Expelled founder Paul Kurtz explains his departure from the Center for Inquiry

On May 18, 2010 the Center for Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry jointly announced that they had accepted the resignation of Paul Kurtz from each of these boards. Kurtz, who had founded each of these three organizations, had been serving on each of the boards, and as well as serving as Chair Emeritus of CSH and as Editor in Chief of CSH's flagship publication, Free Inquiry. In the joint announcement, the boards recognized Dr. Kurtz for his "decades of service to the Council for Secular Humanism, the Center for Inquiry (CFI), and its other affiliates." This same announcement also contained the following statement:

At Paul Kurtz's behest, CFI and its affiliates began years ago to organize a leadership transition. Moreover, in recent years the board had concerns about Dr. Kurtz's day-to-day management of the organization.

As a long-time subscriber to Free Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer, I was familiar with many of the writings of Paul Kurtz, but I had never before spoken with him or corresponded with him. As a result of reading his articles at Free Inquiry, I was also aware that there was internal tension at those organizations (e.g., see here , here, and here). After reading about his resignation, I emailed a short note to Mr. Kurtz to wish him well in light of the announcement of his resignation. I also asked him whether he would allow me to interview him with regard to the announcement. He agreed: [Note: CFI's CEO Ron Lindsay responded to the following interview of Paul Kurtz here.] EV: To what extent was your resignation from the Center for Inquiry voluntary? PK: It was done voluntarily, but under great duress. [caption id="attachment_14572" align="alignright" width="150" caption="Paul Kurtz (Permission by Wikimedia Commons)"][/caption] -- EV: What were your titles and job duties prior to your resignation. PK: I founded the modern skeptics movement and sustained it for over three and a half decades. I had been the Chairman of the Center for Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. In June, 2008, I was made "Emeritus" and stripped of any authority. Since 1980, I was Editor-in-Chief for Free Inquiry, but starting in June 2008, I no longer had any authority. I never received any compensation working for these organizations. I worked as a volunteer, living off savings I accrued while working as a philosophy professor. In fact, my wife and I donated more than $2 million dollars over the years to CFI, CSH and CSI. We were the second largest donors to these organizations. Over the years, I helped to raise over $40 million for the Center for Inquiry. -- EV: I saw the announcement of your resignation in the August/September, 2010 issue of Free Inquiry. Why didn't you publish any explanation regarding your resignation in Free Inquiry? PK: Tom Flynn and the CFI Board refused to run my letter of resignation in Free Inquiry or any of the Websites of CFI. It was censorship, clear and simple. I was censored four times, beginning in June 2008. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingExpelled founder Paul Kurtz explains his departure from the Center for Inquiry

Alleged problems with small attorneys riding big elephants

I've previously written about Jonathan Haidt's approach to human moral psychology. His approach is termed the "Social Intuitionist Model" of moral motivation and it suggests that

moral behaviors are typically the product of multiple levels of moral functioning, and are usually energized by the "hotter" levels of intuition, emotion, and behavioral virtue/vice. The "cooler" levels of values, reasoning, and willpower, while still important, are proposed to be secondary to the more affect-intensive processes.

Haidt has used the metaphor of an intellectually-nimble lawyer riding on top of a huge emotion-permeated elephant to illustrate his counter-intuitive approach, suggesting that the small articulate lawyer on top often lacks meaningful control over the elephant. Moral judgments are usually dominated by emotions such as empathy and disgust (the strength of these is represented by the big-ness of the elephant). In short, Haidt is quite sympathetic to David Hume's suggestion that moral reasoning is essentially "the slave of the passions." In the March 25, 2010 edition of Nature (available here), Paul Bloom expressed concern that something important has been left out of Haidt's model. In reaction, Haidt defended himself against Bloom’s attack (see below), indicating that Bloom (whose work Haidt admires, for the most part) has misconstrued Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model. I believe that summarizing this exchange between Haidt and Bloom sharpens the focus on the meaning of Haidt’s Social Intuitionist Model. [More . . . ]

Continue ReadingAlleged problems with small attorneys riding big elephants

I hadn’t thought of this . . .

Life Hacks offers many ideas, some of them useful. Here's one I had not previously considered, but it only applies to those of you who are on the clock (it doesn't work for salaried folks). Don't poop at home. Wait until you are at work:

Get Paid to Poop. You'll be using less of your own time and more of your company's time. If you poop for an average of 10 min per day, your company will have paid you for more than 40 hours of pooping by the end of the year. That's half as long as most paid vacations.
Though I hadn't considered the the advantage of pooping at work prior to reading this, I had considered the aggregate cost of shaving before. Even if it only takes 3 minutes per day to shave, that amounts to 1,095 minutes = more than 18 hours per year. I will plainly admit that that is one of the reasons that I chose to be bearded. Or consider that you might want to aggressively label unwanted email as junk. What if you spend even 1 minute per day deleting unwanted emails? That's six hours per year deleting individual emails. One more example. What if you ride a bike to work each day instead of driving a car (this is easy to do if you live within 5 miles of your work place--I've done it every day this week). This means there is no need to work out after work, because I've already exercised by getting to and from work. Further, it only takes 10 minutes longer to ride a bike 5 miles in the city than to drive it (it takes about 22 minutes to ride and 12 minutes to drive). Assuming that you would have worked out about 45 minutes if you didn't commute by bike, you are saving at least 25 minutes per day exercising, which is 152 hours per year, which is the equivalent of more than 3 workweeks of vacation.

Continue ReadingI hadn’t thought of this . . .

9/11 as an excuse

At a site called Global Researcher I spotted an article titled, "Did 9/11 Really 'Change Everything'? Or Was It Simply an Excuse to Implement Existing War Plans?" Lots of well-chosen links substantiate that the Bush Administration was itching to invade Iraq long before 9/11. I offer this trackback as a potential comeback to use when someone says, "9/11 changed everything."

Continue Reading9/11 as an excuse