I just finished reading Michael Shermer's book, "Why People Believe Weird Things." It's very long-winded -- the book could easily be 1/10th its size and still make the same points -- but it did make me realize one thing. The book discusses alien abduction as an example of a weird…
Why do we laugh? Introspection and common sense tell us that we laugh because someone said or did something funny. This is usually incorrect, however. In Laughter (2000), Robert Provine reported the results of his carefully conducted experiments, showing that in social situations, between 80 and 90% of laughing is not a response to jokes or other formal attempts at humor. Rather, most laughing is in response to innocuous statements such as “I’ll see you guys later.” “I should do that, but I’m too lazy” or “I told you so!”
Provine has found that laughing serves a function similar to small talk: it facilitates or maintains social bonds. “Laughing plays a . . . nonlinguistic role in social bonding solidifying friendships and pulling people into the fold. You can define ‘friends’ and ‘group members’ as those with whom you laugh.” In The Human Story, Robin Dunbar cites studies finding that laughing is correlated with the release of endorphins and that this release of hormones facilitates bonding.
Unless we’re at a comedy club, then, laughing usually serves a function much different than common sense and introspection suggest. The research of Provine and Dunbar is but one of many examples where conventional wisdom and introspection fail to explain human behavior. Where one truly wants to understand human cognition, one must turn to the scientific method.
We need to keep this caveat in mind because common sense seduces us with powerful illusions, illusions that look like uncontestable “facts” to those of us who …
I can’t believe that it’s actually necessary to argue that we should allow medical research that might give numerous people a fighting change to survive horrible diseases. But here we are. We live in an age where many things have been turned upside down.
I wrote the following letter on November 27, 2005 after attending Catholic Mass at a church in my neighborhood. I attended because I had heard that priests throughout Missouri had been instructed by their superiors to preach against a proposed Missouri Constitutional Amendment that would allow stem cell research to continue
Washington University in St. Louis is a major medical research center that conducts stem cell research. The Missouri legislature has regularly threatened to prohibit stem cell research in Missouri, giving rise to a proposed Amendment that is being promoted by The Missouri Coalition for Lifesaving Cures.
MCLC describes the amendment as follows:
…Should Missouri patients have access to medical cures that are available to other Americans?
That’s the key issue that led a coalition of patient and medical groups to develop the Missouri Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative, a voter referendum measure proposed for the November 2006 statewide ballot.Stem cells could provide cures for diseases and injuries that afflict hundreds of thousands of Missouri children and adults and millions of other Americans – including diabetes, Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease, ALS, sickle cell disease and spinal cord injury.
Unfortunately, some politicians in Jefferson City are trying to pass state laws that would ban
I love that there are people like Erich Vieth in the world, people who take the time to refute dangerous “fact” spouters like the Creationists who got themselves powered up to the top of the Google listings for vestigial organs. I love that he researches so thoroughly and carefully points out the enormous flaws in what passes for logic in the world of the fanatical faithful. They need to be pointed out, those flaws. Because in recent years, their voices have become very, very loud. And often, unfortunately, loud wins. Especially when loud is accompanied by legislation, or worse, explosives.
Seems fanatics, whether they be Christian, Muslim or otherwise, are dead-set on yelling the loudest and therefore claiming victory. It pains me. It obviously pains lots of people; even most flocks of the faithful can see that anything carried too far becomes dangerous. People like Erich, or Al Franken, say, do good work. I applaud them.
I, on the other hand, might be more likely to just cover my ears and say “la-la-la-la-LA-I-CAN’T-HEAR-YOU!”
Yeah, yeah, I know, not particularly effective in the battle against ignorance. It’s just that I get soooo tired of it. Of the fighting, of the rhetoric, of the nonsense that parades as so much religion and the often arrogant verbosity working to knock down the many points of faith, one at a time, but not being heard because, after all, if you believe, you don’t need proof. Or un-proof, as it were.
I happen …
Here’s a partial list: Wings on flightless birds. Small Leg bones on modern whales. Eyes that are found in blind animals such as Astyanax fasciatus (a species of fish) and moles. Because I wanted to know more about these useless animal parts, I checked some popular creationist web sites: Investigating…