectivist
  
• Pastafarian
  
• Philosophical naturalist
  
• Post-modernist
  
• Rationalist
  
• Secular humanist
  
• Secularist
  
• Skeptic
  

Some of these terms have multiple definitions, and many of these are synonyms. I am going to give very quick and dirty definitions of these terms (grouping together the synonyms, or those with close meanings):

• Naturalist, philosophical naturalist, materialist: Someone who believes the universe is made out of one type of stuff (i.e. only matter, no spiritual matter) and that all causes are natural (i.e. not supernatural).
  
  
• Rationalist, skeptic: In this context, it means someone who thinks beliefs should be based on evidence and reason.
  
  
• Bright, freethinker: Someone who is both a naturalist and a skeptic. The terms emphasize different things, but they pretty much mean the same thing. The reason for the different terms has more to do with the movements they are associated with than with any real definitional differences.
  
  
• Pastafarian: A worshipper and follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
  
  
• Secularist: Someone who believes that certain institutions (particularly the government) should be separate from religious belief. More broadly, someone who is concerned with this world and not the spiritual realm.
  
  
• Humanist: One who believes in exploring morality and truth through natural means in order to support human interests.
  
  
• Secular humanist: A humanist who specifically rejects the supernatural (a naturalist and a humanist).
  
  
• Objectivist: A follower of the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Objectivists reject the existence of any deity.
  
  
• Post-modernist: Hold that religions (and any gods) are social constructs – along with pretty much everything else.
  
  
• Existentialist: (Roughly) one who believes individuals create the meaning and essence of their lives, as opposed to deities or authorities creating it for them.
  
  
• Ignostic: One who believes that the other theological positions assume too much about the concept of God, and believes a proper definition of God is required before one can take a position.
  
  
• Non-theist: Simply one who is not a theist.
  
  
• Agnostic (Definition 1): One who believes that, due to the very nature of God, God would be inherently unknowable and therefore one cannot claim to have knowledge of it.
  
  
• Agnostic (Definition 2): A weak atheist who either does not know the different definitions of atheist, or prefers not to call themselves an atheist.
  
  
• Atheist:
  
  
  
  • Weak/agnostic atheist: One who does not believe in a god, either because there is enough evidence to support belief in a god, or because they do not have a concept of that god (see implicit atheist).
    
  • Strong atheist: One who not only does not believe in a god, but believes that that god does not exist.
    
  • Implicit/natural atheist: One who does not believe in a god simply because they have not acquired the concept of that god (i.e. all babies are born implicit/natural atheists).
    
  • Specific atheist: One who is an atheist (either strong or weak) towards a certain god.
    
  • General atheist: One who is an atheist (either strong or weak) towards all gods. One can be both a weak general atheist and a strong specific atheist.
    

Now that we have this list, let’s play pin-the-label-on-the-atheist. Here is the list of terms that I would use to refer to myself:

Explicit atheist, weak/agnostic general atheist, strong specific atheist, agnostic, non-theist, secularist, secular humanist, Pastafarian, skeptic, materialist, philosophical naturalist.

I am a weak general atheist because I don’t think that there is good enough evidence to support the existence of any god (where a god is defined as some sort of super-powerful, transcendental, conscious being), and I am a strong specific atheist towards gods which are self contradictory or which have traits that are mutually exclusive with other beliefs I have good evidence for. I prefer to refer to myself simply as an atheist because it really leaves no room for confusion – people get that I don’t believe in any gods, and given the social climate, I think that is an important point to get across.

Now here are the terms that I fall under the definition of, but would not use to refer to myself:

Bright, freethinker, rationalist.

Out of these three, I like freethinker the most. But it suffers from the same problem as bright – it is just bad public relations. The religious are already hypersensitive, there is no reason to use these terms which make us sound like we think we are superior to them. I understand that they logically shouldn’t – the pro-choice people aren’t anti-life, and the pro-life people aren’t anti-choice (well, that might be arguable) – but the problem is that people take offense to these terms, and as atheists already have bad enough public relations, I think it is best just to stick to terms that everyone knows the definition of and that don’t have superiority overtones.

I hate the term rationalist simply because the meaning of it in this context is so far from the original philosophical meaning – the original rationalists were people who, in direct contrast with empiricists, believed true knowledge could only be arrived at a priori. Now it is almost completely backwards – rationalists are atheists, who are generally empiricists of some flavour.

The Man from Earth

No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish.
-David Hume

I don’t watch many movies, and certainly have never reviewed any, but the other day I watched “The Man from Earth” and thought it was interesting. The premise of the film is that this man (John) has actually lived for the past 14,000 years, but still lives today as a normal human being – he adapts to the age he is in and moves on every once in a while to make sure people don’t get curious about why he doesn’t age (no, I didn’t just ruin the movie for you – you find this out fairly early in the movie). The movie takes place when John is about to move on from his current job (working as a university professor). He is saying goodbye to his friends, but decides to – for the first time – explain to them that he is actually 140 centuries old.

I realize the premise must sound amazingly lame, but it is surprisingly well done. There were two recurring themes in the movie which I found interesting. The first was the discussions on religion. It was very atheist positive and makes the biblical literalist look like a willingly ignorant bigot, which I was delighted to see in a mainstream movie. The other was the psychological responses to a close friend telling you that he is actually 140 centuries old.

It is interesting to watch the ways the characters respond to their situation. Some react with hostility, some seeming to just want to humour John by asking him more questions, and some think he has just gone nuts and needs help. The question inevitably arises in your mind while watching the film: How would you react? Would you believe him? Would you get angry at your friend for seemingly making up something so ridiculous and telling it so earnestly (as most of the characters did)?

Of course, I would not believe him, even if he was a close friend and not prone to telling falsehoods. The simple reason is that he is unable to provide any evidence for his claim (anything he claims, the only way you have to verify it is by checking a textbook – if it is in the textbook, he didn’t need to live through it to know it, and if it isn’t part of modern knowledge you have no way of verifying what he says). Not only does someone living that long go against what we know about the biology human body, but the person would have to be extremely lucky to live through 140 centuries and not get shot, starve, etc. It is extremely unlikely, making this an extraordinary claim. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” but we don’t have extraordinary evidence – we have the claim of one person, and many ways in which they could be wrong. They could be completely crazy (or less severe, have improper recall due to something traumatic), they could be playing a trick on you, or they might just be making up the story and having you go along with it for fun and don’t want to break the spell by mentioning that it is all imaginary. Simply put, there are simpler explanations for why John is telling you this than that he is actually 14,000 years old, so by Occam's Razor, we can do away with that explanation. I don’t know exactly how I would react if a close friend did this, but I certainly wouldn’t believe them – I hope I would courteously listen to them, and play along without freaking out like so many of the characters did.

By not believing John, I would be wrong in this case. But that’s the things about movies – it wouldn’t be worth making a movie about a story unless it was extraordinary, and so critical thinking is sort of turned on its head when trying to figure out a movie plot.

In movies, everything happens for a reason. In movies, the skeptics are always wrong and portrayed as unimaginative (think about how many kids movies are about kids who see something, tell an adult, but no adult believes them). In movies, you see when some event draws two people together as lovers, defying all odds and taking on mystical qualities.

The real reason I wanted to write this post was because I sometimes wonder if some people forget that real life isn’t a movie.