A-Theist Does Not Mean A-Moral

Greta Christina is a blogger who writes about atheism (among many other things, not always suitable for work or family) over at the cleverly eponymously monickered Greta Christina's Blog. She has begun a new project -- The Facebook Atheist Meme of the Day. See here, here, and here.

I'm doing a project on my Facebook page: The Atheist Meme of the Day. Every weekday, I'm going post a short, pithy, Facebook-ready atheist meme... in the hopes that people will spread them, and that eventually, the ideas will get through.

Her project, and many of the reactions to the Facebook posts, started me thinking about one of the anti-atheist memes that still is very widespread. This is the theory that the lack of belief in a god leaves one without any moral grounding. In other words, without gods (or God), anything is permissible. Or maybe even ("Horrors!"), encouraged. This particular meme is #2 in Greta's Eleven Myths and Truths About Atheists --

2: Atheists are immoral: without religion, there's no basis for morality.

Now, for must of us who take life seriously, thinking about morality is an important part of what we do. There's the old "An unexamined life is not worth living" (Socrates, I think.) There are the problems of dealing with other people and institutions. There are the issues of raising children to be prepared to go out into the world by themselves. Atheists are no different from anybody else in these concerns.

Greta will probably come up with some nicely worded pithiness that summarizes her position if a sentence or two. Her post from March of 2008, The Not So Logical Conclusion: On the Morality of Atheists and Believers, probably lays out the direction she will go.

So, I set myself the task to come up with an atheist meme about morality. I'm sure it won't be as good as what Greta produces -- she's a much better writer -- but the exercise has been be useful.

I think most people who believe the myth are still very much in thrall of Strict-Big-Daddy-In-The-Sky-Ism.  Without a strong father figure, we're all going to hell in a handbasket. Even this statement reveals the sexism, dominance and fear-mongering that is crucial for this particular brand of Control-Ism to succeed. But this view isn't at all necessary for a coherent and effective morality.

First, we need to now what morality is. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy starts its definition of morality with this:

The term “morality” can be used either

1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or, some other group, such as a religion, or accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons

In either case, morality is a code of conduct. In other words, it's about behavior, not thoughts. The old saying that you can't legislate morality is wrong. In fact, most of our legislation is about morality -- the ways people behave towards other people. You can't legislate what people think or feel, however, which is what the saying is trying to communicate.

As an atheist coming from at least a cultural Judeo-Christian background (see here), starting with the acknowledged sources of some of our moral sense is useful. The Bible contains two major concepts of exemplary morality -- the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and the Golden Rule (ethic of reciprocity) of the New Testament. Although the Ten Commandments are a hodge-podge of prescriptive and proscriptive injunctions, they are mostly a descriptive code of conduct. Just as the Bible itself becomes mostly gentler and kinder as it moves from the chronicles of an Iron Age society to the inspirational message of a more modern world, the basis of morality becomes more universal by the time of the New Testament. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an ethical normative meme that spans countries, civilizations, and time. The commandments that deal with human interactions can be seen (with some slight rewording) as examples of the Golden Rule.

Similarly, Western culture has absorbed the prescriptive meme of karma -- "What goes around, comes around" and "Instant karma's gonna get you" -- and has begun to unravel the ramifications of the normative meme of Pay-It-Forward-Ism.

In game theory as applied to social interactions, the tit for tat and tit for tat with forgiveness tactics in the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma seem to be the best deterministic strategies. Cooperate until betrayed and then respond in kind (maybe with a little "I forgive you for defecting that last time" thrown in.)

So, where have I gotten? So far, the best I can come up with is:

Atheists know that morality is the human response to issues of social interaction, not delivered from on high. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is not just a rule – it’s a Good Idea.

The Power of Visualization

One of the things that the development of computers has made possible is incredibly powerful visual images. It's almost impossible to find a movie made in the last 10-20 years that doesn't make some use of CGI (computer generated imagery.) Stick around through the credits of any recent realistic movie and you will see that somebody is being credited with computer imagery or enhancement. And we're not talking Beowulf or the latest Pixar flic but all normal, "realistic" movies.

But that's not the only kind of visualization that computers have made possible. A very powerful tool is data visualization. This involves taking data and devising a visual presentation of it. There need not be anything new about the data -- just the presentation.

The folks over at GapMinder.org have developed just such a tool. The video below shows some of the kinds of things you can notice and learn just by visualizing data that used to be presented in pages of numbers with the occasional chart or three.

If you find this intriguing, head on over to GapMinder World where you can play with a large number of different datasets from the convenience of your own browser. Maybe you'll come up with some insights that others haven't seen yet.

How Cute ....

 
... and a transitional fossil to boot!

One of the constant complaints of IDers and creationists is that there aren't any transitional fossils. This, of course, misses the point that all fossils are transitional fossils. But here is evidence (not the drawing, but the linked article with video) of an early cousin of the awesome Tyrannosaurus rex.



This is a conception of the Raptorex.

Despite what many newspapers will assuredly tell you, Raptorex isn't the ancestor of Tyrannosaurus although it probably looked very much like what this hypothetical animal would have done. It's more like an early cousin, but one that's clearly more closely related to T.rex and its giant kin than any of the other smaller species so far discovered.

You can read all about it over at the marvelous Not Exactly Rocket Science blog. And watch carefully for the depiction of the teeny-tiny brain these creatures had (but apparently a very good sense of smell.)

Music and Aerodynamics

I suppose if Philip Glass can create a piece of music/theatre called 1000 Airplanes On The Roof, it makes sense for Karlheinz Stockhausen to create the Helicopter String Quartet. From the Wiki:

A performance requires: four helicopters, each equipped with a pilot and sound technician, television transmitter and 3-channel sound transmitter, and an auditorium with four columns of televisions and loudspeakers, a sound technician with mixing desk, and a moderator (optional), as well as the members of the string quartet. The piece focuses on the simple idea of a string quartet, with the rotor blades acting as a second instrument, with microphones placed so the helicopters may blend with the instruments themselves, whilst the instruments remain louder than the blades. The piece is played as follows. A moderator, who may be the sound technician, introduces the quartet, and then explains the technical aspects of the piece. The players must then walk, or be driven if necessary, to the helicopters, always being visible to the auditorium audience by camera. The embarkation is also shown, the musicians and instruments remaining constantly in the view of the cameras, with no camera changes. Behind each player the ground can be seen, as well as the glass. Then the piece begins. The original version lasted approximately 18½ minutes, but the 1995 revision was extended to 21½ minutes. The helicopters circle at a radius of 6 km from the auditorium, changing altitude constantly to create the 'bounce' of the piece. All 12 incoming signals are controlled by the sound technician. The descent lasts five minutes, with the decreasing sound of the rotor blades acting as a background as the quartet re-enter the hall. The moderator then takes questions and leads applause.

Here's a short excerpt:

Well, It Didn't Just Happen ...

Probability is one of those things that people are just not very good at unless trained. There are probably some good reasons why evolution didn't help us come with the intrinsic Calculators of Large Numbers we would need to not be misled so easily.

Psychologically, we seem to be much more attuned to the false positives in our data gathering than to the false negatives. Of course, interpreting a rustle in the grass as a possible snake and taking action is much more prudent (in terms of survival) than to dismiss the rustle of a snake as just the wind. Combining this tendency with inadequate number-crunching skills leads us down many a garden path (or blind alley.)

Coincidences fool us all the time. The Gambler's Fallacy helps drain bank accounts every day. Lucky numbers become signposts on our journeys. Superstitions are usually born from misunderstood coincidences.

The folk over at QualiaSoup have addressed this issue with another fine video that begins with one of my favorite examples, the Birthday Paradox. The Birthday Paradox, of course, isn't really a paradox but just something that is counter-intuitive — which just shows how our intuitions about probability aren't very good.

Political Rhetoric Explained by Steven Pinker

A bit from a talk by Steven Pinker, one of the more interesting writers on psychology, mind, and language. I particularly liked his quotation of Michael Kinsley's definition of a gaffe:

... a gaffe is when a politician says something that is true.

His discussion of how words can become colored like swear words is intriguing. Liberal in America connotes something much different than in does in Canada.

This clip is just an excerpt from the full video. See info in the clip to get the whole thing.

John Cage (Unplugged)

Nowadays, when a musician's performance is characterized as "unplugged" it means that the normally electric instruments are not used, just "acoustic" ones. In this historic footage from 1960(!), avant garde composer John Cage is featured on the TV show "I've Got A Secret." Network television (when there were only three networks.) Prime time (when Prime Time actually was prime time.)

Figuring, I suppose, that the game of guessing his secret would be too difficult and, as host Gary Moore explained, to allow for sufficient time for the complete performance to take place, the game portion of the event was eliminated and Cage's secret was just announced. He would perform his composition Water Walk using: a water pitcher, an iron pipe, a goose call, a bottle of wine, an electric mixer, a whistle, a sprinkling can, ice cubes, 2 cymbals, a mechanical fish, a quail call, a rubber duck, a tape recorder, a vase of roses, a seltzer siphon, 5 radios, a bathtub, and a grand piano.

I suppose guessing the secret probably would have been a little on the difficult side.

There was, however, a glitch in the system. Two different unions were contesting which should plug in the radios. There was no resolution so the radios were to be unplugged for the performance. Cage explained his workaround before beginning the performance and the radios were not played although they were still used.

I haven't figured out yet why the other electrical gadgets (tape recorder and mixer) did not enter into the dispute. Maybe the sticking point had something to do with music or actors being broadcast over the airwaves.

Enjoy! Oh, yes, TV was mostly in black and white back then.

Originally from: WFMU's Beware of the Blog — A Radio Station That Bites Back