The irony of the Lucifer Effect

A light-hearted look at the psychology of evil

Philip Zimbardo wrote a book entitled The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. The premise of this book is that certain kinds of social situations have the power to turn otherwise good people into evil-doers. He calls this phenomenon "the Lucifer effect", a name which I consider rather ironic for reasons that will become clear. 

Zimbardo has long been an outspoken critic of "dispositionalist" explanations for behavior, which attribute a person’s actions and even their station in life to internal factors, such as their character traits, otherwise known as personality dispositions. In this naïve version of dispositionalism, good people do good things and bad people do bad things. Zimbardo disagrees with this view, and argues that situational factors external to the person are quite often much more important in explaining behavior than their personality. He argues that when it comes to evil-doing, most people want to blame the person without understanding the situational forces that have shaped their actions. He asserts that under certain circumstances:

People become transformed, just as the good angel, Lucifer, was transformed into the devil. Situations matter much more than most people realize or acknowledge.

William Blake's depiction of Satan tormenting Job - one hell of a situation for Job. 

He likes to uphold the (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment as a demonstration of the power of an evil situation to corrupt otherwise nice, normal people into doing terrible things they otherwise would not do. He has also applied situational analyses to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, arguing that contrary to what the Pentagon and the military said, the guards who tortured and abused prisoners were not a few “bad apples” but were actually good people corrupted by an “evil barrel”, that is, a horrible situation in which systemic factors helped to create a culture in which people had little choice but to become abusers.

It’s not the bad apples, it’s the bad barrels that corrupt good people. Understanding the abuses at this Iraqi prison starts with an analysis of both the situational and systematic forces operating on those soldiers working the night shift in that ‘little shop of horrors.’

'Little shop of horrors' indeed. Zimbardo might argue this woman was a good person turned evil by a corrupt situation. But what about her personal responsibility for her actions? 

I have written elsewhere about why I think that Zimbardo has created a false dichotomy between dispositional and situational explanations and I believe that he greatly overstates his case. (See this post for an alternative explanation of the Stanford Prison Experiment, and a further critique of situationism here and here.) But what I want to briefly highlight here is the irony of using the mythological Lucifer as an exemplar of the power of situations to turn good people evil as an alternative to a dispositional account.

Zimbardo briefly recaps the story of Lucifer in Chapter One of his book:

... the ultimate transformation of good into evil, the metamorphosis of Lucifer into Satan. Lucifer, the “light bearer,” was God’s favorite angel until he challenged God’s authority and was cast into Hell along with his band of fallen angels.

(He also provides a more detailed account of the traditional story of Lucifer on his web site.) Let’s consider the nature of this transformation. Why did Lucifer turn from good into evil? Was it because of external situational factors that put him under horrendous stress? Systematic forces over which he had no control that created a culture of abuse? No. According to the legend, Lucifer dwelt in Heaven with God. That is, he was in the purest, most perfect situation that can be conceived of, wanting for nothing in an eternally blissful place. His fall from grace is traditionally attributed to the sin of pride, of wanting to usurp the authority of God. A personality psychologist might describe him as narcissistic in the extreme. Therefore, his transformation was not due to external situational factors at all – unless one wants to accuse God of running a “little shop of horrors” – but due to his internal disposition towards pride. Therefore, the Lucifer Effect is ironically named after the most purely dispositional and non-situational account of evil that mythology can provide. For a situationist like Zimbardo, Lucifer is probably the worst example he could come up with of the effect that he is trying to illustrate. Perhaps a better name for the phenomenon of good people being turned into evil monsters by forces outside their control might be the "lycanthropy effect". There are popular legends of unfortunate people unlucky enough to be bitten or scratched by a werewolf who end up becoming werewolves themselves. Lucifer's transformation into Satan was self-willed, but in this version of the werewolf legend people who become werewolves are victims of circumstance rather than "bad apples" who make poor choices. 

 Perhaps the sequel could be called An American Werewolf in Abu Ghraib?

So a better explanation of the situationist view of evil might be explained thus:

People become transformed, just as innocent people bitten by a werewolf are turned into terrifying undead monsters, a process which has nothing to do with their personality dispositions or their personal choices.  

Admittedly, a more gruesome metaphor than the story of Lucifer, but hopefully one that is a better fit to an ideology of victimisation in which people are not to blame for their actions because the real causes lie outside themselves. 

For a more serious and scholarly review of Zimbardo's book, I would recommend Lucifer's Last Laugh: The Devil is in the Details by Joachim Krueger. 

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Making a mockery of the principle of charity: or see how easy it is to ridicule atheism when you don't understand it

People become atheists for all sorts of reasons, but one of the more commonly cited reasons is that atheism is a rational and reasonable position to take based on the lack of evidence for the existence of any sort of god. However, it is not uncommon for religious believers to argue that atheism is somehow based on faith and is inherently irrational, presumably more so than standard religious beliefs. A recent example of an attempt to argue for the irrationality of atheism can be seen in the online magazine Philosophy Now, in a piece by Stephen Anderson, a philosophy teacher in Ontario. A striking feature of Anderson’s article is that he repeatedly claims that he is doing his best to observe the principle of charity, by addressing atheism’s “strongest and most representative form, rather than in any of its weaker or less representative forms.” I find this deeply ironic, as what he actually addresses is a straw man version of atheism that very few atheists indeed would accept as representing their views. Hence, he has not been charitable at all.

Anderson’s article is verbose and convoluted and contains much that is of doubtful relevance, so I will try to summarise the key points as best I can. He begins by noting that although atheism was once a hazardous position to hold, it has now become a respectable and orthodox one that is no longer particularly radical.

Today, atheism has taken its comfortable seat by the fire and has its feet up… Atheism has never been so respectable.

This ignores the fact that in some parts of the world today, professing atheism remains extremely hazardous. Consider for example, recent cases of atheist bloggers being hacked to death in Bangladesh. But I digress. The purpose of Anderson’s article is to examine the credibility of atheism as a philosophical position.

He states that it is important to define what atheism actually is. He then argues that in doing so we should observe the principle of charity, a subject he reiterates many times. A detailed explanation of this principle can be read here. Here is Anderson’s take:

This means we ought to address an opposing view in its strongest and most representative form, rather than in any of its weaker or less representative forms. In charity, then, we must ask ourselves, ‘What is the strongest form of atheism?’

This is actually a decent summary of what the principle means. However, from this point on things take a strange turn indeed. He notes that atheism derives from Greek roots combining the word for god with the prefix ‘a’ signifying negation. (However, this prefix is more usually translated as ‘without’ and is used in this sense in many English words, e.g. acausal, ‘having no cause’.) Therefore, Anderson asserts, atheism claims that “there exists no kind of god.” This definition may come as a surprise to many people who consider themselves atheists, who prefer to define it as lack of belief in gods, which is subtly different from the assertion that gods absolutely do not exist. Vlogger QualiaSoup sums up this view in an excellent video on the subject as “Gods don’t feature among the things that I believe exist.” The claim that “there exists no kind of god” represents what is sometimes called “strong” or “positive” atheism, as opposed to “weak” or “negative” atheism. In practice, positive atheism seems to be very rare, and most self-described atheists are of the negative variety.

However, Anderson will have none of this. He argues that “a less categorical definition” of atheism that “allows for softer forms of skepticism” will not do, because “atheists will surely want to reject that.” His argument is that a “less-than-firm stand on the question of the existence of a Supreme Being” is already known as agnosticism, and that atheists will not be satisfied with agnosticism because it is no more than a personal declaration of one’s own lack of knowledge that fails to bind anyone else. Hence, the “strongest” and hence most charitable version of atheism in his view is positive atheism. I consider this to be a weird application of the principle of charity. As he stated earlier, according to this principle, one should address the “strongest” version of an argument. Usually, this is taken to mean the most persuasive, most reasonable, and therefore the best version. Yet in this case, Anderson conflates “strongest” with the most literal and extreme meaning he can think of. Anderson also stated that according to the principle of charity we should address the “most representative” form of atheism, yet the definition he provides hardly seems representative of what most atheists would consider the best and most reasonable form of atheism: a lack of belief in gods due to the absence of evidence that any such entities exist. 

In order to buttress his argument that a less absolute form of atheism is not acceptable to atheists he gives a silly and convoluted example of someone being agnostic about the existence of Denmark because they have never been there. He then argues with no evidence whatsoever that an agnostic who has no personal knowledge of the existence of gods “has no logical reason at all to insist that no one else can possibly have such knowledge.” This is because some people do claim to have actual knowledge of god’s existence, so agnosticism cannot be generally applicable. Anderson does not address arguments that skeptics have made that these kinds of “knowledge” that some people claim to have (e.g. personal experiences of a mystical nature) are not valid claims about objective reality, or that knowledge of the existence of god may actually be impossible. Instead, he proceeds to argue that atheists will not be satisfied with mere agnosticism because it “does not sponsor the kind of firm commitment implicit in atheism.” (Perhaps he has never heard of agnostic atheism?) He then goes on not only to argue that atheists cannot admit to any sort of uncertainty, but to insist that this really is a charitable interpretation of what atheism is actually about in the real world:

If I'm wrong about this, I'm open to being challenged: maybe atheists don’t mind pulling the deadweight of those who may be less than firm in their metaphysical doubts. But the charity principle seems to suggest we must accord atheism the firmness its most passionate advocates want it to have. Thus we have to take atheists at their word, understanding their claim as being that there is ‘no God.’ Period.

Please note that at this point he has not cited the word of a single one of these “most passionate advocates” to prove that they actually do insist that atheism must be the claim that “there exists no kind of god.” Later on he even acknowledges that Richard Dawkins, surely one of the most passionate advocates of atheism today, does not actually insist on this level of firmness. I will return to this point later. For now, I will briefly look at the remainder of his arguments.

He rambles on at great length at this point, in order to make two arguments that atheism is inherently irrational. Firstly, he disputes the claim that atheists’ disbelief is based on evidence. His argument is that because atheism involves an absolute negation of the existence of gods, that this would only be justified if atheists had absolute proof, which would require them to have godlike knowledge of everything in the universe. Obviously this is silly, so atheists are deeply silly people who do not realise just how illogical and irrational they are. To further hammer home his point, his second argument, accompanied by yet another convoluted and inane example, is that atheism requires proving a negation to be true, which is clearly impossible, therefore atheism is ridiculous.

He then goes on to say something I found infuriating in its smugness:

Now, we have been trying to be kind to atheism, not going beyond what it claims. We have done our best to observe the principle of charity in describing its essential features.

 Tried to be kind?? Not gone beyond what it claims?? He still has not specified who actually makes these claims that he thinks are so ridiculous, and yet he still insists he has done his best to be charitable! Is this some kind of joke? Remember that the principle of charity means that one is supposed to address the “most representative” form of an argument that one wishes to argue against. Yet he then goes on to state that Richard Dawkins, “contemporary atheism’s most famous proponent” does not actually endorse this view of atheism. Anderson argues that Dawkins has “realised the problem” that “atheism simply is not a rational choice” and “publicly declared himself a ‘convinced agnostic.’” As evidence of this he links to a YouTube video with the misleading title Richard Dawkins: I can't be sure God does not exist.

Because there is so much difference between being 100%  and only 99.9% certain 

However, what Anderson fails to note is that in the video Dawkins acknowledges that he is an agnostic, and states that the problem he has with that term is that for most people it connotes a stance that there is a 50-50 chance that god exists, whereas he regards the probability of god’s existence as “very, very low”. Hence he refers to himself as a "de facto atheist". He goes on to point out that in his book The God Delusion he argued that it may be useful to rate belief in god on, say, a 7-point scale, where 1 represents “I know god exists” and 7 represents “I know god does not exist.” As for Dawkins himself, he would rate himself a 6.9 on the 7-point scale.

Anderson argues that Dawkins only seems to use the term atheist as a “rhetorical flourish” and that deep down he understands how deeply irrational atheism really is. In spite of Anderson’s repeated insistence that he has been as charitable as possible, this take on what Dawkins actually thinks is about as disingenuous as could be. Since Dawkins has taken pains to be clear that his version of atheism is not the same as the “irrational, ridiculous” version that Anderson critiques, then surely the most charitable interpretation is that Anderson’s version of atheism does not accurately represent what Dawkins means by the term in the first place. After all, critiquing a straw man that no-one actually believes is the complete opposite of what the principle of charity entails.

Anderson’s final paragraph indulges in some cheap cynicism about why atheism has become so popular in academia, stating smugly that since atheism cannot be justified on a philosophical basis it must be just empty posturing. I would be so bold as to venture that perhaps it has become so popular in academia because most academics are smart people who have a better grasp of logical reasoning than Anderson shows here. Anderson seems to reveal something of the true nature of his motives for writing this egregious piece of sophistry near the end: 

As for the Supreme Being, if He has seemed reticent to weigh in on this debate, it is not too surprising. Those who claim to know something about Him have often insisted that God is particularly uninterested in bowing to the demands of the hard-hearted cynic.

My response is “Good luck with trying to convince anyone of the existence of the Supreme Being with this pretentious bit of non-logic supported by no evidence.”
Anderson ends his piece with this charming bit of prose:

Even by our most charitable account, we have seen that atheism is a disingenuous, bombastic claim to certainty, one without evidence or logic. What then can one call it but foolishness?

As I hope I have made clear, Anderson’s version of atheism is not a charitable one at all, but a nonsensical caricature, ironically itself without evidence or logic. Hence if anyone is guilty of being disingenuous, bombastic, and foolish, it is Anderson himself.

I dedicate this article to the memory of my old school friend Sean McGerty, who sadly passed away in August 2015. I hope this article is something he might have enjoyed. 

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided.

Cat and Dog people under attack! Cynicism and ignorance passing as science journalism

According to an unpublished study that has attracted attention recently, cat people are more intelligent than dog people. Details of the study and its findings are provided in this press release, and it has been widely reported on many websites, such as Time and Huffington Post. As the study has not yet been published, I cannot comment in any depth on its quality, but from what little I have seen so far, I would say that it seems sound enough in terms of its scientific rigour. However, science journalist Faye Flam, writing for Knight Science Journalism at MIT, begs to differ. In a piece titled Cat people smarter than dog people? Study should be a hoax, but probably isn't, Flam takes the position that the study is meaningless rubbish designed to get publicity, and that thinking people should not take it seriously. However, Flam's critique demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge or insight into the topic, lacks substance and seems to be little more than an exercise in cheap cynicism.

Differences in personality traits between people who describe themselves either as "cat people" or "dog people" have been researched in a number of academic studies. For example, one well-known study found that cat people differed from dog people in all of the Big Five personality traits, being lower in extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, and higher in neuroticism and openness to experience. (I have discussed the implications of this particular study in an article on my blog on Psychology Today.) Another interesting and soon to be published paper on this topic looking at other personality traits can be viewed here. The study I focus on here, by Denise Guastello and colleagues, looked at yet another set of personality traits (Cattell's 16PF), and also appears to be the first study of its kind to examine whether cat and dog people differ in intelligence. The study surveyed 600 college students, and found that not only did cat and dog people differ on a variety of personality traits, in line with previous research, but that cat people scored higher than dog people in a measure of intelligence.

Although the details are somewhat sketchy, so far as I can tell, this seems like a valid research design with reasonable conclusions. Openness to experience is associated with intelligence and knowledge (e.g. see this article), and previous research has found that cat people are higher than dog people in this trait, so it does not seem all that surprising that they would be higher in intelligence as well. Of course, it is possible that the results found by Guastello and colleagues might turn out to be false positives or methodological artefacts, but in the absence of any evidence for this at this stage I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, Faye Flam seems inclined to be much more cynical than I am and goes on at some length about why she thinks the whole thing is a big joke. Unfortunately, she never provides any actual evidence why she thinks this is a reasonable position to take and shows considerable ignorance in the process.

Flam claims that there is a not so subtle formula one can use to whip up these kinds of studies that will grab international publicity. Apparently, doing substantive research that builds on existing knowledge does not enter into it, it's all about marketing I suppose. 

All you have to do is round up a few college students [Does 600 count as "a few"?], and divide them into two categories. It might be cat people vs. dog people, or baseball vs. soccer fans, or people who prefer fish tacos vs. those who prefer chicken tacos.

The implication here seems to be that the categories chosen by Guastello and colleagues for their study are actually arbitrary and meaningless in themselves, and chosen simply for being "cute." As I have noted, there is an existing body of literature - some of the relevant papers can even be found in a few seconds on google - that provides evidence supporting the validity of the concept of people self-identifying as cat or dog people, but Flam does not appear to have done even such a rudimentary search on the topic. She also fails to demonstrate that she knows anything at all about the literature on personality and intelligence testing.

Then give them some tests. Claim the tests reveal intelligence, or introversion/extroversion, or whatever seems sexy and attention-getting.

 Tests for assessing intelligence have been around for over a hundred years and have been intensively researched since then. Tests for assessing personality traits have been around for nearly as long and have also been intensively researched. The 16PF test that Guastello and colleagues used in their study was developed in the 1940s. Flam implies that such tests only "claim" to reveal these things, as if this is not really true, with the implication that they might as well be bogus and are only included so that one can generate some "sexy" but actually meaningless results. This completely ignores the thousands of research papers that have been written on the subject that show that these tests actually do measure meaningful aspects of behavior.

As long as the samples aren't really big, chance alone will ensure that the results will be slightly different. One group will always look a little smarter or more outgaining [sic, presumably she means "outgoing"] or whatever you claim you’re testing. If not, add more tests. That’s the nature of what scientists refer to as noise.

Well gosh darn it, if there was only some way of telling if group differences in test scores are nothing more than random chance fluctuations or real substantive differences! Oh wait a second, I just remembered there are these things called "statistical significance tests" that are designed exactly for this purpose. To be fair though, these tests are not perfect and it is true that if you perform multiple tests on the same sample some of the results might be statistically significant due to chance. Fortunately, there are procedures for correcting for multiple comparisons that are discussed in, oh I don't know, every basic statistics textbook ever. And what would Flam consider to be a "really big" sample size that would provide a valid test of whether or not the results are due to chance? There are statistical procedures for determining if a given sample size is adequate for the analyses being performed, but Flam does not say if she is aware of this or not.

Then assume your observed differences are not random noise but meaningful correlations and make up a story to explain it. The researchers in this case had a ready explanation for why the dog people were more “lively”…

 You mean the researchers actually attempted to provide an explanation for the results they observed?? Who do they think they are?? Oh, but wait a second, isn't this a normal part of science? Formulate a hypothesis, design a study to test it, analyse the results and then provide an explanation of what the results mean and whether or not they confirm the original hypothesis? I don't understand, what exactly is Flam's problem here? Here is the researcher's explanation that Flam quotes:

“It makes sense that a dog person is going to be more lively, because they're going to want to be out there, outside, talking to people, bringing their dog," Guastello said. "Whereas, if you're more introverted, and sensitive, maybe you're more at home reading a book, and your cat doesn't need to go outside for a walk.”

 Hmm, Guastello and colleagues gave some people who self-identified as cat people or dog people some well researched personality tests and the results indicated that they differed on the expected traits and then explain why they think this result makes sense. I fail to see what is so shockingly ridiculous or unscientific about this that Flam thinks the study deserves to be treated as some sort of hoax.

To be fair, Faye Flam does convey one nugget of real information that is worth noting.

Maybe the study was extremely carefully done, but there’s really no way to know. I can’t find a paper. It looks like it all started with a talk at a conference.

Flam is correct to point out that the study has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and what information is currently available derives from a conference presentation. Hence, news sites, such as Time and Huffington Post, that have hyped the results may be jumping the gun as it is impossible to assess the study’s rigour at this stage. If Flam had just pointed this out and left it at that I would not have a problem. However, there is no justification for what amounts to a cynical and uninformed accusation that the research study was performed in an academically shoddy manner simply to gain attention, an accusation based on no evidence whatsoever. Flam waits until near the end of her critique to acknowledge that for all she knows the study might be a very good one. Since she has no evidence that the study is actually a bad one, then what justification does she have for such an extreme lack of charity to the authors?

I would think that "science journalism" should attempt to provide an informed and thoughtful discussion of scientific issues, but what we have here is nothing but crud bereft of substance or insight. "Science dismissal" would be a more apt term for it.

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© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided.  

"Zeus might be Real!" And the Whole World might be Magic too!

The New York Times published a bizarre opinion piece by philosopher Gary Gutting called Did Zeus Exist? With apparent earnestness, Gutting argues that not only did the ancient Greeks have good reason to believe in the existence of Zeus (and presumably their other gods) but that we should take seriously the possibility that they might just have been right. Not that they were right, but that the idea is just plausible enough that we cannot reasonably dismiss it altogether. Naturally I have wondered if this is some sort of elaborate joke, but if so the punch line remains elusive. Perhaps it was intended as a provocative thought experiment to encourage critical thinking and scepticism about our own claims to knowledge. However, if this was the intention – and I have no proof that it is – then it fails miserably as the amount of uncritical nonsense presented to the reader is so shocking it has to be seen to be believed.

Could Zeus have existed just because people believed in him? What about fictional deities like Cthulhu or Sauron, could they exist on some mysterious plane of reality too?

Gutting acknowledges that we have no evidence at all today that Zeus existed, but that “back in the day (say, 500-400 B.C.), there would seem to have been considerable evidence” to justify believing in him. Let’s examine this “considerable” amount of evidence that Gutting assembles and see just how well it stands up under scrutiny.

Firstly, Gutting seems very impressed that most people in ancient Greek times apparently never even questioned the existence of divine beings. So if enough people believe in something, then there might be something to it then? Because that’s how the smart people decide what is true, by popular vote I suppose.

Oddly enough, after stating that few people ever questioned the existence of Zeus, not even clever fellows like Plato or Aristotle, he goes on to ask, “Why did belief in the gods persist in spite of critical challenges?” (Huh? I thought there were no critical challenges? I’m confused already.) He answers his own question, by stating that the Greeks were convinced by “experiences of divine actions in their lives.” He cites author Robert Parker: “The greatest evidence for the existence of gods is that piety works . . . the converse is that impiety leads to disaster.” Examples of piety at work include “clear expressions of a god’s favour such as weather conditions hampering an enemy, a miraculous escape, or a cure…” Oh yes, piety works alright – except when it doesn’t. For example, Hannibal’s successes in Italy were believed by the ancient Romans to be a sign of divine wrath. Presumably, failure to escape from a dangerous situation, or remaining ill in spite of prayers for a cure, were seen as signs of divine disfavour, rather than evidence that piety works no better than chance, or that the gods might not be real after all. Has Gutting honestly not heard of confirmation bias? Someone who believes in gods can easily interpret anything that happens as confirmation of their belief because the ways of the gods are inscrutable and mysterious. The fact that the ancient Greeks did exactly this is hardly impressive or evidence of anything except the gullibility of human nature.

Gutting does seem to be aware that there are mundane explanations for why people in ancient times might have believed in their gods, e.g. such as the sociological theory that organised religion reinforces social control of how people behave. However, he wants us to consider an alternative possibility:

“Yes, but why did the society so insist on belief in the gods? We may assume it’s simply for the sake of social control. But the reason could just as well be that everyone was rightly convinced — from their own and others’ experiences — that the gods existed. Then the control would derive from the belief, not vice versa.”

I think it is equally plausible to argue that the reason could just as well be that they were being manipulated by a super-computer from another galaxy. Then the control would derive from an extra-galactic source, not a sociological one.

He goes on to talk about something much more interesting than belief in omens. He notes that during religious rituals worshippers would sometimes actually experience a sense of contact with the divine, a conviction that they could feel the presence of the gods. I think this is a genuinely interesting psychological phenomenon, and people today still have experiences like this, although the particular gods involved depend on the specific religion of the worshipper. Gutting is aware that scientific explanations for such experiences have been proposed by psychologists and neuroscientists, but he summarily dismisses them.

“In principle, any experience of our daily lives can be produced by electrochemical alternations of the brain, but this does not show that, for example, I did not actually eat breakfast or talk to my wife this morning.”

Gosh, what an insightful response. Gutting seems to be saying: “Anything we experience might be an illusion or a hallucination; therefore, anything at all we can experience just might be real.”

If we take this seriously, then the fact that there is corroborating evidence for the existence of things like breakfasts or wives, but that there is no such evidence for the existence of gods, should not trouble us. I once did a research project on people with schizophrenia. One fellow I spoke to was adamant that he had a radioactive transmitter implanted in his brain that was the source of voices only he could hear that constantly abused him. By Gutting’s logic, we should take this man’s explanation of the voices that trouble him just as seriously as a more mundane psychiatric one. The fact that this man’s beliefs do not appear to be grounded in anything that most people would consider to be real is only a minor detail.

Gutting explains why the lack of any evidence for the existence of gods of any kind is not an issue:

“Yes, but the people who worshiped Zeus claimed to experience his presence in their everyday lives and, especially, in their religious ceremonies. There’s no reason for us to accept this claim, but we have no reason for thinking they were wrong.”

No reason?? Again, I am forced to wonder if this is some sort of joke. This is like saying that anything at all might be true and there is no way of knowing if certain beliefs might be wrong. In other words, modern science, with its careful attempts to discern between true and false ideas about reality, can go take a flying leap just because ancient peoples claimed to experience things they thought were of supernatural origin. Gutting goes on to up the ante by suggesting that ancient peoples might have lived in a different kind of reality altogether:

“But how can we be so sure that the Greeks lived in the same sort of world as we do? … This response has force only if we assume that there is very little likelihood of a world that contains supernatural forces. But we have no a priori basis for such an assumption. We may well think that our world contains little or no evidence of the supernatural. But that is no reason to think the same was true of the Greek world.”

This is a great argument. In essence, Gutting seems to be saying that we should take seriously the possibility that the world just might be a magical place where the nature of reality is not consistent over time. The ancient Greeks for all we know might have lived in some special world where the laws of science as we know them just did not apply. Ironic considering that the ancient Greeks were pioneers in the discovery of universal laws and regularities in nature that form the basis of modern science.

Gutting sums up his argument by stating that “atheistic denial” of Zeus’ existence is “ungrounded.” We have no reason, he says, to assume that the ancient Greeks lacked good evidence for his existence. Indeed, he might still exist today, but just remains in hiding! Gutting’s ideas about what constitute reason and good evidence seem to derive from Alice in Wonderland. He concludes thusly:

In any case, to the question, “May we properly remain agnostic about whether Zeus ever existed?” the answer is “Yes, we may.”

My response: “yes, we may… if we are prepared to jettison reason and seriously consider any and all fantasies as equally probable, no matter how crazy.”

Hat tip to The Friendly Atheist for alerting me to Gutting's article.

Near Earth Object has a nice succinct critique of the article as well.
Further reading - the following articles are about belief in non-human entities based on psychedelic drug experiences:
DMT, Aliens and Reality: Part 1 & Part 2.

© Scott McGreal. Please consider following me on Google Plus, or Twitter.

Who is "Islamophobic" really?

To be "phobic" of something is normally taken to mean to be frightened of it. The Greek word phobos actually means fear or terror, so it would make sense to think that people who are "Islamophobic" are those who are frightened of Islam. However, in recent times, the term "islamophobic" has been used to describe those who publicly criticise Islam such as Richard Dawkins and other "new atheists" e.g. in a rubbish article a few months ago by Salon.com.

However, this use of the term seems rather ironic to me, considering how much courage it takes to dare to criticise Islam in today's climate of fear.

Case in point: a student newspaper Woroni based at the Australian National University, the country's flagship university no less, ran a series of satirical articles about "Advice from Religion." The first four articles, which poked fun at Catholicism, Scientology, Mormonism, and Judaism respectively, all ran without problems. The fifth instalment in this series was bold enough to poke fun at Islam.

Infographic from Woroni which the university forced students to remove. For more details see The Friendly Atheist piece about this

The university's response, described in detail on the Woroni website, makes for some disturbing reading. In brief, the students responsible were summoned before the Chancelry, threatened with disciplinary action, including academic exclusion from the university, and forced to remove the piece from their website. The university cited some politically correct BS about "providing a welcoming environment for a diverse student and academic population." However, they also cited particular concerns about the likelihood of religious violence that I think are much more telling: 

“This was most clearly demonstrated by the Jyllands- Posten cartoon controversy … and violent protests in Sydney on September 15 last year,” the Chancelry told Woroni.

 So now we get to the heart of the matter. The student newspaper poked fun at Catholics, Mormons, Jews, and Scientologists, yet there were no complaints about making students of these faiths feel unwelcome. Yet when they criticise Islam specifically, the university threatens to expel them. They even admit that they are afraid of a violent response by Muslim extremists.

I find it ironic, even hypocritical, that people who are brave enough to criticise Islam are described as "islamophobic", yet those who are most cowed by fear of Islam are the ones who would suppress all criticism of it. People who would forbid criticism of Islam due to fear are the ones who truly deserve the label "islamophobic."

Once upon a time, universities cherished the right of freedom of speech. The fact that Australia's most prestigious university would show such cowardice and disregard for the principles of academic freedom is a sorry reflection on the times we live in. But what is even more disturbing perhaps is the fact that such responses are rooted in realistic fears of violence by intolerant people with contempt for the values of liberal democracy. However, placating the sensibilities of fanatics who demand "respect" for their violent beliefs by shutting people up out of fear is not only cowardly, it provides no real solution to the problem. Instead, it will only reinforce the sense of entitlement and embolden religious fanatics to demand more and more concessions to their preferences at the expense of liberty.

Further reading
Surrendering freedom to the violent: ANU censors student paper for mocking Islam

New Atheism should be able to criticise Islam without being accused of Islamophobia

Is Insulting Religion "Extremism"? No amount of provocation can excuse violence. Piece I wrote on Psychology Today in response to "The Innocence of Muslims" riots

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The Life of Jesus as a Fantasy Camp

Imagine there were such a thing a Nazi prison fantasy camp. That is, a recreation of a concentration camp where people could voluntarily go to temporarily experience life as a prisoner for a week or so. (I seem to recall that such a thing has actually been done somewhere but I don’t have the details.) Now imagine, that a wealthy man decided to check into such a camp for a week-long holiday. Let’s put aside for the moment the question of why he would do this and just humour me. For a week he experiences life in a fairly realistic mock prison with rather harsh conditions. Afterwards, he gets to go back home to his comfortable life in which he wants for nothing. He might reasonably say that he has a better appreciation of all the good things that he has after such an experience. But imagine instead that he actually said that his experiences in the mock camp were fully equivalent to those of real prisoners who had been detained against their will in real Nazi concentration camps. That is, the suffering and deprivation he experienced during his week of voluntary incarceration was every bit as bad as that of a real prisoner and that he now he has a complete and authentic insight into what it would be like to endure such conditions for real. How would you react to such a statement?

I would be offended. The wealthy man entered the camp voluntarily, and the whole time he was there he knew that before too long he would be back in his comfortable home as if nothing had ever happened. For this man to claim that his experience was comparable to that of a real prisoner – held against his will and with no hope of release – is obscene.

Now consider the claim by theologian Richard Swinburne[1] in The Resurrection of God Incarnate that the existence of suffering is consistent with the existence of an omnipotent and good God. Swinburne states:

that suffering does not count against the existence of God... [because] God would become incarnate to share our suffering and to make atonement for our sins.

He goes on to make rather bold assertions about the suffering of Jesus:

Suffering has been felt to be inconsistent with an omnipotent, good, and omniscient God. The only way I can see to reconcile these is to observe that the evidence is not all in yet—except in one case. Who could say that anyone suffered more than Jesus—with sweating blood (hemathidrosis) in Gethsemane, even before the physical abuse began.

Two thousand years later, theologians are yet to come up with a satisfactory answer to he problem of evil.

Let’s leave aside for a moment the sheer pointlessness of God justifying the existence of suffering in mortal creatures by inflicting extra suffering upon himself. Or the fact that this does not even begin to make sense as a resolution to the problem of theodicy. Swinburne’s claim that no one in the history of the world ever suffered more than Jesus is monumental in its sweeping arrogance. Untold masses of people throughout history have experienced horrendous suffering, including starvation, cancer, torture, and slavery, not to mention grief and heartbreak. Yet Swinburne expects us to believe without any evidence that none of this can compare to what Jesus experienced. Sweating blood! Oh yes, much worse than anything else a human could experience. This is in spite of the fact that hemathidrosis is a known medical condition that has been attested in ordinary humans, so Jesus’ experience in Gethsemane is hardly unique.   

If I had to choose between sweating blood for a while and being in this man's shoes, it would be an easy decision.

There is a deeper problem with Swinburne’s claims than his lack of imagination about the extent of human suffering. Swinburne is trying to prove that Jesus was God incarnate. Yet if this were true then it is simply not possible that his suffering was in any way comparable to the depths of mental anguish that humans are vulnerable to.

Consider the qualities that God is supposed to possess. He is believed to be immortal, all-powerful and to have foreknowledge of the future. The Incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus were all supposed to be part of God’s eternal plan. Therefore, God voluntarily chose to experience suffering, knew in advance exactly what it would involve, and knew all along that after his death he would rise from the dead to continue his blissful and immortal existence without any lingering trauma. Any suffering God experienced was a temporary inconvenience at worst, hardly a major disruption of his life. 

God sacrifices himself to himself to avert his own anger at the sin of a mythical man and woman with no concept of right and wrong. Yeah, that makes sense. 

Compare this to the human experience of real and terrible suffering. Humans are regularly inflicted with adverse conditions that they do not choose, do not foresee, and over which they have no control. A person who is murdered does not have the option of magically resurrecting afterwards. Those who survive horrific experiences are often left with post-traumatic stress symptoms in which they endure the anguish of mentally reliving the traumatic event over and over again.

If God were real he could not even begin to comprehend what it was like to be human. God could never know what it was like to be powerless, to be uncertain, to be mortal, to be traumatised, or to be heartbroken. Compared to the depths of suffering that humans are heir to, the events that Jesus supposedly went through were a fantasy camp.

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[1] I have previously written about Swinburne on this blog here and here. 


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© Scott McGreal. 

Why belief in Hell really isn't very nice at all

There has been some discussion about the topic of Hell over at Psychology Today recently. You might even  say it's a hot topic! (Sorry.) Psychologist Nathan Heflick wrote about the psychological aspects of the subject and invited readers to share why they personally believe in Hell. Humanistic blogger Greg Henriques, took a more controversial line, and wrote an article stating that he finds it  rather objectionable when religious people go on about how people who don't believe in God are going to be sent to Hell for their impiety. He was even bold enough to say that if there actually is a loving God then he would never do such a cruel thing; either that or this God person is not a morally just being. Either way, telling people they are going to Hell is just plain not nice.

Image of Hell in the style of Bosch 

This article prompted a response from Christian blogger Michael Austin. He acknowledges that the idea that God sends people to Hell (or lets people go there, depending on your interpretation) does not seem all that nice. In fact, many Christians are "deeply troubled by the thought of people spending eternity in Hell." And as well they might be. If this doctrine were true, then most people who have ever lived will end up in this dreadful place. Even worse, if you are Christian, then you face the prospect that people you care deeply about - family members, friends, one's spouse - might share this dire fate. Honestly, how do they sleep at night?

Detail of "The Last Judgment" by Luca Signorelli

But I digress. Austin's particular concern is with how the doctrine of Hell can be reconciled with the goodness of God. Many critics of the doctrine, just like Greg Henriques mentioned earlier, have argued that it can't be. And jettisoning the doctrine apparently is not an option for good Christians. (Although, as Austin notes, some Christians have done exactly that.) Austin quotes C.S. Lewis on this point:

There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it (1) has the full support of Scripture, and, (2) especially, of our Lord's own words; (3) it has always been held by Christendom [thus three arguments from authority]; and (4) it has the support of reason (sic!). 

 Christians don't get to pick and choose what they believe you know! Or do they? Austin finds some wiggle room. Enough room for considerable theological gymnastics in fact. His argument is that God does not actually send people to Hell. He simply honours their choice to be separate from him. What a nice guy God is, allowing people their choice of how to spend eternity. Hell is "not some sort of medieval torture chamber" but simply "separation from the ultimate source of joy, love, peace, and light." So Hell is actually a favour done by God in his goodness for those who actually want to spend eternity in the absence of joy, love, peace, and light. Because some people just don't want those things I suppose.

Well there are a few problems with this. The most obvious one concerns inconsistency. Austin quotes Lewis to the effect that belief in Hell is required by scripture, especially by the words of Jesus himself. Jesus apparently had a great deal to say about Hell and there are over 70 references to Hell attributed to him. Hell is most definitely referred to as a place of punishment, such as Matthew 25: 46:

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment.

There are lurid descriptions in the New Testament of the horrors awaiting the damned. The place is described as a "lake which burneth with fire and brimstone"  and there are repeated references to a "worm that dieth not" that presumably gnaws on the flesh of the damned. No, not a medieval torture chamber, medieval technology did not have the capacity to create lakes of molten sulphur or immortal worms.

Furthermore, according to the words of Jesus, sinners are cast into this place. Matthew 25: 30 for example is one of several references to people being thrown into Hell:

And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness...

According to Austin, God allows people to go into Hell voluntarily, but according to Jesus they are thrown there like prisoners. But Hell is somehow compatible with a loving God because in spite of all these scriptural references to punishment, torment, and being cast into fire like garbage, God has simply created this place so that unbelievers have somewhere to go after they die. This is like saying, "It's up to you really, if you don't want to spend eternity with me, you have everlasting punishment as an alternative. Just saying, don't want you to feel pressured at all."

What strikes me as odd about all this is that unbelievers do actually manage to experience a measure of joy, peace, love and so on while they are still alive in spite of not believing that these things come from God. So it is possible for people to be happy without God playing a role in their lives. So if God's wish is actually to accommodate people who don't believe in him because of his infinite goodness, then why not create a paradise world for unbelievers where they can be left in peace after they die? Like a nice planet somewhere, with green fields, sandy beaches and tropical islands in the sun where no-one has to do any work? Only thing is,  God won't be joining you, that's all. Surely being omnipotent that would be in his power? Why tell people that Hell is a horrible place of everlasting punishment full of immortal worms and lakes of fire when the intention is simply to provide people with an opt out from Heaven? Believers might counter-argue that even though unbelievers think they are happy without God, his presence is still somehow essential to their happiness, for reasons that are not at all clear. But if God really is omnipotent why can He not make it possible for people to be happy in his absence?

Consider an analogy. A loving father is preparing his will in order to provide for his children after he is gone. He knows that after he dies he will be absent from their lives but he wants them to be happy and prosperous anyway. Therefore, he makes preparations so that they will benefit from his legacy. According to believers, God knows that he will be absent from the lives of certain people after they die. Why cannot he make arrangements for them to benefit in his absence? Surely, if he is loving and good, he would do this.

A final point I find particularly irksome is the idea that people who do not believe simply do not want to be with God and are making a final choice not to be with him. What this assumes is that deep down unbelievers really do believe God is real, but are rejecting him for some unknown reason. I'm not just making this up, there are Christians who actually believe this. For example, creepy William Lane Craig (whom I have dealt with elsewhere) actually has this to say:

No one in the final analysis really fails to become a Christian because of lack of arguments; he fails to become a Christian because he loves darkness rather than light and wants nothing to do with God.

Ah, no. Christians seem to have a hard time grasping this, but when someone says that they do not believe in God, they mean they genuinely do not think God is real. Yet Christians seem to think that someone who chose not to believe in God while they were alive because they saw no reason to do so, will one day wake up in the afterlife, be confronted by God and go, "Oops there really is a God after all, but I love darkness so much I would rather spend an eternity in Hell than admit I made a mistake."

In summary, Christians justify believing in Hell based on scripture. Some, such as Michael Austin, want to argue that Hell is compatible with a good God who honours one's choices. But according to these same scriptures, God does not honour choices, he punishes people for making a choice he does not approve of. Furthermore, people who go on about how unbelievers are choosing to be separated from God really ought to make an effort to grasp what the concept of unbelief actually means. Therefore, no matter how Christian theologians bend over backwards to whitewash the concept, the doctrine of Hell remains as inhumane and illogical as ever. Really not nice at all.

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Further reading:

Interesting article on why even Heaven may not be so nice after all:

The Problem with Heaven - The A-Unicornist

Great video by QualiaSoup critiquing the concept: Hell: an excessive punishment 

Bigfoot is your cousin! Or how to make "news" out of nothing

I generally enjoy reading Time magazine because they usually provide thoughtful commentary on serious news. That's why I was rather taken aback when I read a recent article with the sensationalistic title of "Bigfoot Is Part Human, and Here Are the DNA Tests to Prove It, Claims Researcher". The "researcher" in question claims that she somehow obtained DNA from an honest-to-god Sasquatch, ran some fancy tests and came up with the amazing conclusion that Bigfoot is one of our long lost relatives, part-human and part some never before heard of hominid. Oh they do eventually get around to explaining that the so-called researcher is basically a crackpot who cannot back up her claims and then go on to say why no-one is taking her seriously. But that is after spending two paragraphs treating her claims as if they deserve some sort of serious consideration. 

Let's take stock of what this piece of "news" actually contains. Melba Ketchum, a veterinarian, claims that she has unambiguous "proof" that not only does Bigfoot exist, but has modern human ancestry. But the thing is Ketchum refuses to share this "proof" with anyone - she will not share her data, will not explain her methods, and, critically, refuses to explain how she obtained these supposed DNA samples belonging to a creature that no-one has ever been able to even photograph, let alone prove exists.

So, in other words, Ketchum has proved nothing at all. 

The Time article then goes on to explain why respectable scientists do not believe her. Funny that. But does one really need a Ph.D. to realise that when someone makes far-fetched and outlandish claims without providing any reason to believe a word she says, that one should not take her seriously? 

Is this what passes for news now? "Crackpot announces amazing discovery she can't prove, scientists go 'Meh.'" 

Perhaps more concerning than the lack of newsworthiness of this folderol, is the potential for spreading misinformation. There is research evidence that misinformation tends to be "sticky", that is, it remains in memory and tends to influence what people believe. This may be because believing information, even stupid information, is easy, whereas evaluating its credibility and rejecting it takes more effort. What the Time article has done is to present a bold headline that implies that Ketchum's claims are somehow credible. A "researcher" has "proof" - this is what stands out and is easy to remember. The fact that she expects people to take her on her word that her "proof" is real and that she has not allowed anyone to even examine it, is buried in the middle of the article and easily overlooked, especially by busy readers. 

An even more egregious example of Time presenting misinformation as having credibility it does not deserve is a link on the same page as the Ketchum article to a story with the ludicrous title "Scientists ‘95% Sure’ Bigfoot Lives in Russian Tundra". Ooh, now we have "scientists" who are quite positive they have found Bigfoot/the Yeti, how amazing! This tall tale is over a year old, yet there is no mention at all of the rather important detail that one of the scientists on this particular expedition has publicly expressed the opinion that this whole event was carefully staged for publicity and that there was no corroborating evidence they had found anything. The interesting thing here is that this particular scientist, Jeffrey Meldrum, is not even a Bigfoot sceptic  but someone who has seriously searched for evidence of the existence of this elusive creature. Yet anyone reading the Time article only would go away with the impression that there was in fact virtual "proof" that Bigfoot is real when even a Bigfoot enthusiast thinks it was a hoax. 

There are plenty of important real discoveries going on in the world. Stories like this just lend undeserved credibility to pseudoscience and foolishness in my opinion. 

Further reading
Here is an amusing article that provides much more detail about the publicity surrounding Ketchum's claims. 

Update, July 2013: Apparently an independent geneticist has been allowed to analyse the "Bigfoot" sample and guess what? Melba Ketchum's claims turn out to be complete nonsense!
“Bigfoot” Samples Yield Opossum DNA
Funnily enough, the Time article still contains no mention of this important information...

Freud and the Snopes Psychopath Test

Some people worry themselves needlessly over the meaning of disturbing dream content

On Snopes the other day I came across a rather amusing hoax email that claims that there is a simple psychological test that will reveal whether or not a person is a psychopath. Here are the details:

The Snopes article goes on to explain why this supposed test is absurd. Even psychopaths are sensible enough to realise that there are less sinister ways of getting the attention of the opposite sex, such as simply talking to the man. The article does not say how this hoax originated (presumably some person who thought it would be more fun to remain anonymous). When I read this though, I was struck by a parallel with a case reported by Sigmund Freud  in The Interpretation of Dreams. A young woman patient dreamt that her sister's young son was lying in a coffin. Freud discounted the idea that she wished for the death of her nephew, as she was not that cruel. She told Freud about a time when her other nephew, her sister's first born, had actually died. At that time,  her ex-fiancé, a professor, made a a condolence call. The woman still loved him but rarely saw him since they had broken off their engagement. During his visit, she had a chance to be near him as he looked at the dead child lying in the coffin. Freud could then make his interpretation: "If now the other boy were to die, the same thing would happen . . . and the professor would be certain to come to offer his condolences, so that you would see him again under the same conditions as the other time. The dream means no more than your wish to see him once more, a wish which you are inwardly struggling against."

Back when I was teaching psychology students, I would tell them about this dream to illustrate Freud's dream theory. I'd finish off by joking that this seemed like a drastic way just to get a date! The story in the psychopath test seems to involve a similar kind of thinking - meet a man you like at a funeral, then wish that there could be another funeral to have an excuse to meet him again. Admittedly, Freud's patient did not actually plan on killing her poor nephew!

I can only speculate but I think there's some chance that the fake psychopath test was inspired in some way by Freud's account of his case study. Perhaps part of the appeal of the fake psychopath test is that it promises that it can reveal hidden features of someone's personality through a symbolic story. Freud's theory of dream interpretation also claims that hidden features of one's personality can be revealed through the symbolism of dreams. However, research into dreams has not confirmed Freud's belief that dreams have hidden meanings that can be revealed through free association. (In recent years psychoanalyst and neurosurgeon Mark Solms has claimed that discoveries in neuroscience confirm Freud's dream theory. However, Solms' attempt to revive Freud's theory has not been widely accepted. For example, see this article for a rebuttal of some of his claims by neuroscientist J. Allan Hobson.) Unfortunately there do not seem to be such quick and easy ways to plumb the depths of the human mind as promised by both the fake psychopath test and Freudian psychoanalysis, although the fantasy remains as appealing as ever.