Fri, 15 May 2009
0:00:00 0:05:05 0:31:05 0:40:15 0:47:05 Comments[13]
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- @obviousman, we are not trying to get the website shutdown - this is where the free speech thing comes into play. However, by educating parents about the dangers of listening to their advice, we hope to encourage them to not use them as a sole source of information about vaccines. It is probably not possible to directly implicate them in the death of children. However, it must be said that they should at least take some responsibility for the death of Dana McCaffery, which occurred as a direct result of the loss of herd immunity on the north coast of NSW. The low vaccination rates in this areas are partly their doing IMHO, since this is where they campaign most vehemently. (Their president lives in the area).
BTW I just requested to join the mailing list. I don't expect a positive result, however, they may be more open minded than I assume. - Perhaps we should discontinue our efforts to have the website shut down, but instead concentrate on not only education about the scientific truth but making the AVN legally responsible for their claims. Has a child suffered injury directly because of their claims? Has this avenue been explored?
- The freedom of speech side of things I, like Dave, do not think should be in any way restricted what so ever. There are (very rightly so) rules on what can and cannot be said as far as medical claims go as giving outright false information is criminal neglect. Just look at the front page of the AVN website and they have this line "Can you afford to donate $20 to help let Australians know that vaccines do, in fact, cause Autism?".
This is not a statement of beliefs as would be free speech. This is a direct positive statement of claim that vaccines do cause autism. To call that free speech would be like saying practising medicine without a license is free speech. They are dishing out the same medical advice, they should be put under the same restrictions. - Hey Ian,
Your question is really good. I brought the issue up for discussion in the Tank because I really wanted to get some different viewpoints. I struggle to make my mind up on this.
It seems a common response to say that the principle of free expression is different when it is an organised group. It may be.
If we are to defend free speech, but then make restrictions on groups of like-minded people speaking freely, that is itself a form of censorship, and an effective one. It would, in effect, take a voice out of the discourse.
Both Australian Skeptics and Sydney Atheists, with whom I also podcast, are organised groups with positions that are probably considered anathema to chunks of society. That we happen to aspire to let reason prevail is, I think, a side issue.
What would happen if a big pentecostal church wanted Sydney Atheists shut down for challenging their beliefs? What if the AVN wanted to take down Australian Skeptics, or the Zone? Would that then lead to a court decision on which viewpoints may be expressed by groups and which must be expressed only by individuals?
The idea makes me uncomfortable.
That said, I do not think we should tolerate or defend the AVN. We should speak out against them. We should lobby for a public information campaign on the efficacy and safety of immunisation. We should spread good information, and promote science (and not emotion) as the best way to assess the issue. We are a co-ordinated army, too.
I must repeat that I am not convinced I am right. I just haven't yet been convinced that shutting down the AVN is a goal I'm comfortable pursuing.
I'm delighted by your feedback, Ian, and I would like to hear more.
Dave - This 'free speech' topic is the same thing Scott Hurst addressed on James Randi's Swift blog in this post:
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/544-shouting-fire.html
It's specifically talking about US law, but the same principle applies in other countries. - During the think tank this week, there was a debate around whether the AVN should still be able to enjoy 'free speech', even though their agenda is very much anti-vax and against all logical reasoning (that children are *supposed* to get childhood diseases and treating whooping cough with homeopathy, don't get me started!)
It pains me to see an organisation such as the AVN peddling a ridiculous and dangerous point of view, and to do so in a manner that involves subterfuge ("oh we're not anti-vax, we just give mothers all the facts..." - come on), and bases their information on selective, warped and misguided sources.
So what is so wrong with silencing the organisation that is the AVN? Break them up, let them have their own opinion as individuals, no single person should be "silenced" - that in itself goes against our basic civil rights. But the AVN is a coordinated army! They infiltrate mother's groups and subvert parents views when they are at their most vulnerable. This, in my view, makes the AVN a public menace - their actions can lead to grave and mortal consequences!
As a society, we do not tolerate organised crime by suggesting that it is an assault on "free enterprise"! - So why do we tolerate "organised misinformation" and defend it with the idea that we are upholding "free speech"? - Grant, you may have missed hearing in the interview, the use of the word 'irrational' was one that he rejected. During the part where he talked about women and belief, he made that clear.
There is an overall theory that our tendency towards using our 'supersense' is natural, so yes, it could be that someone can overcome and then proceed to profit (or maybe avoid) due to other people's tendency. I think that you might be confusing what 'superstition' is with cultural responses with the Swastika though.
Is the Swastika MEANT to be carrying a 'added supernatural factor' or 'aura' because it is said it belonged to a former officer? Or is it just the local neo-Nazis hanging their new flag in the window and everyone is sick of them? There's a difference.
Bruce Hood's site at brucemhood.com would be a good place to ask such questions too, he's rather chatty there!
- Oh, and answering the door knockers.. when I was young, I used to invite people in for a chat. These days I don't have time/energy to change people who won't change.
I do however try and drop a few subtle hints.; like if they are paying a tithe, they could go to another mainstream church and pray to the same god for less; and not have to spend weekends door knocking. ;-)
Though this doesn't work for Morman's... and I found that some Christian sects think others are evil - the Catholics get quite a bashing from the fundy types which surprises me given that the Catholics are one of the original churches going right back.
Oh, and having just watched 'Religulous', that could somebody a few ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religulous
- Bruce Hood's comments about how we personify objects got me thinking. I don't see it as totally irrational, in particular when he uses an example like 'Princess Diana's dress'.
Sure some we place upon objects, might be irrational - such as a 'lucky' numberplate like '888888', but if my new apartment number happened to be '88K' and thus worth more to somebody Chinese, then I would exploit that extra value if I sold. Not because I believe numerology rubbish, but because I know others in society do.
Society (via auctions) places increased value on David Beckham's shirts or Princess Di's dress. If this is based on purely irrational beliefs then so would most branding, but most of us see some value in appearing in/with brands associated with success via image portrayal. Or maybe I spent too long with the guys from marketing. ;-)
Again, with the negative cases (though a sweater belonging to an infamous murderer would probably increase value to some collectors), I as a skeptic would not believe the object has some negative 'vibes'. But I would not say it's not a factor in determining 'value'. A swastika has no evil power, but I am not going to paint a large one on my front fence, even if it is a nice pattern belonging to early Indian (er, and Finish?) cultures. The symbolism or mnemonic power of objects is real; we associate memories with triggers, and object like a piece of clothing can be a powerful trigger. So (having read about Fred West .. ick), I might turn down the sweater simply because of a rational association with a bad image. As a more extreme example; if somebody broken into your house and brutally murdered your family with a meat cleaver, would you be purely rational and (after the police had their evidence), put the cleaver through the dishwasher and put it back in the cutlery draw?
- Another great episode, I particularly like Eran Segev’s articles and this one on politics had me, and I think many of the listeners, wishing, “if only!”
Question – is the public face of politics representative of what actually happens when the cameras are turned off?
- Recently I bought some second-hand electronic equipment from someone who turned out to be a bit of a creep. By going around to collect it I had sort of committed myself, so I still bought it, but I did give it a thorough clean when I got home!
On reading body language, I think it's worth mentioning that there's a dark side to this. The human tendency to try and read other people's thoughts can sometimes be manifest (particularly in times of stress) as a compulsion to make assumptions about other people's thoughts and an inability to entertain the notion that these assumptions may be wrong. I suspect that the very demographics who are ordinarily best able to interpret body language (e.g. women) are also most vulnerable to the error of overinterpreting it, and of being unable to remain impartial about what other people may be thinking. A few years ago, Mark Liberman described a hypothesis about mobile phones (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000095.html), which is relevant here. I won't say I agree with him, but it's worth thinking about.
As for believing that your family and friends are impostors, I remember this from the four-part documentary "The Human Face" with John Cleese. I have a copy of the video.
Moving on to the Think Tank, and the topic of rational arguments regarding gods. Back in the day when I was a Christian and living in the residential wing of a theological college, I would often debate with other Christians who were invariably more inclined to the fundamentalist end of the spectrum than I was. For example, I would often defend evolution, which is actually how I first came across the Australian Skeptics website. Helpful at the time was a book borrowed from a friend, which dealt in a (nominally) rational way with various objections to the Christian faith, including the issue of Biblical literalism.
The friend has since moved to Saudi Arabia, but I wanted to re-read the book from a non-believer's perspective to see how rational the pro-religious arguments appear to me now. So I recently tracked down a copy. I'd actually like to discuss the book with other skeptics, but I'm not sure how to go about that. Could scan a few pages at a time and discuss it by email.
Regarding Twitter, I've got a special offer going at present whereby I will link to your Twitter page in an upcoming blog post if you do something for me. No-one has taken it up yet, but basically you just have to write a tweet promoting the solitaire card game I invented, e.g. mentioning that you are playing it and including a link (http://tinyurl.com/elemental-solitaire). Details and conditions in the entry I posted to my blog on the Eighth of May.
On the Simon Singh case, I would have thought an appeal would be very likely to succeed. Surely one could present objective evidence that the word "bogus" does not have connotations of deliberate deception. For example, if you surveyed the British public asking what they think "bogus" means (perhaps with the aid of hypothetical scenarios), I'm confident you'd demonstrate that the judge is in a very small minority. - The response to god-botherers that has given me the best results is "I KNOW there in no God" said with complete authority. Now that is actually a lie (I am 99% convinced there is no God) but by making an authoritative statement like this leaves no room for them to think they can change your mind.
A few minutes after stating this to three Mormon girls one girl was in tears saying "There is a God, there is a God" - yes I am a bastard. They knocked on my door so they were fair game. Mind you if Mormons still practiced polygamy I may have been converted as they were all cute :-P - Just a brief note, it was mentioned in passing that people don't have a ready response to being confronted in the street, or at home by proselytisers. I found a little document on the web a few years ago that does this nicely called "Kissing Hank's Ass" http://www.jhuger.com/pamphlets/kha.pdf
Now, personally I don't know why one would kiss a donkey... So I edited it slightly to reflect the Australian vernacular a little more closely. I added a front page that at least gets a slightly less guarded response. My version is at:
http://users.beagle.com.au/glenn42/Files/
This is formatted so that it can be printed to make an A5 pamphlet.
My experience is that door knockers tend not to return. So far none have gotten further than the first few lines, and almost all end up littering by screwing up the pamphlet at throwing it away.
I enjoy Schadenfreude btw.
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