How Not to Report Science

One of the stories in the news today is about a study showing that no, US presidents don’t have their lifespans shortened by the rigors of office. The AP writes:

Using life expectancy data for men the same age as presidents on their inauguration days, the study found that 23 of 34 presidents who died of natural causes lived several years longer than expected.

This set off little skeptical alarm bells in my head. And indeed, a few paragraphs later, we find:

Given that most of the 43 men who have served as president have been college-educated, wealthy and had access to the best doctors, their long lives are actually not that surprising, [study author S. Jay Olshansky] said.

I haven’t found the text of the study in question, but LiveScience writes:

“To me, it’s a classic illustration of the benefits of socioeconomic status,” Olshansky told LiveScience. “All but 10 of the presidents were college-educated, they were all wealthy, and they all had access to medical care.”

So yeah, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but I suspect that being able to afford living in a neighborhood where you’re not going to get shot by a drug dealer, and getting regular checkups at Walter Reed may have a teensy bit to do with one’s life expectancy.

So really, what this story tells us is that the stress of the presidency, when combined with good lifestyle and health care, is not enough to lower a man’s life expectancy to the national average. What it doesn’t say is what effect the presidential lifestyle has on people’s health. For that, it would be necessary to compare presidents’ life spans to those of people of comparable wealth and access to health care. From the remarks above, I suspect that Olshansky understands this perfectly well, but I don’t know whether that study has been done.

Kitty Theodicy

One of the standard replies to the problem of evil is that evil and pain serve a greater purpose, such as when a mother allows her child to be painfully jabbed with a polio shot. It may suck to have your house robbed, but if God intervened by taking away free will (including the robber), that would be even worse.

I’m not buying it, and here’s why.

I have a cat with an infection, so I’m giving her antibiotics twice a day. For those without pets, this involves laying her on her back, putting an eyedropper between her teeth, and squirting in a bit of liquid (that smells and tastes like medicine, natch) in her mouth. She doesn’t want to swallow, but since she’s on her back, with the liquid pooling in her throat, eventually she has no choice but to swallow. I could have gone with pills, but those are even harder to administer.

In short, to my cat, I’m like the aforementioned god, doing bad things to her for no purpose that she can discern. But we humans, with our superior intelligence, recognize that the pain and suffering I inflict serve a greater purpose.

And that’s where the similarities between me and God end. Among the differences: when I inflict pain on my cat, at least I have the balls to show myself. My cat can see me, smell me, hear me, touch (and scratch) me. I don’t resort to manipulating natural forces to do the dirty work for me. And when I do use an intermediate (such as the vet), I at least try to let her know that I’m there, and that it’s okay.

There’s also a limit to how much pain I will inflict on my cat. If she needed an operation, I would make damn sure she was anesthetized for it. And if she were in constant pain from an incurable disease, I would prefer that she be put to sleep rather than have to suffer.

But it doesn’t work that way in the greater world. Even setting aside the mind-boggling amount of pain in the animal world (e.g., when an Ichneumon wasp larva eats its host from the inside, or when lions eat a still-living gazelle) and concentrating just on God’s favorite species, humans, why are there lingering diseases? Why do people bleed to death after being hit by a rock slide? Why do people’s limbs rot away from gangrene?

For that matter, why does torture work? I don’t mean in the sense of extracting useful intelligence. I mean in the sense of inflicting unbearable pain and suffering without even the release of death? You’d think that an all-powerful and merciful god could set things up so that when the pain gets too bad, a built-in anesthetic could kick in and make us oblivious. In extreme cases, sufferers could quickly and quietly slip away into death. But if there’s any such mechanism, it hasn’t been brought to my attention. Yes, there’s the way people freezing to death are said to die peacefully, feeling warm. Why doesn’t that work for drowning or or poison or stabbing?

In the Christian religion, in particular, there’s a strong emphasis on Jesus’ suffering, both before his crucifixion and on the cross. Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ hammered this point home repeatedly, and was quite popular at the box office.

But I don’t remember anyone suggesting that Jesus suffered more than normal, given the things that were done to him. Why did he die after a day on the cross, like crucifixion victim ever? Why not a week, a month, a year? Compare that to Prometheus, who gave humans fire; his punishment was to be chained to a mountain where every day vultures rip out his liver, and every night it grows back to be torn out again the next day. As far as I know, Prometheus is still tied to his rock, while Jesus got to be king of the universe after three days. Now that’s suffering. As has been pointed out, Jesus had a really bad weekend for our sins.

So the sheer amount of suffering is far beyond any reasonable measure, with no relief mechanisms other than the ones we humans have come up with, like morphine and appendectomies. The world looks exactly the way it would if there were no guiding intelligence taking an interest in our well-being.

And even if suffering were necessary for some master plan, you’d think God would be able to at least show up in person and say so, even if our minds are too puny to understand the plan itself. But no. God, if he/she/it exists, can’t even be bothered to show up and say it’s okay. So why worship a being like that?

Oh, the Irony!

In a post railing against the organization Catholics for Choice, BillDo writes:

Here’s another irony: there really is no organization called Catholics for Choice. It has no members, and is in fact nothing more than a well-funded letterhead, sponsored by the establishment.

I’ve been keeping a distracted eye on the Catholic League for years, and for all intents and purposes, it’s just Billy and his Electrified Rage-Powered Press Release Machine. So he might not be the best person to complain about one-man operations that look like large organizations.

This press release was written and approved by Americans for Transparency in Douchebaggery. For immediate release. All rights reserved. And your mother dresses you funny.

Fourth Thursday in November Playlist

Victim Card Fatigue

From yesterday’s WaPo:

BALTIMORE — The Penn State scandal over a former football coach accused of sexually abusing young boys “reopens a wound” for the U.S. Roman Catholic Church, a leading bishop said Monday.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the crisis reminds the bishops of their own failures to protect children.

Well gee, maybe they shouldn’t have covered up chld rape, then. Was I supposed to feel sorry for Dolan? Hang on, let me find my World’s Smallest Violin™…

About That “House” Banner

You may recall that I sent mail to the church in Ireland that put up the banner shown here, and caused a fair amount of consternation. Today, I got the following reply:

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for taking the time to notice the sign and sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner as we received your mail during the week of prayer. I was surprised how fast the poster circulated on the net as we hadn’t put it on the web. This poster generated some discussion with strong views on both sides – Most really liked it as it generated discussion if read with the irony that was intended – others did not as they hold that is stating that there is no rational people in the Church – It is just one of a series of posters that was used to advertise a week of prayer in the parish between the 15th – 21st Oct and the intention was not to offend but to at least generate a discussion that would encourage people to come and find out for themselves!

I can assure you that the person who designed the poster was familiar with both the character, the series and also the sentiments that the character attached to the quote. Some who commented went as far to say that it “
was serving to make a mockery of the Christian faith”
as unfortunately the sentiment that is behind the quote is a real view that some people have of the Church and “religious” people. I do understand the characters beliefs although I would think that most that hold this view seem to do so without actual experience of
a faith community.

So the poster was an invitation to people to come and see for yourself if this is the case, a point that was not been lost on a number of others who commented on it.

Thanks again for your comments and the week of prayer was a terrific success, and a real experience of community, with a number of people (of all ages) coming along for the first time. Maybe the poster prompted a few to come along that may have never thought of coming?

Kind regards and God Bless

Frank Brown

So meh, decent idea, poor execution. Maybe the problem is that for a concept like this to work, the message should either explicitly say something like “Is this true? Come to our event and find out!”, or else it should be clearly wrong, like Thomas Friedman’s book The World Is Flat: clearly he doesn’t mean that the planet Earth is pizza-shaped, so you have to read the book to find out what he means.

But in this case, the idea that people are religious for irrational reasons is not only plausible, it has been propounded by Christians like Ray Comfort (granted, not the best proponent of any idea, but still). So I’m putting this under “decent idea, poor execution”.

More Christians Endorse Genocide

You may remember that an editorial by Richard Dawkins in which he explains why he won’t debate William Lane Craig, has caused a bit of a tempest in the religious teapot. At issue is the fact that Craig has defended divinely-commanded genocide in the Bible, not just once but twice, and Dawkins doesn’t want anything to do with a man who can espouse such odious views. Picky, picky.

Just as a reminder, here’s some of what Craig wrote:

So the problem isn’t that God ended the Canaanites’ lives. The problem is that He commanded the Israeli soldiers to end them. Isn’t that like commanding someone to commit murder? No, it’s not. Rather, since our moral duties are determined by God’s commands, it is commanding someone to do something which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been murder. The act was morally obligatory for the Israeli soldiers in virtue of God’s command, even though, had they undertaken it on their on initiative, it would have been wrong.

On divine command theory, then, God has the right to command an act, which, in the absence of a divine command, would have been sin, but which is now morally obligatory in virtue of that command.

In other words, killing hundreds or thousands of men, women, and children is murder. Unless God commands it, in which case it’s not just okay, but mandatory.

By setting such strong, harsh dichotomies God taught Israel that any assimilation to pagan idolatry is intolerable. It was His way of preserving Israel’s spiritual health and posterity. God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.

These children had to die because their parents worshiped the wrong gods and were thus impure.

So whom does God wrong in commanding the destruction of the Canaanites? Not the Canaanite adults, for they were corrupt and deserving of judgement. Not the children, for they inherit eternal life. So who is wronged? Ironically, I think the most difficult part of this whole debate is the apparent wrong done to the Israeli soldiers themselves. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to break into some house and kill a terrified woman and her children? The brutalizing effect on these Israeli soldiers is disturbing.

This part is so disgusting that I can’t even muster the snark to make fun of Craig. It’s like saying that we should shed a tear for the poor Nazis who were ordered to gas Jews.

It seems to me that when an otherwise-respected person says something stupid or reprehensible, the right thing to do is to denounce the stupid idea, even while acknowledging the person’s other accomplishments. See for instance the firestorm that erupted over Dawkins’s comment about elevatorgate, or when PZ Myers criticized the idea of humanist chaplains.

So how have Christians responded to Craig’s abhorrent rationalization of mass murder? I haven’t seen any of them repudiate his views. Instead, I see comments like Tim Stanley’s at the Telegraph:

Dawkins writes that he is so disgusted with Craig’s thesis that he cannot possibly agree to meet him in person. “Do not plead that I have taken these revolting words out of context,” he adds. “What context could possibly justify them?”

Actually, the context is called “Christian apologetics”, and it’s been around for centuries.
[&hellip]

Ergo, Craig’s purpose in writing this piece is to unravel the paradox of a moral Bible that also includes lashings of apparently random violence. Craig stresses that these passages of the Bible are difficult for us to read because we are not of the age in which they are written – they are just as alien to us as Beowulf or the Iliad. That’s because Christian society has been shaped by the rules of life outlined in the New Testament, not in the section of The Bible in which this massacre occurs. Far from using this passage to celebrate the slaughter of heathen, Craig is making the point that the revelation of God’s justice has changed over time. The horrors of the Old Testament have been rendered unnecessary by Christ’s ultimate sacrifice. That’s why the idiots who protest the funerals of gay soldiers or blow up abortion clinics aren’t just cruel, they’re bad theologians.

See? It was the Old Testament god, not the New Testament god, who’s much nicer. Which is not to say that it was wrong of the Old Testament god to have thousands of people killed. That’s just par for the course.

And jbarham at TheBestSchools.org Blog:

Now, I do not mean to defend the book of Deuteronomy, or even to defend Professor Craig’s defense of that recalcitrant book. But I do think it is a little rich that Dawkins should seize on Craig’s more or less unexceptionable exercise in Christian apologetics as a means of wriggling out of what had clearly become for him a very disagreeable situation.

(emphasis added.)

Really? Excusing mass murder is “unexceptionable […] apologetics”?

This is also cited without comment (and therefore, I assume, tacit approval) at Uncommon Descent by “News” (whom I strongly suspect of being Denyse O’Leary).

And Christians have the gall to accuse atheists of having no morals? As some guy once said, take the plank out of your own eye before complaining about the speck in your brother’s eye.

I Send Email

You may have seen this image floating around the web (also at Chez Hemant):

In case you don’t recognize the reference, it’s a photo of Hugh Laurie as Dr. Greg House, saying “Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.” For those who don’t know, House is not only an atheist, he’s also not shy about slamming religion, and never allows theists to get away with saying something stupid. I mention this in case someone thought maybe after the quote above, he went on to say something about the necessity of believing in transcendent spirituality because it’s psychologically true or some such nonsense. He didn’t. He wouldn’t.

So I don’t know what this church was thinking when it put up this banner. But I figure that the best way to find out would be to ask them. So I found a contact address on their web page and sent them mail:

Dear sir or madam,

There is a photo circulating on the Internet, purporting to show a banner outside Rathmine’s Parish, quoting the character House, from the TV show of the same name, saying “Rational arguments don’t usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people.” See http://twitter.com/#!/bdbdbdbd/status/124582300972351488

First of all, may I ask whether this is correct? I have no reason to believe that the photo has been edited, but it can’t hurt to ask.

Secondly, if the photo is accurate, then I admit I am as puzzled as the person who posted it to Twitter. It seems to say that there are no good rational arguments for religious claims, and indeed that rational arguments point toward the falsehood of religious claims. Certainly that is what the character meant in the show.

So may I ask why Rathmine’s Parish would display this? Is there some secondary meaning I’m not seeing?

Thank you,

We’ll see what kind of response I get, if any. It’s been two days, and so far I haven’t heard back.

Update, Oct. 28, 2011: I’ve heard back.

Sunday Morning Talk Show Playlist
  • The Police, Someone to Talk To
  • Opposition, Small Talk
  • Laurie Anderson, Talk Normal
  • Butthole Surfers, Let’s Talk About Cars
  • Talk Talk, Talk Talk
  • The Strokes, You Talk Way Too Much
  • Freezepop, Less Talk More Rokk
  • Cliff Richard, We Don’t Talk Anymore

Hemorrhaging Catholics in Brazil

The AP reports:

At the start of the last decade, millions of Brazilian Catholics joined flashy Pentecostal congregations expanding in the world’s biggest Catholic country. Now, Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation finds, the country’s Catholics are still leaving the church and at a higher rate than ever, but many younger parishioners, like Maragato, are simply becoming nonreligious.

Color me surprised. I knew (and the article confirms) that Latin America is considered a Catholic stronghold, one of the last places where you’d expect religion, especially Catholicism, to decline. Heck, even in the US, it appears that one reason religion hasn’t declined more precipitously than it has is that it’s being propped up by immigrants from the south. But according to the article, a study has found that 68% of Brazilians were Catholic last year, compared to 90% thirty years ago.

The article suggests several reasons for this decline, including a burgeoning middle class, which certainly goes well with the common notion that as the more well-off people are, the less they need to turn to religion.

This is also in part a self-inflicted wound:

Marcelo Neri, the author of the study, also said he thinks the Catholic decline was sparked by a “female revolution.”

The foundation study discovered that Catholic women, instead of giving up entirely on religion, are largely going to traditional Protestant denominations such as the Presbyterians or Methodists, which are viewed by many as less patriarchal.

This is the point, I think, at which any decent consultant would say that the franchise needs a reboot to remain relevant for modern audiences. Make Jesus a woman, or change the setting from Jerusalem 2000 years ago, to Sao Paulo in 2010. Maybe add a shootout at the last supper. Add corporate sponsorship and tie-ins; instead of bread and wine, have priests turn Big Macs and Coke into Jesus’ flesh and blood. Don’t worry about continuity: the fans will retcon it easily enough.

But of course the Catholic church is nothing if not reactionary. Change of any kind terrifies them. And so they’ll continue to lose the younger generation, the one that lives in this century instead of the fourteenth.

For lifelong Catholic Leila Ribeiro, the church’s misfortunes mark a break from generations of church tradition.
[…]

“I was brought up with the notion that religion is passed from mother to child, but I fear for what will happen to the church in his generation,” she said, looking toward her son. “If the Catholic faith isn’t spread within the family, how will it grow?”

Well, they could provide some evidence that their claims of magic people, of a candyland in the sky, and so on, are actually, you know, true. But they’ve been trying that for 2000 years now without success, so I wouldn’t bet on it happening any time soon.

Update, 12:49: More support for the “self-inflicted wound” hypothesis, courtesy of the Washington Post. Not in Brazil this time, but in the US:

New research by the Barna Group finds they view churches as judgmental, overprotective, exclusive and unfriendly towards doubters. They also consider congregations antagonistic to science and say their Christian experience has been shallow.
[…]

“Churches are not prepared to handle the ‘new normal,’” said Kinnaman. “However, the world for young adults is changing in significant ways, such as their remarkable access to the world and worldviews via technology, their alienation from various institutions, and their skepticism toward external sources of authority, including Christianity and the Bible.”