Brian’s Links 27 June 2011

The Study of Character: an academic website dedicated to the topic. Very interesting; and a prestigious group of faculty too.

California and Texas.  America’s two renewable giants? And for completely different reasons.

Those politicians in Washington are somewhat educated. A map and statistics for how educated your state’s politicians are.

Ah, the old kidneys + jellyfish = lasers trick…

New website on climate change in California.

Rationality is just for winning arguments, a new study asserts. Not everyone agrees, as you might expect.

Google searches for “Catholic” falling worldwide. Interesting data.

David Sloan Wilson’s Binghamton project as described by the journal Nature.  Can we use Darwin to make our cities better places to live? It’s worth a shot.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak predicts robots will conquer the Earth.

The 10,000 year clock is under construction in West Texas… Inside a mountain, wound by the heat of the sun warming the mountain, and made of parts meant to endure the millennia.

Mmmm, industrial tomato. Indestructible, none of those darn vitamins or flavors, just what America wants from its food. Good story about how out tomatoes turned into crud.

Cornell West and Robert George together, united against pornography on the Princeton campus.

Finally a little bunny in Japan with no ears. Some people think the Fukushima disaster (discussed previously on this blog in terms of radiation and technological ethics) may be at fault, and they might be right.  Radiation does weird things. But it also might be unrelated. Anyway, here is the sorry little bunny…

The Christian/Atheist Ideological Turing Test!

Are you a Christian? Do you think you could pass for an atheist? Are you an atheist? Do you think you could pass for a Christian?

Well, just like the real Turing Test where a computer tries to pass for a human, Leah at the blog Unequally Yoked has a challenge for you: the ideological Turing Test. How well do you know the other side? See if you can pass for the ideology you are not.

I’d like to put my money where my mouth is and play in an ideological Turing Test against a Christian blogger. We could both answer a selection of questions posed by Christians and atheists or we could each write an argument for and against the side we support and then briefly rebut the two arguments the other one had produced.

Since putting out this call the test has expanded, there will be multiple participants. If you are interested, read these posts “Take the Ideological Turing Test!” and “Logistics for Turing Test Challenge”  and contact Leah via the information found in her posts.

I think this is a good opportunity to gather data about what two sides actually think and know about each other.  Where do the (mis)understandings lie? What caricatures of the other side appear, or what caricatures of your own side help you show who you are?  This could be a very interesting.

GTU Student Hits the Internet Big-Time Drawing PZ Myers’ Ire

GTU Starr King student Be Scofield recently wrote an article at Tikkun Daily about Five Myths Atheists Believe about Religion.  It was good and I said as much in the comments. Then it spread across the web.  And came to the attention of PZ Myers.  And he responded to it.  In classic PZ Myers style.

And so his “horde” as they call themselves descended on Scofield’s article, leaving a trail of comments. And Scofield responded to Myers. And Myers responded to Scofield again. And the horde descended on Scofield’s response to Myers again.

It was all just like I described in my post on internet ideological groups last week! (which also got responded to over at Unequally Yoked.) What a fantastic demonstration of my point. The Pharyngula community is more like a gang than anything else (a gang packin’ keyboards). Pharyngula is the atheist internet’s equivalent of a bad neighborhood.  They got their turf stepped on and they lashed out.

I’ll just reiterate that I think Scofield said a few perfectly normal things with some good evidence to back it up.  And then the Pharyngularitarians typed vigorously their disapproval, even using big words and complex grammatical constructions (usually in the form of insults).

Human psychology is so interesting.

Book Review: The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, Part 3

Chapter 2 “Good and Evil.”

In case you missed them, here are part 1 (Introduction) and part 2 (Chapter 1) of my review.

As previously, the structure will be: summary of main points, agreements and disagreements, evaluations of specific points, and evaluations of general points.

John Corapi Deserts the Priesthood

John Corapi was a huge presence in Catholic media, with television, radio, and speaking appearances (drawing thousands of people). He was a charismatic and articulate preacher with the Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity (SOLT). He was a darling of conservative Catholics. I listened to him on the radio on occasion and was always amazed at how he made difficult theology easy – not in a bad way either. He knew more than I did, and he made it sound easy. Being a theology/ethics student, I knew it was hard stuff. This guy was impressive, talented, smart.

Well, maybe too smart for his own good. Corapi has left the priesthood after accusations of misconduct. The Catholic blogosphere is abuzz. REALLY abuzz. Here is just a sample:

From National Catholic Register

From Mark Shea: A series of great roars!

From Conversion Diary: too bad and so long…

From Jimmy Akin: crazy guy part one and part two.

Patheos:
The Deacon’s Bench

The Anchoress

Even from The Huffington Post (of all places!)

And More:
New Media Catholic

Making Things Visible

Y I’m Catholic

People are feeling betrayed, and they are right to feel so. Corapi has betrayed his flock… or “fans” as he’s now called them.

Was it all a show? Was he ever telling the truth? That’s a lot of work to go through for a lie (like I said, the guy knew theology, he had to work hard for that). Or did he start out honest and have things come up that corrupted him?

Internet In-Group, Internet Out-Group, and Virtue Ethics

One of the funny things about the internet is that it allows people to interact with each other over long distances. While human relationships formerly had a strong geographical component to them, now, thanks to the internet, geography has lost some of its power. But a new kind of terrain dominates the internet instead: ideology.

For some reason humans form groups based on ideas. You like Apple computers, I like IBM? ACK!!! Anathema! You like Catholicism, I like atheism? Anathema!!! You like Sarah Palin, I think she’s a knucklehead? Anathema!!! Giants or Dodgers? Anathema!!!

While religion and politics may seem to us like good things to schism over, why are they any more important (in terms of schisming, i.e. “why schism at all?”) than type of computer or baseball team? I think it’s fairly obvious that we can say this: the content is almost beside the point. The point is that humans split based on commonalities, and ideas seems to be the prime commonality to split over. Group-dynamics are psychology. Group-splitting is innate to us, an irresistible proclivity. Might as well ask dogs to not like fire hydrants.

Add the internet to this psychological mix and an interesting thing happens. First of all, the only people who tend to get into internet discussions are people who are REALLY interested in whatever it is they are talking about. Sometimes they can be kinda fanatical.

Second, they are often ostracized in their real (i.e. geographic) world environments – like atheists in the Southern or Midwestern US, theists in secular places, or IBM lovers surrounded by Apple lovers. In other words: alienated. And so they run to the internet to find others like them and commiserate and encourage each other. I’ve spent enough time observing atheist and Catholic blogs to see how it works. Groups form.

Then add one more thing to the mix: internet people have no accountability for what they say. In the real world, people are more polite because you can see who they are, and therefore they demand a modicum of respect (they might make a mean or sad face at you, after all). But on the internet, you can have anonymity – nothing you say can necessarily be traced back to you.

Brian’s Links 10 June 2011

Worms deep underground.  Not unicellular bacteria, multicellular nematodes.  Who cares?  Life in unexpected places means we need to have environmental ethics that include unexpected places – even a mile underground.

Operation cupcake.  Al Qaeda posts bomb recipes online?  Turn them into cupcake recipes.  The war on terror has now becomes a battle for the hearts and stomachs of jihadists everywhere.

PLOS (Public Library of Science – an open-access online family of science journals) also has blogs. Take a look around, there is some interesting stuff.

Did religion cause civilization?  A fascinating discovery: Gobekli Tepe, a religious site before the advent of cities.

Winnie the Pooh?  No, it’s Wookiee the Chew.  Check out this guy’s other pages too, his art is hilarious. I especially like the imperial AT-AT as Eeyore.

Stephen Colbert on Sarah Palin and Paul Revere. Yes, Revere did ride that horse firin’ his gun and ringin’ those bells to tell the British to back off.  Colbert shows how it is possible… oh dear…

It’s the Great Hamster, Charlie Brown! All right, I just had to say that. Really it’s about endangered giant wild French hamsters.

The irrational Jesus doesn’t care how rich you are. Actually, he was kinda anti-materialistic. And most of his first followers got killed. So much for the “health and wealth” gospel.

This is cool artwork: the surfing Our Lady of Guadalupe. Save the Ocean! But this artwork is an endangered species: it’s guerrilla art, technically graffiti targeted for removal. Too bad.

Why the NFL Lockout Matters

As a football fan, I’ve wanted to write about this subject for a long time.  Although it is possible that some people have not heard about the NFL Lockout, I think most people are probably sick of hearing about it by now.  I think it has importance still; the difficult part is how to connect it directly with the mission of this blog.  I will attempt to show why people should be concerned about, paying attention to, and discussing the lockout, while mixing in some of my personal reflections.

Why you should consider caring about the NFL Lockout:

1. You are a sports fan of one of the teams that plays in the NFL

This is preaching to the choir.  Many NFL fans are already familiar with what is going on this offseason, but in case you’ve turned off your TV after the Superbowl and haven’t read any sports news, there is a chance there will be no NFL season this coming year if a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is not reached between the players and owners.

As I fan, I look forward to the season.  Living on the other side of the country from where I grew up, football is one of the ways I stay connected to what is going on back home.

2. You live within the market of an NFL team

So you may not be a fan, but living in the city of an NFL franchise or the surrounding area means you likely can’t escape the fandom of other people.  Some stadiums were paid for in part by tax revenue, you may have helped fund a stadium that could go largely unused this year.  If there lockout continues through the season and I worked somewhere that could find a use for a stadium (for a concert, for high school sports, for community events, etc.) I would attempt to capitalize on the lack of business.

And speaking of lack of business, the players, owners, and fans are far from the only people affected by the lockout.  Businesses rely on the money that people spend when they watch a football game.  People travel from out of town, stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, drink in bars, shop, sightsee, take cabs, park, and do many other things.  It also means more work for the city, be it because of increased traffic of cleaning up after fans, but the fact remains, there is a great deal of money involved in the process, but these parties have no say at the table with the players and owners.

And this is just in the cities where there is a football team.  Some teams travel to other places for their training camps.  Teams and fans alike spend money in these places.  There are many other cities and towns where people want to watch football as well and businesses there, likely bars and restaurants with satellite TV, see increased revenue during the season.

3. Test case for other national sports leagues

So you may not be a fan of an NFL franchise, but do you follow the NBA or the NHL?  The current NBA CBA expires at the end of the month.  There are already rumors of a potential lockout.  Likewise, the NHL CBA expires in 2012 and while it seems there are rules in place that the league will continue to operate in its current form after that, the NFL lockout (and possible NBA lockout) could potentially change that.

4. Legal/labor cases

Ok, you don’t care for football.  Maybe you don’t watch basketball or hockey either.  Perhaps you enjoy law and politics.  There are several legal battles currently being decided surrounding the lockout.  The first of which is whether the lockout should be allowed.  There is also a suit about contract negotiations with TV stations, with the players arguing the owners did not act in the players’ best interest.  These cases could provide rulings that affect legal precedent.  The players’ suit is alleging “irreparable harm,” such as losing a year of work when their job relies heavily on physical ability.  These battles are taking place in US courts; so again, you could be paying part of the cost of this fight.  It is possible that politicians could become involved.  The government grants the NFL antitrust exemptions, but this could be challenged or threatened to be examined in order to put pressure on the sides to come to an agreement.  Besides, where else can you learn about the intricate differences between a union and a trade association?

5. Appeal to public sentiment in negotiations

This is perhaps the most intriguing reason.  The owners and the players are both trying to get the public on their side.  Even though it may not seem like it, it appears that both the players and owners realize the power we as consumers have.  And they know how much people love football.  The owners talk of extending the regular season to give fans more football games, claiming this is what fans want (I could spend a lot of time talking about this, but this post is already far too long).  The players laud their love of the game and how they just want to be allowed to talk with their coaches and play football.  Many fans, or at least some of the fans who frequent internet message boards, are angered by the whole situation and cast the lockout as millionaires and billionaires fighting over the fans’ money.  It is hard to find sympathy, they argue, for people who can’t find a way to split nine billion dollars.  The rhetoric we will continue to see can be studied and applied to other things, such as elections, competition between businesses for brand recognition and loyalty, etc.

6.  The impact of no professional football on society

There have been many pieces written about what people should do with extra time they might have if there is no football season.  Ray Lewis believes that crime will increase without an NFL season.  Much has also been said about his comments, I include them mainly because I think it is another example of how far reaching the impact of the lockout could be.

 

In any case, I hope you are now more interested in the lockout than you were at the start of this post (if you’ve made it the whole way through).  I would ask the players, the owners, the judges, and the lawyers what kind of people they would like to be.  And I find myself sitting with the uncomfortable question of what kind of person do I want to be, and should I really care as much as I do as to whether there is a football season this fall.

Brian’s Links 6 June 2011

The “not in 1000 years” storm, Canadian Arctic, 1999. The arctic ocean swept 20 km inland, poisoning everything with salt.  The local natives say nothing like it has happened in their collective memory.  Turns out they were right, at least to 1000 years ago. And it’s tied to global warming, of course.

Geoengineering for climate change.  If you can’t stop polluting, then block the sun.  One guy sets out to prove it won’t work, and discovers that some ways probably will.

Sovereignty with no nation.  How?  If your nation goes under water, doesn’t that mean your nation no longer exists? Well, not necessarily. I’m proud of the Marshall Islands for being the leaders on this conference.

The Pope blesses astronauts on the space station.

Apple computers is a religion.  At least according to fMRI scans of the brains of religious people and Apple lovers.

If Satan had a blog.

Fascinating study correlating religion, wealth, and education level. Be sure to check out the graphic.

Now it’s “Dr.” Watson.  From Jeopardy champ to medical diagnostic computer.

Measles outbreaks are bad bad bad.  For goodness sake, vaccinate.

Exploding watermelons.  I guess they were being raptured.

Pay addicts to get sterilized?  Hmm, some ethical problems there…

Life after college: it’s not about you.  Interestingly, David Brooks uses the idea of “expressive individualism” and other ideas from sociologist Robert Bellah, formerly of UC Berkeley, who was very influential on the GTU ethics and social theory area.

Heat-seeking beetles with a 50 mile sensitivity to infrared from fires.  Amazing.

Vam Gogh’s “Starry Night” in bacon.  Because someone had to do it.

Always cook your food properly and wash your hands, especially when dealing with with pork and chicken.  And hope others do too.  Or you might end up with a worm eating your brain.

The Negative Arctic Oscillation and Global Climate Change

January 2011. Dark blue is 18C cooler than average and dark red 18C warmer.

This has been a year of weird and bad weather.  Huge snowstorms in the winter.  Lack of sea ice in the arctic.  Tornadoes wreaking havoc all over the US.  Rain in California in June (the biggest June storm in California since 1967).  Has it anything to do with global warming?

Perhaps. One climate scientist (referring to the recent California rain) has in fact called global warming “global weirding.” In other words, not just hot weather, but strange weather. And another climate scientist also explicitly made the link from recent weather to climate change back in December, likening the current phenomenon to “leaving the refrigerator door ajar,” i.e. cold air flows out (south), warm air flows in (from the upper atmosphere, following atmospheric circulation cells).  So what exactly is going on?

The above map from NASA depicts this year’s “negative arctic oscillation” an atmospheric event where high pressure forms in the arctic, warming the arctic and pushing cold air into the mid-latitudes. Dark blue is 18 degrees C colder than normal and dark red is 18C warmer than normal (a 32.4F equivalent).

All that warm air near the pole melts sea ice and permafrost and all that cold air over the US causes huge snowstorms and rainstorms and tornadoes.  Cold air rushes out, warm air rushes in: someone left the fridge open.

Ethical implications?  Heating the arctic by 18 degrees C is craziness.  The effects on sea ice (melting and losing reflectivity) and permafrost (warming, rotting, and releasing methane, a strong greenhouse gas) will cause positive feedback for additional warming, risking runaway greenhouse effect.  And the interface of cold northern air and warm southern air over the US causes disastrous weather too.

Global warming is not just about everything getter warmer.  It’s about an atmosphere which is more energetic overall.  More rain, more floods, more heat, more droughts, more wind, more weather disasters. Bad stuff. The time to try to stop climate change is now. The longer we wait the worse the problems will get.