The feeling is inescapable. You are convinced that your effort did this. But, now that you’re a little calmer, the dust has settled, and the neighbors have stopped complaining about the noise, let’s ask a few questions. Is there more to this process than is immediately apparent? Would the numbers have been called even if you had done nothing but purchase a ticket and placed random numbers in their place? After all, how many other people were counting on their numbers being called? How complex and time-consuming had their number choosing rituals been?

Welcome to the slippery world of logical fallacies. In this case you’ve fallen for the old post hoc argument.

This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related (the Latin translates to ‘after this, therefore because of this’). (theskepticsguide.org)

Well, what’s actually going on then? Mathematically the odds seem to be incomprehensibly stacked against you — 1:10,000,000 or more! But if you look at the big picture, it seems that someone at random wins every other week. So the odds for just any random person winning are about 1:3, which are much better odds. When push comes to shove, the numbers don’t really care what they’re doing. It does seem magical when it happens to you, but really you have just witnessed a truly random event, one of many such events that happen to you all the time; the only difference is your emotional investment in this particular one.

Let’s look at some other random events that you may take for granted that could be just as magical if you make it all about you.

Magic rain

You’re standing outside and a single drop of rain lands on the very end of your nose. “It’s about to rain,” you think, and seek shelter. But consider, if you will, the sheer amount of space that single raindrop had to travel through, and how many wind currents guided it to its final destination at the end of your nose. It’s almost like someone guided it to land perfectly and exactly in that spot. NASA would have a hard time doing the math on that one. Seems almost impossible that one raindrop would pick that exact place to land in order to warn you of the weather, but it did. In terms of odds, it’s much more likely that you’d win the lottery.

Now the rain starts and you don’t find shelter in time. You are getting pelted by rain and wind. The odds are the same for each individual raindrop hitting you as for the first one, but now you’re only able to see the raindrops as a downpour; you don’t consider them to be individual drops anymore. You have 1:1 odds of getting hit by just any rain drop. Has it lost its magic yet?

Prayer

You pray for a sick loved one and they get better, so you feel somewhat responsible. But how many prayers do you make on behalf of people that don’t come to fruition? Do you make excuses or move the goalpost to allow the prayer to be answered, even if it’s not what you asked for? Prayers are tricky for this reason. What you expect is a collaboration between you and a spiritual entity of your choosing; therefore, you can dismiss a negative outcome as the entity simply saying “no” rather than putting the blame completely on yourself. But it’s impossible to prove that there was any spiritual involvement either way. Your emotional investment in the outcome makes it seem to you that there was a connection made, but it’s more plausible to accept that people get better or worse on their own, without your spiritual sway if you don’t have actual evidence beyond emotion to back up your claim.

Precognition

You have a dream that comes true, or a daydream that seems too real and the events are unfolding just as you had pictured them. But how many dreams do you have that you can’t remember or that don’t come true? How many thoughts or daydreams do you have in a day or week? Do all of them come true, or was it just this one? When you try to count every thought or daydream, these numbers can be staggering. If you look at the figures, you are wrong infinitely more often than you are right. But let’s say you were correct in your predictions — how many of the details are accurate? Often dreams deal with familiar scenes or behaviors but the details are surreal: “In my dream I was driving toward my childhood home with my deceased father, and he kept weeping jewels from his eyes. Then we got into an accident. Two weeks later, I had a real car accident. I can’t help but think my father was trying to warn me.”

Which part of the dream came true exactly? The driving part? I drive every day, so there’s nothing significant there. The accident part? Everyone has anxiety about getting in an accident, car accidents are the number one cause of death among adults under thirty, and they are in the news almost every day — that could have affected the dream. Heading toward my childhood home? Technically, every time I travel in an easterly direction I’m heading toward my childhood home. Did the jewels symbolize financial loss from the accident? Well, the jewels could mean anything at all. If the accident happened six months or a year later instead of two weeks later, would it still be considered prophetic? You can see here how pretty much anything in the dream can be interpreted as an accurate prediction, regardless of how mundane the circumstance.

There are a number of things at play when making dream predictions:

1. We are creatures of habit; most of our days follow a routine; only the finer details of each day change for us.
2. Because dreams are loosely based on your waking life, you are bound to find parallels between the two states.
3. Your mind is constantly running hypothetical simulations drawing from everything you’ve experienced in life; that’s how we’re able to make cogent predictions based on careful observation. However, it works against us sometimes. It’s only a matter of time before the random sequencing of your unconscious mind generates an outcome based on the details of your routine-based waking life and superimposes a set of anxiety-causing situations that might have some amount of plausibility — and with seemingly apt timing. It won’t happen for everyone, but it does happen more than you would expect.

So with all that, do you really stand out that much among your peers with your ability to channel random events to your favour, or does it just seem that way because you have an emotional investment in the final, random-chance outcome? In all these events (lottery, prayer, psychic predictions, etc.), the magic relies on a simple set of self-deceptions — either confirmation bias or hindsight bias. Both force you to ignore all the times when things didn’t work in your favour and cherry pick the best outcomes to prove the magical truth. These beliefs can be very comforting because they can offer a sense of control in a situation where you had none. But be warned: if you rely on this type of magical thinking to get through life, you’re not really living in reality. Putting too much faith in this kind of magical thinking can actually do more harm than good because you might believe that merely concentrating on a problem can make it go away, when in fact you should be acting to affect the situation in a real way.

One of EWG’s concerns is that many sunscreens lack UVA protection. This is absolutely true, but is starting to change. Many sunscreens are now “broad spectrum,” protecting against UVA and UVB radiation.

Ultraviolet radiation comes in UVB and UVA (I, II, and III) forms. UVB radiation is that type that gives you sunburns; UVA radiation is the type that penetrates deeper into the skin and causes breakdown. Although both UVA and UVB rays are known to cause cancer, it is true that most sunscreens (and sunglasses) concentrate on blocking only UVB radiation.

Another issue raised by the EWG report is that SPF numbers are higher and higher, but there is little proof that they are necessarily better. Again, this is true.

The Sun Protection Factor (SPF) on sunscreen labels refers to how well the product protects against sunburn (UVB). For example, lacking any sunscreen it may take you 10 minutes to burn in the sun, but using SPF 15 sunscreen would extend that time from 10 minutes to 150 minutes. There are a few important things to keep in mind. First, because SPF measures the amount of time it takes to burn, it is only a measure of UVB protection – not UVA protection. Second, as noted in this document from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, above SPF 15, there are not great differences in protection. SPF 15 protects against about 93% of UVB radiation and SPF 30 protects against 97%. It’s very gradual from there on up.

Therefore, more important than the SPF number are the amount of sunscreen applied and the frequency of application. SPF numbers are typically based on a recommended application of 30mL (about 2 tablespoons) for the entire body. Most people apply less than this. Also, sunscreen should be re-applied every two hours and always after swimming. If the correct amount of sunscreen and frequency of application are observed, it makes little difference whether you use SPF 30 or SPF 60.

Although the case is not entirely closed on the link between sun exposure and cancer, there is plenty of data showing a link between sun exposure and basal cell carcinoma/squamous cell carcinoma (the common but rarely fatal, non-melanoma cancers that cause ‘scabs’ that can be removed). Melanoma is much more rare, but frequently fatal. The direct link between sun exposure and melanoma is not as clear as with carcinoma, but this doesn’t mean that intentionally baking in the sun or in a tanning bed is a good idea.

The EWG report claims that there is “no consensus on whether sunscreens prevent skin cancer.” This is somewhat true. The research is not 100% clear on a link between sunscreen and protection against skin cancer, but it is fairly favourable so far; generally scientists agree that sunscreen can protect against cancer if, as stated earlier, it is applied in the amounts and with the frequency recommended. A quick slather in the morning may actually do more harm than good, providing people with a false sense of protection against the sun, causing them to have more exposure to dangerous UV radiation. (High SPF numbers may also provide this false sense of protection.)

Although I have been using the term “sunscreen” throughout this article, there actually is a difference between sunblock and sunscreen.

Sunblock, such as titanium dioxide and zinc oxide, is more effective than sunscreen and is opaque (like the white stuff lifeguards often wear on their noses). Particulate matter in sunblock reflects and scatters the UV rays, physically blocking the sun. Such sunblocks protect against UVA and UVB radiation, are safe, and are photostable (photostability refers to whether/how quickly the ingredients are broken down when irradiated). Vanity is essentially what prevents people from using such sunblocks – because it is opaque, people don’t want to spend a day at the beach with a white coating all over their body.

Sunscreen filters and absorbs UV radiation, converting it to heat. Although more and more sunscreens are being made with UVA and UVB protection (called “broad spectrum” or “double-barrier” sunscreens – look for this), the ingredients in sunscreen are broken down more quickly when irradiated (they are less photostable). Not to belabour the point, but because most people will choose sunscreen over sunblock for aesthetic reasons, it is vital to apply it in the quantity and with the frequency recommended.

The EWG report claims that there is “some evidence” linking sunscreen usage with an increased risk of melanoma. This “some” is spotty at best and can more reasonably be explained by the false protection issue discussed above. People who use sunscreen likely spend more time in the sun because they feel protected, but most people are using sunscreen incorrectly (not enough, not often enough) and so do suffer greater effects of sun exposure. This is not a direct link to sunscreen, to but incorrect usage of sunscreen.

Another concern highlighted in the EWG report is that sunscreen will reduce vitamin D absorption. Vitamin D from the sun is very important, so if this is a concern for you (even though there is a lack of evidence for it), then 5 or 10 minutes of sun exposure without sunscreen per day is a sufficient amount of vitamin D; maybe you could have your morning coffee outside, soak up some rays, and then apply your sunscreen. There are also vitamin D supplements, but please – if you think you need to supplement your vitamin D intake, go to your doctor and get tested first, then get her recommendation for a product and a dosage. Don’t just buy some vitamin D pills from your local drug store and start popping them like candy, as most people do with vitamin supplements. There is a danger in overly dosing with vitamins.

The EWG report cites the ingredient retinyl palmitate (a form of vitamin A) as a primary concern because “available data from an FDA study indicate that…when applied to the skin in the presence of sunlight, [it] may speed the development of skin tumors and lesions.” The problem is that the FDA study of retinyl palmitate in mice is both inconclusive and incomplete (it will be completed and peer-reviewed in the next year or so). Reason suggests that in light of the lack of evidence, it would be more dangerous to avoid the use of sunscreen than to use sunscreen containing retinyl palmitate. Retinyl palmitate is not an approved sunscreen, however, and is not necessary for the functioning of sunscreen. In fact, it is a very common “anti-aging” ingredient in most skin care and beauty products. But if this is a concern for you, then you can choose a sunscreen that does not contain retinyl palmitate. Problem solved.

The EWG report also cites the ingredient oxybenzone as a potential hormone disruptor. (More information on hormone disruptors exists than I can synthesize here, so I would suggest doing your own research if you are interested.) Oxybenzone is an ingredient in some sunscreens and, again, most skin care and beauty products. It is also ubiquitous in our environment. But studies are inconclusive as to the health effects associated with oxybenzone, stating such effects as unknown and requiring more research. As with retinyl palmitate, good sense says that you should not avoid sunscreen due to the presence of oxybenzone because evidence for negative health effects is so lacking, but you can certainly choose a product that does not contain it. Again, problem solved.

The Environmental Working Group tends to be overly cautious and even at times alarmist; they discount far too many ingredients as harmful, hazardous, or risky based on false or inconclusive data. Running around like a Chicken Little knock-off suggesting that sunscreen will give you cancer is not productive. However, while the EWG sunscreen report is instilling a little too much fear in the general public, in general the recommendations are fair.

As any brochure on sun exposure will tell you, avoiding the sun and wearing protective clothing is the best way to protect against radiation. Otherwise sunblock (titanium dioxide and zinc oxide) is the surest bet to protect yourself against UVA and UBV rays. If the aesthetic of that doesn’t appeal to you, then a broad spectrum/double-barrier (UVA/UVB) sunscreen will offer adequate protection if you wear enough of it and re-apply it often.

Check out the EWG report for some good sunscreen/sunblock recommendations, but if you’re going to read the whole report, take it with a grain of salt keeping in mind the things discussed here. And, as always, do your own research.

The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice (1995), by
Christopher Hitchens

Review by Peter Mosier

If you thought that Mother Teresa (nee Agnes Bojaxhiu) was an example of a good person doing good things, this short work (98 pages) will probably change your mind.

Christopher Hitchens lays out a case for Mother Teresa being an ineffective aid relief worker who was very effective at building her brand and establishing a new religious order (“her Missions of Charity organization currently number some 4,000 nuns and 40,000 workers”).

Hitchens claims the tens of millions of dollars she received over the years went to establish new Missions of Charity convents rather than improving conditions at her already established hospices. (Hospice might be too strong a word, since Mother Teresa believed that suffering brought people closer to God, and therefore relief of suffering would deny the sick and dying that “blessing.”) Furthermore, she used every opportunity to preach the evils of contraception and abortion, a position that would, conveniently, ensure a never-ending supply of wretched poor in need of her ‘hospitality.’

According to Hitchens, Mother Teresa would appear to be a faux naïf when it suited her purpose, such as when sending a character reference letter on behalf of convicted fraudster Charles Keating—a man who had given her over $1 million.

(My favourite part of the book is a reprint of a response letter written to Mother Teresa from Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Paul W. Turley, who successfully prosecuted Keating. He explained the nature of Keating’s crimes to Teresa and asked her, essentially, What would Jesus do if he received proceeds from a crime? He gave Teresa the opportunity to return the ill-gotten gains to the defrauded; she did not respond this offer to do the right thing.)

Yet when dealing with world leaders, from Ronald and Nancy Reagan to the Duvaliers of Haiti, Mother Teresa was clearly a sophisticated political player who used her celebrity to advance her cause. Her cause was neither the elimination of poverty nor improved access to medical facilities for the terminally ill; rather, it was the elimination of contraception and abortion.

One criticism I have of this book is that Hitchens does not do a thorough job of documenting his claims, something that Mother Teresa apologists will likely point out (if they haven’t already). Nonetheless, this was an interesting and eye-opening read.

You see this in flocking birds, insect swarms, ant colonies, blizzards, long wispy filaments, diaphanous undulating clouds, complex subterranean architecture, and sheets of rain or snow. Even consciousness could be an emergent pattern given the simple actions of individual neurons and the overwhelming complexity of a central nervous system. It’s all around us, inescapable, and inexhaustible in the never-ending fractile of nature.

But one place I haven’t seen the beauty of all these complex systems is in the crappy 1940s to 1990s era television snow. That is, until now. This humble and annoying side effect of technology can be as majestic as a perfect night sky if you understand what you’re looking at.

So what is television snow?

These days most if not all viewing devices filter out the background static of bad reception and instead display a relaxing, often blinding, blue screen. But reaching back into my childhood I remember the infamous television snow and white noise that accompanied my two channels of cathode ray escapism. I lived way out in the country, so the two channels we did get had spotty reception at best, leaving the rest of the channels open to receive messages from beyond.

What causes it?

Now here’s where it gets cool: background radiation. But not just any background radiation, like from the mantle of the Earth or from the Sun…this stuff is as old as time itself and is known as “Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation,” left over from the big bang.

What’s it doing on our old TVs?

As it turns out, if you’re a ray of light travelling through empty space, the further you travel away from other forms of matter, the more stretchy and floppy space becomes. So as you travel through these vast intergalactic distances you become all stretched out as well. As it happens the big bang (as you can imagine) was unbelievably energetic—so energetic, in fact, that the gamma rays coming out of it caused most of the matter in the early universe to fly at almost the speed of light itself.

Since we perceive the observable outer edge of the universe to be about 13 billion light years away, its light has become all floppy and less energetic. It’s only coincidence that it happens to be stretched out to roughly the same frequency our television stations use to broadcast Three’s Company reruns.

What’s so beautiful about random static?

What you see as crappy reception is actually the outermost ripple in the endless cosmic pond, silent and ever-expanding into the void. Its sole effect is tearing apart dimensions within the vacuum and creating our reality one quantum super string at a time.

The problem with our old TV sets is that they don’t supply a big enough window to see the true majesty of what we’re witnessing. Instead of watching a distant tornado slowly descend toward the ground and start kicking up debris, we instead see only the debris flying straight at our heads. Not very pretty. But take a step back and watch it dance across the country side.

Perspective is all it takes to see the beauty in television snow.

Why congratulations? What’s the big whoop?

Coming out of the closet can be a momentous and often torturous event. Fear is what keeps people in the closet, but the freedom and relief they experience when they finally come out is joyous: finally, finally being able to be who you are, to not have to hide it, to not feel ashamed or fearful. Despite the fact that Randi is in his 80s and has been out to his family, friends, and close colleagues for quite some time, he is a public figure who had not previously come out publically. He was still partially in the closet, and now he’s free.

And it’s important on a larger scale. Unfortunately there is still far too much discrimination, oppression, denial of civil rights, demonization, hatred, violence, and just plain misunderstanding directed towards the queer community. Every single person who comes out ameliorates all of that to some extent.

I have a button on my bag that says, “Someone you love is gay.” Whether you know it or not, chances are that someone you love, or at least care about, is gay. The research that LGBT rights groups have conducted over the years proves that knowing someone who is queer changes the way straight people view the queer community. Imagine how the world would change if every single closeted person came out.

For every public person who comes out (particularly celebrities) the amelioration may be tenfold. If knowing an LGBT person changes the way straight people think about LGBT people, then everyone does ‘know’ a queer person—the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has done research showing that knowing a queer celebrity or even television character has the same affect as knowing a queer neighbour.

Okay, but why is this important to the science and skepticism community?

It is the mandate of most skeptics and rationalists to expose pseudoscience, misinformation, and flat-out lies, and to promote truth and good science. In some cases this takes the form of exposing a pie-plate UFO or a ‘faith healer’ being fed information through an ear piece. We pride ourselves on showing that there are no robust scientific studies proving a connection between vaccines and autism, or the efficacy of homeopathy; in fact, we promote robust scientific studies demonstrating just the opposite.

Craniometric theories were popular in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Found in books like Types of Mankind, these theories claimed that you can judge the intellectual capacity of a race by the size of the skull. The conclusions of racist ‘scientists’ were that black people do not have the intellectual capacity of white people. Real scientists and skeptics were all over debunking this stuff, and continue to right up until today (Stephen Jay Gould refuted it in The Mismeasure of Man in the 1980s).

But amid conflations of homosexuality and pedophilia or bestiality, the science and skepticism community remains largely silent.

During the recent resurgence in the media of the Roman Catholic Church’s never-ending child sexual abuse campaign, the Vatican’s second-highest authority, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said this: “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relation between celibacy and pedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relation between homosexuality and pedophilia. That is true. That is the problem.”

That is not true. That is demonstrably false. Yet as far as I know there wasn’t a deluge of debunking coming from the scientific or skeptical communities exposing this egregious lie.

There are no reputable studies supporting Bertone’s erroneous claim. In fact, nearly every reputable psychological and psychiatric organization rejects the conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia. The science was settled quite some time ago, but studies continue to take place, and they continue to prove that there is no link between homosexuality and pedophilia. Here’s a decent overview of the topic. Essentially, the article explains,

“Pedophilia can be viewed as a kind of sexual fetish, wherein the person requires the mental image of a child—not necessarily a flesh-and-blood child—to achieve sexual gratification. Rarely does a pedophile experience sexual desire for adults of either gender. They usually don’t identify as homosexual—the majority identify as heterosexual, even those who abuse children of the same gender. They are sexually aroused by youth, not by gender. In contrast, child molesters often exert power and control over children in an effort to dominate them. They do experience sexual desire for adults, but molest children episodically, for reasons apart from sexual desire, much as rapists enjoy power, violence and controlling their humiliated victims. Indeed, research supports that a child molester isn’t any more likely to be homosexual than heterosexual [emphasis mine].”

An independent study was commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in 2002. Conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, the report concluded, “We do not find a connection between homosexual identity and the increased likelihood of subsequent abuse from the data that we have right now.”

Rev. Marcus Stock of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales said, “To the best of my knowledge, there is no empirical data which concludes that sexual orientation is connected to child sexual abuse. The consensus among researchers is that the sexual abuse of children is not a question of sexual ‘orientation’, whether heterosexual or homosexual, but of a disordered attraction or ‘fixation.’ ”

Even Pope Benedict XVI himself said, “I do not wish to talk about homosexuality, but about pedophilia, which is a different thing.”

The Pope?!? The guy who said, “You can’t resolve [the HIV/AIDS crisis] with the distribution of condoms. On the contrary, it increases the problem”? That’s the guy speaking out against this pseudoscience? The guy who led the cover-up of priests sexually abusing children? The guy who was responsible for the transfers of molesting priests from parish to parish? That guy?! No thank you!

Come on, skeptics—why are individuals and groups within the problematic Catholic Church the ones commissioning studies and speaking out? Why aren’t we?

Where were we during the fight for equal marriage in Canada? Where were we during the Prop 8 struggle in California, resulting in the first time in American history that civil rights were stripped from a segment of the population? Where were we when Sally Kerns, a State representative from Oklahoma, said, “homosexuality is more of a threat than terrorism”? Where were we when John Briggs, a California State legislator, introduced a bill to ban gay teachers in California?

Where are we? Where are we when the “kill the gays” bill in the Ugandan legislature is being propped up by the same lies that are used in the U.S. to oppose equal marriage? Where are we when the terms “gay agenda” and “gay lifestyle” are thrown around? (Gay agenda: Drop off car for oil change, get groceries, pick up Sally from soccer practice, dinner, help kids with homework, Glee.) Where are we when groups like Focus on the Family and The Family Research Council try to prevent stable, loving queer couples from adopting children in need of good homes? Where are we when service men and women can be kicked out of the U.S. military despite their qualifications, dedication, courage, and willingness to die for their country, simply for being gay?

What I’m hoping is that Randi’s coming out, the articles and podcasts discussing it, and the larger dialogue that will take place because of it will compel the science and skepticism community to stand up and say, “We are here.”

But the movement needs movement, not just sedentary agitation*.

I spend a great deal of time thinking about how to get people more actively involved. Showing up at pub nights and lectures is one thing, but in terms of actually making a difference in the world it does little. All of us like-minded people show up in a room to complain about fraud, hoaxes, lies, hypocrites, and so on. We get quite passionate and emotional, even angry. But most of us do nothing to actually change things about which we complain. Oh, we do like to complain! We complain about the symptoms without bothering to address the causes.

Sure, we learn a lot. We love our guest speakers, blogs, podcasts, and magazines, but if we aren’t coupling that knowledge with educational outreach then aren’t we just bolstering the devoutness of the converted?

While there are many people out there doing a lot of good work, there seems to be a general apathy and lack of action in the science and skepticism movement. Why? Is it that we all have busy lives and are maybe a little lazy when it comes to ‘activism’? Is it because we think that what we’re up against is insurmountable? Because, as Mark Twain famously quoted, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes”?

Even though the problems we’re up against may seem insurmountable, this isn’t about climbing a mountain to get to the other side; it’s about slowly chipping away at the mountain.

Even if one person is taught how to apply critical thinking in everyday life, then bravo us! If one person is saved the embarrassment and expense of being taken by a charlatan, then bravo us! If one person is saved from financial ruin by a ‘faith healer,’ then bravo us! If one person’s life is saved because they learned that Jenny McCarthy et al are full of crap, then bravo us! Isn’t that enough to warrant a little more action on our part?

Sure, showing up at a demonstration to tote signs and holler slogans may not be everyone’s idea of a good time. And not everyone can launch a campaign like that of Simon Singh and the Sense About Science folks — that takes immense time, energy, money, know-how, effort, and organization. It seems daunting. But there a hundreds of smaller, simpler ways in which people can get involved and make a real difference.

You can volunteer for your local science/rationalist/skeptical/humanist organization. You can write letters to the editor when newspapers or magazines get things wrong. You can write to politicians when they try to pass ridiculous laws granting, for instance, homeopaths the rights of medical doctors. You can spread the word — to friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and strangers via conversations, newspapers, blogs, radio stations, podcasts, and television — about things that the public should be aware of.

Here is a fuller, though not exhaustive, list of other ways that you can actually turn your sedentary agitation into purposeful action.

We can start slowly and start small, and over time we will chip away at the mountain of misinformation, the wall of woo, and make this world a more informed place.

To quote Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker, who just celebrated Newark’s first murder-free calendar month since 1966, “Don’t let your inability to do everything undermine your determination to do something.”

* This term is also borrowed from Cory Booker.

That statement is false because laws of nature simply cannot be broken.

If it appears that someone or something is in contravention of the laws of nature, then there are really only two conclusions that can be drawn: either your observations and/or conclusions are faulty, or the law has been misinterpreted and needs to be thrown out or modified.

Probably the classic case of this would be the realisation in the 19th century that Isaac Newton may have been wrong. His math was holding up pretty well and nobody was about to overturn calculus, but his physics seemed to be on shaky ground. Here is a simple review of his three laws of motion:

An object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion remains in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.

Force equals Mass multiplied by Acceleration (F=ma).

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

To illustrate how important a discovery this was, let’s look at how we have used it. Believe it or not, we can send people to the Moon, land them on it, and bring them back without going beyond the physics and math that Newton gave us over three hundred years ago! Notwithstanding many naysayers (and many of them should have known better), after Newton’s time, space travel ceased to be a strictly scientific problem and became one of engineering; the wooden ships of his day were not quite up to the task.

But when we explore such extremes as speed, time, and gravity, we find that Newton’s physics break down. New thinking is called for. Enter Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity, which in 1905 ushered in a new era of science. But Newton’s theories still apply for everyday events (if something as fantastic as a trip to the Moon can be categorised that way).

Now let’s get back to a little scientific larceny. Rather, let’s try, because that’s all that we can ever hope to do. You do not pay a price for breaking the laws of nature — you pay simply for trying. At best your ‘payment’ would be in wasted time and effort on a failed experiment, but such things are rarely fun. But let’s go for the extreme. And there will be blood!

Observe a Darwin Award nominee standing at the top of a cliff. He’s just taken the brown acid (bummer) and decides he’s an eagle. With one flying leap he launches himself into the air and finds out that the laws of nature are immutable. There are four forces working in the science of aerodynamics: lift, thrust, weight, and drag. The first two are what help you fly; the second two are what try to prevent it. In the case of our non-hero, simple biophysics tells us that the human body does not possess the muscular structure to give us sufficient thrust, our arms do not provide sufficient lift, and therefore our weight and drag will win out.

As our eagle wannabe leaps from the cliff his arms flap with furious futility but produce no discernible lift. The thrust is really only produced by the attraction of the Earth’s gravity well, which is directly below him. Lastly, drag and weight assert their rightful force and aid the downward acceleration. In other words, the subject of this drug-addled experiment does not fly, but plummets inexorably to his doom.

In this sad scenario no scientific laws have been broken, but no doubt a few bones have. In fact, all the way down to his untimely end he will be obeying the laws of aerodynamics to the letter; there is no way he can do anything else. No lift. No flight. He will then obey the laws that govern our biology as he exsanguinates on the beach and his brain (or a reasonable facsimile in this case) shuts down. Thus endeth the lesson.

An open and shut case, really. Human laws are subject to myriad interpretations and as society changes so do they. But the laws of nature are fixed; only our understanding of them changes as we discover more about the workings of the Universe.

We often hear that religion was born of fear, that primitive peoples needed something to comfort them. Personally, I doubt it. Fear may be one of the things keeping religion alive (I think Sir Francis had it right), but what evidence do we have for the assumption that fear bred it?

Defining religion may seem fairly easy when surrounded by cathedrals, monasteries, and televangelists, but how would we categorize the rituals known to have been practiced by Neandertals and possibly even pre-human cultures? Ideas do not fossilize and abstract concepts can only be dated with certainty to the first written accounts—anything before then is (hopefully) educated guesswork.

So let’s start guessing.

In the distant world of our more hirsute ancestors, fear would have been a constant companion. Danger lurked in caves and behind bushes, and even escaping the clutches of a predator would leave one with injuries that probably meant death. Fear was both an ally and an enemy in the fight for survival—a healthy emotion that kept some alive while it made others the main course down at the waterhole. Fear caused them to fight or run, and as consciousness and communication evolved and reinforced each other the lesson would be ‘taught’ to those who were a little slower at those instinctive reactions. Prayer would be an alien concept; religion is learned, and the level of thought required would have been a luxury in a time when almost every waking minute was devoted to feeding or breeding or some other aspect of immediate survival. But it did develop.

We don’t know the exact moment when our line attained the level of intelligence we have today and it’s entirely conceivable that some of our extinct relatives may have even eclipsed us in that regard. What we can say is that we haven’t gotten any more intelligent in eons; the brain that guided the hand wielding the stone-scraper was just as capable of thought as the one maneuvering today’s scalpel. What it lacked was the equivalent collective knowledge of the society around it. The only accessible library was the minds of cave-mates, and the only way to pass knowledge along was to show/tell someone and then hope they didn’t get eaten/stomped.

Sooner or later they probably got to thinking that life might be easier if they could make some sort of sense of the world around them. There were obvious observable cycles such as that big bright hot thing that whipped across the sky, the cooler one that chose a different schedule, animals and plants that appeared and disappeared regularly, and maybe a nearby river that got wider and higher at regular intervals. Other patterns were also noted, like those they could make in the sand or the shape of spearheads painstakingly crafted into just the right size and shape. As these things were designed, a possible explanation for the ways of the world presented itself. Paley’s watchmaker was making himself evident even before sundials were invented. Designs spoke of a designer. Sadly, modern creationists haven’t progressed much beyond that stage, but this would easily have been observed by ancient man.

The designs our ancestors saw were big—much bigger than anything they could construct. Whatever made them must have been big and/or powerful. The designer also made living things and so must have had power over life, and possibly death too. The other living things they saw were often those they ate, provided by the creators; this was something to be thankful for.

But fear? I doubt it. In my admittedly limited experience, animistic religions—perhaps the closest to the early manifestations of the phenomenon—accept their surroundings, respecting the life around them and understanding that every so often the dinner tables will be turned. Religion was the first attempt to understand the world and try to make some sense of it. Early science was used to improve spears and other implements; early religion was used to explain what was happening.

Rather than being a product of fear, I see it as showing the strength of those early minds. They tried their best to make sense of the world, which shows they realized that they needed to learn and plan for the future. Their minds were as strong as their physiques, and our continued existence is testimony to the value of reason, however little information one has.

“Perchance you who pronounce my sentence are in greater fear than I who receive it.” – Giordano Bruno, quoted by Gaspar Schopp of Breslau in a letter to Conrad Rittershausen written on the day of Bruno’s burning at the stake for (among other things) the crime of being an “atheist.”

On December 10, 2007, 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez was found strangled, and succumbed to the assault within hours. Her father, Muhammad Parvez, and her brother Waqas were charged with her murder.

Initial speculation was that the murder was a result of Aqsa’s defiance of her father’s request that she wear the traditional Muslim head covering called a hijab, and a desire to ‘westernize’ her clothing and activities.

Even if this were not the case, it is a fact that there have been similar incidents of violence towards women for perceived acts of disobedience of religious or social traditions—something not unique to Islam.

The resulting public reaction was predictable and mostly consisted of expressions of outrage and disgust. Among the reactions were some comments showing a lack of understanding, which can cloud our judgment when it comes to discussing preventive measures. This I find disturbing. It is my fervent hope that we can stop this particular brand of insanity, but in order to do so we must ensure that our efforts are properly directed.

The comments heard in the aftermath of this tragedy came from all walks of life and from many philosophical positions. As skeptics and purveyors of science and reason, we must be able to present a rational and balanced viewpoint that is considered, not a knee-jerk reaction.

(I should note that I am not trying to reach any specific conclusions nor propose remedies and solutions; that level of analysis is best left to those with more resources and qualifications than I have. I simply wish to express my thoughts and try to figure out how we should approach these situations as skeptics.)

A few days after Aqsa Parvez’s death, a well-known radio commentator asked, “Does this not invalidate Islam? ” While he was sure to say that there were many good and decent Muslims, his implication was clear—he questioned whether Islam is valid.

This statement above all others caused me to think about this subject.

In my opinion this act, horrific as it was, invalidates nothing. It does not invalidate a god concept, it does not invalidate religion in general or Islam in particular, and, as shocking as this may sound, it does not invalidate the father’s belief in the righteousness of his actions. For all we know there may be a god who wishes us to act as Islam dictates. I don’t believe that and I feel certain that none of the readers will give the idea even a microsecond of consideration, but there is still no invalidation of anything. This was the act of one man who did it for reasons of his own.

As an atheist I cannot blame a god I don’t believe in. As a skeptic I cannot blame a religion that, in its original texts, does not preach that women should be killed for such a thing. Intellectual honesty compels skeptics to learn the facts, and from all accounts the facts are clear—all the Qur’an says is that women should dress modestly, and prescribes no punishment for those who choose to dress as they wish.

As an evolutionist I am compelled not to blame religion. Instead I see this as an entirely naturalistic human failing. Here we have a man who should have possessed the paternal instincts rooted in brain chemistry that has evolved over eons that would cause him to protect, nurture, and love his daughter. Those instincts seem to have been so weak that they were overcome by his own personal interpretation of a vague religious edict. People who do this do not have parental instincts strong enough to prevent them from harming their own children or allowing them to be harmed; in a sense they are an evolutionary dead-end. There is no religious victory here, simply a human failing. If we blame religion, we are shirking our responsibilities as skeptics and as humans to look for proper causes based on human emotions and natural causes.

If we cavalierly dismiss this as an invalidation of a religion, we are cheating ourselves by taking the easy way out; we are cheating society out of a chance to investigate and perhaps explain a very real problem that deserves attention; and we are cheating Aqsa Parvez, a young woman who simply wanted to live her life as she saw fit.

We do not know about Aqsa’s religious convictions. For all we know she may have been conventionally religious, perhaps even devout, but merely unwilling to go along with certain cultural strictures. Let us not insult her memory with conjecture.

Where are these cultural strictures found? Not in the Qur’an, but in the Hadith—a set of religious texts written by other Islamic scholars after the prophet Mohammed’s death. Linguistically the word Hadith means “that which is new from amongst things,” or “a piece of information conveyed either in a small quantity or large.” That seems rather wishy-washy, as many religious texts tend do be. Generally people invent meanings from statements, condense texts, pick and choose, or expound on them voluminously to bamboozle the faithful.

The implication is that if you wish to know what Mohammed said, read the Qur’an, but if you wish to know what he meant, read the Hadith. It is the Hadith that expounds the Qur’an’s advice that women should dress modestly, turning a description of how to dress, with no prescribed punishment, into an intolerant dictate that women be completely covered and subjected to severe punishment for disobedience. Like any other writings, the Hadith has as much credibility as an individual wishes to give it. It could be seen as ‘gospel truth’ written by hands that were guided by a god, or it could be seen as a medieval version of a Jack Chick tract.

Many non-theists will immediately see religion as the problem in all this, and they would be partially correct. But it is not religion per sè, rather the way humans use, misuse, and abuse it. Atheists are not immune. We bristle, and rightly so, when theists admonish us by saying that atheism is just another form of religion. It is not, but neither is theism—both are simply position statements (one believes there is a god, the other does not).

Another thing that infuriates non-theists is the claim that the most barbarous and murderous states of recent times, and perhaps of all time, have been officially atheistic. Unfortunately they are probably correct. The caveat here for atheists is that if we are not careful to temper our philosophy with sound judgment and healthy scepticism, we can become that which we claim to oppose. Atheism may not be a religion, although some can preach and practise it with a religious fervour, but atheists can still be religious. It can be benign or even beneficial; I have often viewed my naturalism as a form of religion and see no problem with that description (it makes me happy), although carrying it to the extremes that organisations like PETA present is, in my opinion, fundamentalism.

Perhaps the most insidious form of atheistic ‘religion,’ at least in recent experience, is statism—the worship of the state and its ideals and progress. Ostensibly atheistic leaders such as Josef Stalin, Mao Xe Dong, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong Il have been almost deified as prophets at best and demi-gods at worst. Who of my generation can forget newsreel footage of thousands of uniformed Chinese civilians waving their little red book of quotations from Chairman Mao? There have even been incidents that imply a supernatural power. When Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, some of his entourage were taken to a hospital and witnessed an operation. The patient was awake and alert during the procedure, waving the little red book and extolling the virtues of Mao. If that ain’t that old time religion, I don’t know what is. (It turns out that the operation was rigged; it was a fervent volunteer who had been given massive doses of local anaesthesia.)

I would submit that China under Mao was just as theocratic as Afghanistan under the Taliban. In Russia the long lines waiting in Red Square to glimpse Lenin’s body lying in state lasted for decades, and continue in smaller form to the present day, therefore testifying to the enduring quasi-religious fervour attached to his name and legacy.

Religion is not entirely blameless, but it’s an enabler at most. It’s rather like the person who drives the getaway car—some drivers are unwitting or unwilling dupes. Theists ride away claiming that their religions have never/would never do such a thing, and atheists hop on board and proclaim that their freedom from religion means that they could never do it. (At such times I have heard individuals from both groups invoke Anthony Flew’s ‘No true Scotsman’ fallacy*.) Some of those who are anti-religion or anti-Islam can just quickly dismiss it on that basis without any further thought. They are all wrong, as blood-soaked human history both current and ancient can all too easily illustrate.

If you wish to combat the excesses of religion, go ahead; I believe it’s a noble cause and I will stand beside you. If I can fit into my old uniform I might even lead a battalion. But I will only do so on two conditions: 1) That you realise that such excess is a strictly natural human failing that can exist independent of theism. 2) We admit that we are all therefore susceptible.

* Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about the ‘Brighton sex maniac’ striking again. Hamish is shocked and declares, “No Scotsman would do such a thing!” The next day he sits down to read the Herald and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion, but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, “No true Scotsman would do such a thing.” – From Thinking About Thinking – Or Do I Sincerely Want to be Right? by Anthony Flew, 1975.

There are many symbols of the season, but the Christmas tree is the most iconic. Most skeptics know that the tradition of taking in a tree for the winter pre-dates Christianity’s arrival in Europe by many years, but that is not enough to dissuade those complainers who have been usurping pagan traditions since year one. For them we must take a more forward approach and confront them with their own words—the Bible itself.

When next you hear the inevitable grumbling about it being a Christmas tree, dammit, not a %$&#ing holiday tree, whip out this little biblical admonition:

Jeremiah 10:2-4 (King James Version):

2 Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

Hmm, seems as if there’s a wee bit of sinning going on in Christendom, because I’m sure that those hordes at the tree lots every year aren’t all worshipping Mother Earth.

My family? Yes, this happy band of atheists gets a tree. It’s traditional, a part of our culture. Like the Ikea commercial says, it’s a six-foot-tall, pine-scented air freshener!

Merry x-mas!