Debbie Goddard, one of my favorite people, and one of the reasons that the skeptics movement is worth keeping despite that fact that it can be annoying somehow, has just been appointed to a new position at CFI:
The Center for Inquiry (CFI) is proud to announce that Debbie Goddard, formerly CFI’s campus outreach coordinator, has accepted the position of Director of Outreach. She replaces Lauren Becker in that role, who has shifted to her new position as Director of Marketing, as previously announced.
“Debbie has been a part of the heart of CFI for a long time now, embodying what it means to be a dedicated CFI employee. She has given a great deal of herself to this organization and its cause: bringing about a world that values science, reason, and compassion over dogma and superstition,” said Ron Lindsay, CFI’s President and CEO. “We are all proud to see Debbie take on this crucial leadership role in which we know she will excel.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson if famous for telling us that children are natural scientists, and cautioning us to be careful not to ruin that thing about them. He makes a good case. No one ever thought, I think, that he meant that children were born resistant to the sorts of biases that scientists actively eschew, or with a developed sense of probability theory that all scientists need to evaluate their work and the work of others, and those other tools that scientists get trained in for several years before they can really call themselves scientists. He mean, rather … how shall I put this. Oh hell, you can see what he says here:
Now, there is controversy, and it is my job as your blogger to tell you about it. It starts with the video above and others like it, and is expanded on by a paper by Claire Cook, Noah Goodman and Laura Schulz in the journal Cognition called “Where science starts: Spontaneous experiments in preschoolers’ exploratory play” (PDF) which hast this abstract:
Probabilistic models of expected information gain require integrating prior knowledge about causal hypotheses with knowledge about possible actions that might generate data relevant to those hypotheses. Here we looked at whether preschoolers (mean: 54 months) recognize ‘‘action possibilities’’ (affordances) in the environment that allow them to isolate variables when there is information to be gained. By manipulating the physical properties of the stimuli, we were able to affect the degree to which candidate variables could be isolated; by manipulating the base rate of candidate causes, we were able to affect the potential for information gain. Children’s exploratory play was sensitive to both manipulations: given unambiguous evidence children played indiscriminately and rarely tried to isolate candidate causes; given ambiguous evidence, children both selected (Experiment 1) and designed (Experiment 2) informative interventions.
To make that just a tad more clear, here is a bit more from the same paper:
These results suggest that preschoolers distinguish, not only ambiguous and unambiguous evidence but also potentially informative and uninformative interventions. In cases where there was information to be gained, preschoolers spontaneously selected (Experiment 1) and designed (Experiment 2) actions to effectively isolate the relevant variables. Critically, the target experiments were not otherwise part of children’s exploratory repertoire; children almost never performed them given unambiguous evidence.
So, scientists seem to have found evidence that children have certain key behavioral characteristics that one would normally see in a growed-up scientist.
Since the 1990s studies have shown that children think scientifically—making predictions, carrying out mini experiments, reaching conclusions and revising their initial hypotheses in light of new evidence.
She discusses the above cited paper, and concludes:
… If even the youngest kids have an intuitive grasp of the scientific method, why does that understanding seem to vanish within a few years? Studies suggest that K–12 students struggle to set up a controlled study and cannot figure out what kind of evidence would support or refute a hypothesis. One reason for our failure to capitalize on this scientific intuition we display as toddlers may be that we are pretty good, as children and adults, at reasoning out puzzles that have something to do with real life but flounder when the puzzle is abstract, Goodman suggests—and it is abstract puzzles that educators tend to use when testing the ability to think scientifically. In addition, as we learn more about the world, our knowledge and beliefs trump our powers of scientific reasoning. …
A pernicious myth, repeated with good intentions in many places and by many people, is that children are natural scientists. They are born with something that gets beaten or worn out of them by bad teachers, bad schools, bad educational practices, and then must relearn what it means to be a scientist later in life. Like many myths, there’s a mixture of truth and falsehood, but ultimately the myth is damaging and leads us into bad habits of thought.
One gets the impression that Matthew does not like the idea. He states:
“Thinking like a researcher” is not the same thing as a natural curiosity and mental plasticity — scientific research is very much a learned skill, in my experience, but I admit to being entirely ignorant of child development…
The answer, of course, may be more nuanced than simply “yes” or “no” to the scientific kung fu of children, and for nuanced answers we look to people like Marie-Claire Shanahan, who always has interesting and valuable things to say. Marie-Claire argued some time before this recent questioning of the issue arose that Students don’t lose their ability to think scientifically:
…school children and teenagers continue to understand the basics of experimentation very well. There are several resources for teaching the concept of fair testing in science. They usually begin with intuitive ideas related to general fairness, like using the analogy of a race where everyone must start at the same place and take the same route. Even the idea of a fair test experiment, though, gives a very simplified introduction to scientific investigations. What is much more difficult is, for example, the idea of a variable. And here’s where I disagree not just with Sharon Begley but with the authors of the paper. By trying to isolate which blocks will make the toy work, the children are not isolating variables. There is only one variable – the blocks – and the children have found an innovative way to try to test one block at a time.
… Even simple variables like length are more challenging than they seem. It is one thing to measure the length of a particular piece of string, quite another to conceive of length as a general property that can be measured or manipulated in any object. This especially true because it is also somewhat arbitrary, requiring the person doing the experiment to choose an operational definition (e.g., by defining length as the measurement of the longest side). There is no concrete thing called length. It is an abstract word that describes a type of measurement. Understanding that is much harder than trying to find a way to measure it in specific objects, which is analogous to what the children are doing in trying to find a way to test each block individually.
Personally, I don’t think there is a lot of disagreement here. Neil deGrasse Tyson is right: Children ruin things in their never ending quest to find out what they are. The cited experimental research demonstrates that children have certain aspects of the scientific method built in. Marie-Claire is correct in parsing out the fact that true adult scientists have created a discipline in which things that are hard to automatically address are seen to with methology and theory, things that people would not automatically think of on their own.
I’m reminded of some of my recent reading in the literature of Witch Hunting in the late Middle Ages and early Enlightenment in Europe. The argument went like this: There are typical characteristics of Witches that let you identify them. Thus, there is a list of interrogations one uses to spot the Witch. Part of the methodology is to torture the suspected Witch until she or he confesses. It seems like every time a Witch is found, the interrogation produces the same result, confirming the method. Everyone involved seemed to believe this; there is even evidence of individuals “realizing” that they must be a Witch because they confessed under torture to the accusations of the inquisitor. That’s how adults seem to think when left on their own. But at the same time thousands of Witches were being “found” and usually executed, other adults were busy inventing hydropower and figuring out that the Earth is round and that there are planets, and that various elements existed with specific properties, and so on and so forth.
Are children born pre-scientists? Probably. Do we ruin them? Maybe, maybe not. More research is needed.
Cook, C., Goodman, N., & Schulz, L. (2011). Where science starts: Spontaneous experiments in preschoolers’ exploratory play Cognition, 120 (3), 341-349 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.03.003
Melody Hensley is the Guest Editor for an outstanding issue of the journal, with downloadable articles by Melody, Ophelia Benson, Rebecca Watson and Susan Jacoby. If you subscribe to the journal as I do, you also get to see items by Jennifer McCreight, Sikivu Hutchinson, Wafa Sultan and Jennifer Michael Hecht. And there is other stuff too.
This is the time of year that we rightfully contemplate the noble Turkey. The very first thing we notice about this large member of the Galliformes is that there is a wild version and a domestic version, and although the two are rather different, they are both given the same species name, Meleagris gallopavo. This is not entirely unknown among domestic animals, but many domesticates have no living wild version. Thus, the cattle we raise for meat and dairy are sometimes called Bos taurus while the extinct wild form is always called Bos primigenius. The domestic cat has the uninspired name Felis catus in some circles, or otherwise, Felis silvestris while the wild version (not the feral version, but the wild cat that lives in Africa today) was once known by a Latin binomial that is no longer polite to say, for a while as Felix lybica, and now, owing to the trend of reconflating wild and domestic forms when they are known to interbreed, as Felis silvestris lybica. The domestic dog was once and still often is Canis familiaris as opposed to the wolf, Canis lupus, but the former which is really a subspecies of the latter is now Canis lupus familiaris. I don’t believe, but this is subject to correction, that the wild and domestic Turkey were ever called by different binomials.
For those who don’t know, Dennis Markuze is a perennial internet-only (so far) stalker who has been sending nasty emails and tweets to anyone he sees as a key Atheist figure or anyone thusly linked, and posting rambling often offensive sometimes threatening blog comments on our blog sites, for several years now. He is a Nostradamus cultist. A while back he was arrested and put by Montreal authorities into psychiatric care, and later released under certain conditions including that he not bother people on line any more. More recently he started up again with his old habits, the community of those he harasses complained again to the authorities, and he was, as you can see, re-apprehended.
Do you now the story of the Essex? It is a ship that went down to the sea in the 19th century, and the first mate survived to chronicle the story (The Wreck of the Whaleship Essex). There are a lot of reasons that this story is interesting and important. For me, there is a special level of interest because I was involved in the excavation of the shipyard where the Essex was built.
My friend Romeo Vitelli is writing a multi-part blog post on the Essex Disaster, which begins thusly:
When the whaleship Essex left Nantucket on August 12, 1819, the twenty-one men on board had no idea that they would soon become part of one of the most harrowing survival tales of the 19th century. Not to mention inspiring a great literary classic.
Though sailing under a new captain, George Pollard, the Essex was a reliable three-master that successfully completed decades of whaling voyages. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, Nantucket was the centre of the world’s whaling industry and whaling products were the mainstay of the island’s economy. Many of the Essex’s crewmembers belonged to old whaling families that had been hunting whales for generations. …
They are the stuff of horror and science fiction stories. They are the fodder for much political debate and public fear. Yet they may be our future and our salvation.
What are they? They are artificially created biological organisms. Authors George Church and Ed Regis, in their new book, Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Recreate Nature and Ourselves, tell us they are coming, and they tell us not to be afraid. Wary, perhaps, but not afraid.
Church is a molecular geneticist, who created many of the tools we use for genetic sequencing. He is also the founder of the Personal Genome Project, which looks to sequence the genomes of 100,000 volunteers and place the data in the public domain to facilitate research into the interplay of genetics and environment in determining how we become who we are. This Sunday, he will talk to us about what we may expect from this future in which we have this kind of information and this kind of power.
Atheists Talk is produced with funding from the Minnesota Atheists and the Humanists of Minnesota. We also wish to thank Q. Cumbers restaurant for purchasing on-air advertising and for providing a great place to eat and gather. This radio program is put together by dedicated volunteers and the generous donations of listeners. If you are able to help with a donation please consider doing so at Radio Donation or mailed to Minnesota Atheists, P.O. Box 120304, New Brighton, MN 55112 or handed to any member of the Minnesota Atheists board of directors. In the past week we had $358.00 in donations from the following donors: August Berkshire, George Kane, Shirley Moll, Steve Petersen, Andy, Nancy , Heather, Greg Laden and Jessica, who sent this note “Happily dedicated to the Sunday morning radio staff.”
In a paper that is about to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, researchers Andrew Heymsfield, Patrick Kennedy, Steve Massie, Crl Schmitt, Zhien Wang, Samuel Haimov and Art Rangno make the claim that “The production of holes and channels in altocumulus clouds by two commercial turboprop aircraft is documented for the first time. … Holes and channels in supercooled altocumulus clouds can be the result of homogeneous ice nucleation induced by turboprop and jet aircraft at temperatures warmer than previously accepted for commercial aviation influences on clouds.” Continue reading Aircraft contrails can cause precipitation by "seeding" clouds→
Do you know Burn Notice? It is a TV series on USA Network involving a spy, an ex IRA soldier, and a retired Navy Seal who end up working together to solve two problem streams: the ongoing difficulty of why (and how) the main character, Michael, was “burned” as a spy, and the novel problem that arises every episode in which the team helps some hapless innocent from getting out from under the boot of a nasty bully criminal, or something along those lines. During the process of handling these parallel problems, the crew have to MacGyver their way out of a lot of problems, and much of this is narrated by Michael, who is the most highly qualified spy on the planet, who explains to us the counterintuitive (but once you know them obvious) details of spycraft. For instance, if you want to make a certain kind of covert listening device, get the cheapest cell phone you can find and use that mic, together with the transmission circuitry of a higher quality phone. The cheap phone will not have a digital sound dampening system so it will pick up everything, while a more expensive mic will not, and thus, won’t work to bug a room or a car. A lot of cell phones and other household devices are dismantled and used to make motion detectors, bugs, or some other device.
Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories was released earlier this year. It is chock full of personal stories about the journey from some place to atheism, written by Minnesota authors such as Norman Barrett Wiik, Elizabeth Becker, Kenneth Bellew, Ryan Benson, August Berkshire, Donald L. Boese, Ryan Bolin, Jill Carlson, Justin M. Chase, Greta Christina, Linda Davis, Andrew Downs, Shannon Drury, Anthony Faust, Paul Gramstad, Mike Haubrich, Kori Hennessy, Peter N. Holste, Michelle M. Huber, Eric Jayne, George Kane, Greg Laden, Bill Lehto, M. A. Melby, PZ Myers, Robin Raianiemi, Rohit Ravindran, Jason Schoenack, Kim Socha, Chris Stedman, Elizabeth Stiras, Todd N. Torkelson, Timothy Wick, Rob Young, James Zimmerman, Jennifer Zimmerman, and Stephanie Zvan.
This is the perfect give to leave under the tree or to use as a stocking stuffer, so that while the rest of your family is busy celebrating the birth of Jesus and shopping you can let them know that just because you are an Atheist, you are not necessarily a monster.
“A chorus not of arguments and positions but of shared human lives . . . At turns smart, funny, and deeply touching.” – Dale McGowan, author of Parenting Beyond Belief
ST. PAUL, Minn. (8/14/2012) —Atheists have turned a corner in public visibility in recent years, but they nevertheless remain one of America’s most misunderstood and mistrusted groups of people. A new anthology, Atheist Voices of Minnesota, attempts to address these preconceptions by letting thirty-six atheists from Minnesota openly share their personal and unique stories. The results are touching, fascinating, and diverse.
Since this is a cross section of how everyday atheists think and feel, this collection is an excellent introduction to atheism, and will inspire other atheists to come out to their family and friends. It includes contributions from well known atheists, such as PZ Myers, the world’s most popular atheist blogger, and Chris Stedman, a Huffington Post and Washington Post blogger. But it also contains previously unheard voices, part of its power and uniqueness.
The book has already received endorsements from major figures in the freethought community, and has a foreword by Greta Christina, a prominent atheist blogger, speaker, and author. Kendyl Gibbons, senior minister of the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, writes that the authors’ “thoughtful perspectives will be illuminating to people of any faith, or none.”
Atheist Voices of Minnesota is published by Freethought House. All net proceeds will go to Minnesota Atheists, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, with authors, editors, designers, and other volunteers receiving no financial benefit. Minnesota Atheists is Minnesota’s oldest, largest, and most active atheist organization. Its mission is to promote the positive contributions of atheism to society and to maintain separation of state and church. For more information, visit http://mnatheists.org.
For a long time I ignored the White House petitions, mostly, because their sign in system was messing with me and I spend very little time on web sites that mess with me. But they seem to have fixed that problem and now I can actually read what is going on there and participate in the process. Or not.
So, here’s some ideas. First, I wonder if we should all sign the petitions for various states to secede from the Union, but only for states we don’t live it. That would be funny. Like this one:
ALLOW ALASKA TO SECEDE FROM A DYSFUNCTIONAL UNION.
As an American Veteran on behalf of the U.S. Constitution, the Republic, the Rule of Law, and equal justice for all freedom loving citizens of the United States of America hereby declare that the Federal Government allow Alaska to peacefully secede from a dysfunctional Union that is run by corrupt politicians who buy the votes of individuals who can no longer be seen as American citizens but rather, slaves to a tyrant.
We who took the oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, now declare Washington DC to be the domestic enemy to the freedom and liberty of all Alaskans and indeed, 50% of the free citizens of the USA. Therefore, we declare our secession in support of the US Constitution. LET MY PEOPLE GO!
Created: Nov 10, 2012
Issues: Energy, Firearms, Government Reform
By the way, it is interesting that a) some of the secession petitions are listed with “Firearms” as the “issue” and EVERY SINGLE ONE (to use some all caps) of the active petitions in the “Firearms” category are for one state or another to withdraw from the Union. Those are the aforementioned ALASKA IN ALL CAPS, Wisconsin, Rhode Island and Utah.
If you are against the secessional petitions, there are some anti-secessional ones, such as a petition to “Disregard attempts to withdraw the state of Texas from the union. United we stand, divided we fall.” It reads “Separating the State of Texas will not only destroy its economy, it allow the inhumane thoughts and acts of closed minded individuals to take away the rights and liberties of hard working citizens. This country has evolved and should continue to move forward instead of backwards. We will not be separated…..United we stand behind our president and government. Divided we fall, NO to secession.”
I’m undecided on that one. Having texas as a neighbor with an international border between us has a certain attraction. There would have to be strict immigration rules and any time Texas looked at us funny we would have to bomb them into the stone age. Right?
Here’s one you should sign for sure:
Federally legalize gay marriage
Denying gay couples to wed is a violation of religious freedom; considering the fact that religious and civil marriages are different institutions. The biggest reason why gay couples are being denied to get married is because major religions regard homosexuality as a sin. Contrary to this, the First Amendment of the Constitution states that ‘an individual’s religious views or lack thereof must be protected.’ If gay couples decide to forego church weddings and instead, have a civil union, the government needs to adhere to their request.
There are people who are for and against this kind of thing:
Create a Wildlife Conservation Stamp for Habitat Acquisition and the Conservation of Wildlife.
We propose a Wildlife Conservation Stamp, comparable to the well-known Duck Stamp, to support the acquisition of habitat and the conservation of all wildlife in the National Wildlife Refuge system with an emphasis on non-game species. A Wildlife Conservation Stamp would allow birders, photographers, hikers, and other people who enjoy wildlife in a non-consumptive way to financially show their support of the National Wildlife Refuge system.
Created: Nov 14, 2012
Issues: Environment, Natural Resources, Postal Service
That one was started by my friend Corey. The idea here is that they have these duck stamps (and some other stamps…we have a trout stamp in Minnesota) which raise money for “wildlife” but more like so you can shoot them with guns than actually preserve them, and piles of money come in from those stamps. Ironically, some bird lovers buy the duck stamps because they are pretty, but the stamps basically support duck hunting.
I’m not against duck hunting per se, but I am annoyed at the way in which our conservation efforts across the country have been co-opted by hunters so that they are the only ones that matter any more. That is not fair and it is not smart. Fuck the duck stamps, I say! I signed it, and you may want to as well.
Anyway, here’s the thing. There are a lot of dumb-ass petitions on there, and some good ones, but what I’m not seeing is any kind of effort from the skeptical community and only a minimal effort from the scientific community to generate and promote sensible, fact based and evidence based petitions. Let’s turn this:
Into a better mix of reason and sense.
I’ve not been to Maine in years, but there was a time when I frequented the state and knew it pretty well. And, my recollection is that almost everybody there is white or whitish. Hardly any black people. I looked it up just now: Maine is 12th from the bottom among us states in terms of percent “black” with about 1%.
Now, here’s the thing. Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog is reporting on comments mad by Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster’s concern that on election day, “Dozens of black people” showed up out of nowhere and voted. Here’s Charlie:
“Pat” is “Part” so that’s “Some parts of the state” not “Some pats of the state.”
That post card should trick those black people into not responding to the post card, and thus, be certain that they really weren’t there.
Bottom line: The guy who is in charge of a state political party is checking on people’s race. For that, we have THIS. Charlie’s activities need to be investigated by the FBI, and if he really is seeking ways to keep black people from voting in Maine (all 1% of them) he should be prosecuted. Mean time, the Maine GOP needs to fire him.
As you know, it was recently reported that a woman named Savita Halappanavar was killed in an Irish hospital when she was not given proper medical treatment for religious reasons. One of the last conversations she had was with hospital employees who told her and her husband that this was an “Irish Catholic Hospital” so of course there would not be a termination of a pregnancy, which was in the process of a long and problematic miscarriage, even if the patient, Savita Halappanavar, might die with out it. Well, she did die, at the hands of the hospital staff. First, the fetus died, but the miscarriage involved complications that later killed Halappanavar. Halappanavar was neither ethnically Irish nor Catholic.
So, do the Catholic hospital staffers get to go to heaven because they killed a Hindu? Or what? Someone please explain the logic, and the consequences, from a religious point of view, if you can, because I don’t understand that.
Biodork has written about it here. Almost Diamonds discusses it here. Dana Hunter’s comments are here.
). There are a lot of reasons that this story is interesting and important. For me, there is a special level of interest because I was involved in the excavation of the shipyard where the Essex was built.
was released earlier this year. It is chock full of personal stories about the journey from some place to atheism, written by Minnesota authors such as Norman Barrett Wiik, Elizabeth Becker, Kenneth Bellew, Ryan Benson, August Berkshire, Donald L. Boese, Ryan Bolin, Jill Carlson, Justin M. Chase, Greta Christina, Linda Davis, Andrew Downs, Shannon Drury, Anthony Faust, Paul Gramstad, Mike Haubrich, Kori Hennessy, Peter N. Holste, Michelle M. Huber, Eric Jayne, George Kane, Greg Laden, Bill Lehto, M. A. Melby, PZ Myers, Robin Raianiemi, Rohit Ravindran, Jason Schoenack, Kim Socha, Chris Stedman, Elizabeth Stiras, Todd N. Torkelson, Timothy Wick, Rob Young, James Zimmerman, Jennifer Zimmerman, and Stephanie Zvan.
, by Rachel Maddow. It is a must read and you will love it. A quick description: