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Where do morals come from? Brother Jed is at it again…
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Hello all!
Brother Jed posted a transcript of his opening statement from his Monday debate with Brandon Christen on his Facebook profile. In it, he repeated, nearly verbatim, an argument he made during his debate with me last April (see the 7-minute mark or so). We went over this last year quite thoroughly (I thought), and I’m disappointed to see he’s still trotting out the same, already-refuted argument. This appears to be, it seem sto me, a textbook example of intellectual dishonesty on his part.
Here’s the relevant bit to today’s post:
If there is no God, who or what is the source and foundation of morality? Morals deal with right and wrong in our interpersonal relationships. Morals are personal; the source of morals must be connected with a personal God, who himself is a subject of moral obligation and who chooses to use his great powers morally.
Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time. The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?
Men universally have a sense of moral obligation. “I ought; I ought not.” What is the source of moral obligation?
How, in a world which is ultimately the product of time, chance and material particles, did there come to be such things as moral obligations?
The existence of moral obligations makes more sense in a universe in which the ultimate reality is a moral Person than it does in a universe where persons are a late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces. The notion of morals requires a Moral Governor that Moral Governor is the God of the Bible.
I hardly know where to start with this. Here is what I have to say about it:
”Atheists affirm that all that exists is matter, energy, space and time.”
I think you’re 1) confusing atheists with metaphysical naturalists and 2) forgetting that matter=energy and space=time.
“The problem for atheism is that these elements are not enough to support the existence of morality. Matter, energy, space and time are impersonal and non-moral. How does the personal come out of the impersonal? How does the moral come from stuff that is non-moral?”
You asked this exact same question last year at Speakers’ Circle and again during our debate last April, Jed. I have already given you a sufficient scientific response. I have recommended to you books that thoroughly answer this using abundant evidence. Your question is not a mystery to scientists and hasn’t been a mystery to scientists for quite awhile now; in fact the answer to this question is the point of an entire field of science called sociobiology. Some of the bigger names in research in this field are E.O. Wilson, Frans de Waal, Robert Axelrod, and Samuel Bowles. Others you might want to read, if you actually want to know the answer to this question rather than just sound profound for continuing to raise it to people who haven’t heard it before, are Michael Shermer and Matt Ridley. Again, I have already told you all of this.
I think you just like to say the phrase “late and insignificant by product of impersonal forces.” Just because morality is a byproduct of impersonal forces does not mean that it’s insignificant. That’s a claim YOU’RE making, not a claim scientists have made.
You insist – and persist – in attempting to paint the origin of morality like it’s some huge mystery that has no possible earthly explanation, and therefore MUST have come from your god, while simultaneously completely ignoring the scientific explanation I repeatedly provide to you every time you bring this up.
Do you just not care that science has actually answered this question?
Evolution is sufficient to explain morality in cooperative animals, humans included. We have WAY more evidence than the minimum to demonstrate that this is the case. I recommend the books “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley and “A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution” by Samuel Bowles if you are actually interested in the scientific answer to your question, “How does the moral come from the stuff that is non-moral?” This is an extremely well-documented concept in science.
Again, to be absolutely clear, how morals arise naturally from impersonal forces is NOT a mystery for scientists. Just because you don’t understand (or refuse to look at) where morality came from scientifically does not mean that, therefore, natural elements are insufficient to explain it.
What you are saying here is known in logic as an argument from incredulity. You are essentially saying, “I don’t understand how morality could have come about naturally. Therefore, morality must not have come about naturally.” This is a fallacy. We can readily show how morality comes about naturally, and in fact have done this in abundance in controlled settings. There’s LOTS of absolutely fascinating research that combines the game theory of economics with evolutionary biology to demonstrate it quite readily, in fact.
I would really love for this to be the last time we go through this dog & pony show, but I have a feeling you’re not even going to read this, let alone read the books I recommended. I like you, Jed, but you’ve been stuck on this idea that morals must have come from a god for at least several years now. Do you continue to raise the question because, after considering the evidence, you find the scientific explanation insufficient [in which case, what are your scientific objections]? Or have you just not even looked into it? The latter is my guess.
If you want to know where morals came from, read “The Origins of Virtue” by Matt Ridley, so we can finally put this to bed. Where morals came from is not a mystery to science, and it has nothing to do with your god. Science has answered this question; it’s time to put this to bed.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
This is not an April Fool’s post: I guess I’m not an accomodationist anymore.
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I guess I’m not an accomodationist anymore.
From my Facebook wall today:
Christianity is offensive. It is offensive to reason, offensive to human welfare, and offensive to social progress. It is a willfully ignorant and deliberate abuse of logic, and a shortcoming of rational thought. All religions, Christianity included, prey on human gullibility and fear of the unknown. Christianity is dangerous. It is cruel. To quote Christopher Hitchens, “It is not moral to lie to children. It is not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people, and tell them that if they believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.”
Christianity claims that 6,000 years ago, a talking snake, apparently fluent in ancient Hebrew, persuaded a woman, made from a rib, to eat a piece of fruit. Because of that, all of us are going to burn for trillions and trillions of years in a lake made out of fire and sulfur, unless we telepathically pledge our allegiance to an invisible Jewish zombie, who – by magical thinking powers – can take our consciousness (which somehow by magic survives our deaths) to an invisible place where he lives with his daddy, who is (somehow by magic) also he himself?
Do you mean to tell me that you, in all seriousness, believe this insanity? All the touchy-feely gooeyness of how being around your friends at church makes you FEEL aside, or how listening to worship music makes you FEEL, is the above paragraph really, truly what you believe is historically true and factually accurate? If so, what on Earth is wrong with you? If you believe this literal non-sense, you SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, and the satire has served its purpose. And for this, I do not apologize.
I do not believe that you are really a Christian. I believe that you identify as a Christian because your parents told you that what to believe, and your culture has reinforced it. I think you are smarter than that. I think you know that there is no difference between talking snakes and the Tooth Fairy. It’s a myth. Yahweh is just another “god” from just another ancient myth. There are thousands of gods that you don’t believe in. To quote Stephen F. Roberts, “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
If you want to read the full thread, here it is. It started with an April Fool’s status:
Dave Muscato:
Jesus is LORD! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” What more do you need?? Hallelujah, Amen, Praise Be, He is Risen! (17 likes)
Trevor B:
He is risen, indeed.
Dave Muscato:
Goodness me, I forgot to capitalize Way, Truth, and Life. Capitalization makes it more factual, you know. And that’s True with a capital-T. (8 likes)
Franklin K:
Wait, does it say that in the Bible? Cause otherwise I don’t know why you’d ever believe that. (2 likes)
Dave Muscato:
It’s a little early to interrupt dinnertime, but around 6, I’m gonna go door-to-door with some tracts sharing the Good News. Who’s with me?? (3 likes)
Dave Muscato:
Franklin, it’s John 14:6. Do you have a Bible? I will give you one. Everybody should read a Bible everyday. What’s your address? IM me. (3 likes)
K.C.:
Glad you’re coming around finally, Dave. I was worried for your eternal soul there for a while…
Dave Muscato:
No need to worry about me, Keenan! I’ve got the Holy Spirit in me. I know this because I believe it. (2 likes)
Becky K:
Lol, yesterday they came by twice, completely confused when I said I wasn’t interested bc I’m Jewish… (1 like)
Dave Muscato:
That’s great, Becky; so was JC! You’re halfway there
(2 likes)
Sarah K:
Ohhhhh you fool! You April Fool! (1 like)
Becky K:
Oh, you’re so silly (1 like)
Dave Muscato:
Cynthia S:
Haha! Happy 1st of April!
Megan K:
oh yeah, april 1st! i was like wtf?? haha (1 like)
Tyler C:
Nice. Best fucking April Fools’ Day joke ever. (2 likes)
Catherine P:
I must share. (1 like)
Zach C:
It surprises me that you would try to be intentionally offensive… from talking to you in the past I would’ve expected more.
Dave Muscato:
Hey Zach! It’s April Fool’s Day, and this is satire. Like all satire, it’s designed to hold abuses, follies, or shortcomings up for ridicule – because such abuses, follies, and shortcomings are, well, ridiculous. Satire is designed to be funny, but it has a greater purpose of constructive social criticism, in order to shame individuals or societies into improving themselves.
Christianity is offensive. It is offensive to reason, offensive to human welfare, and offensive to social progress. It is a willfully ignorant and deliberate abuse of logic, and a shortcoming of rational thought. All religions, Christianity included, prey on human gullibility and fear of the unknown. Christianity is dangerous. It is cruel. To quote Christopher Hitchens, “It is not moral to lie to children. It is not moral to lie to ignorant, uneducated people, and tell them that if they believe nonsense, they can be saved. It’s immoral.”
Zach, Christianity claims that 6,000 years ago, a talking snake, apparently fluent in ancient Hebrew, persuaded a woman, made from a rib, to eat a piece of fruit. Because of that, all of us are going to burn for trillions and trillions of years in a lake made out of fire and sulfur, unless we telepathically pledge our allegiance to an invisible Jewish zombie, who – by magical thinking powers – can take our consciousness (which somehow by magic survives our deaths) to an invisible place where he lives with his daddy, who is (somehow by magic) also he himself?
Do you mean to tell me that you, in all seriousness, believe this insanity? All the touchy-feely gooeyness of how being around your friends at church makes you FEEL, or listening to worship music makes you FEEL, is the above paragraph really, truly what you believe is historically true and factually accurate? If so, what on Earth is wrong with you? If you believe this literal non-sense, you SHOULD be ashamed of yourself, and the satire has served its purpose. And for this, I do not apologize.
I do not believe that you are really a Christian. I believe that you identify as a Christian because your parents told you that what to believe, and your culture has reinforced it. I think you are smarter than that. I think you know that there is no difference between talking snakes and the Tooth Fairy. It’s a myth. Yahweh is just another “god” from just another ancient myth. There are thousands of gods that you don’t believe in. To quote Stephen F. Roberts, “When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Hope this helps, and I hope you’re having a great weekend! And I mean that sincerely. – Dave (6 likes)
Christian H:
Interesting perspective. i believe in Christ, as well as the garden account. And it’s not because my parents taught me to. I was both an atheist and a skeptic. And I am still quite rational. As I’ve stated before, it was the evidence (historical, prophetic, archaeology, etc.) that convinced me. Some of whlich I’ve shared with you before to no avail, and you chose to ignore, change the subject by raising another objection, or by explaining it away. And that’s fine I understand. But it’s incorrect and untrue to make such a blanket statement about all Christians.
You claim Christianity is bad for the world, but for every example of someone doing something wicked in the name of Christianity (which can be demonstrated to be someone simply using a religion as they would any other power they could get over people) and I can name ten examples of how Christianity has made the world better. (1 like)
Christian H:
If we are being satirical, then happy atheists day (Psalm 14:1). (3 likes)
Zach C:
If you truly stand by your above statements and want to help people by removing this nonsense belief from them then I would suggest you alter your approach. As a person in a position of leadership you act as an ambassador for your belief set. I have many friends that don’t prescribe to the same belief set as me and completely respect that they have received the same inputs as me over their lives and come to a different conclusion. The fact that they believe something different than me doesn’t bother me. It’s your lack of respect for your fellow man that bothers me. Your post oozes arrogance which in no way would be proactive to making me give your new truth the time of day. You’re being counteractive and it’s frustrating. Your beliefs are what they are… beliefs. If you want to have a missional attitude about promoting what you believe in order to help others by opening their minds then you should consider some serious adjustments in your means of communicating in a public forum like facebook. I cast no judgment on my friends who are atheists because they will state that it is what they “believe”, just like I “believe” in the Christian faith. That’s what it is, a belief — nothing more, nothing less. Regardless of whether God exists being arrogant is silly. You just come off looking like a dick.
Devin W:
Dave that was awesome, I’m going to have to repost most of that if it’s okay. (1 like)
Devin W:
I wish I could be a dick like you.
Rebecca V:
I have to agree, Dave. You made an extremely blanket statement about all Christians. I know many Christians who grew up with atheist parents or parents who were lapsed Catholics and so on who are ridiculed by their family for their new found faith. My sister, whom you met yesterday just started going to church and changing her life around after years of going her own way. Most of her friends don’t understand the radical change in her just in the last four months. We grew up not going to church and just barely understanding Christianity because my mom was a believer but not my dad. My dad finally realized his need for Jesus about 5 years ago, just before he turned 50 after my mom prayed for him for nearly 30 years. So, as I have learned to not stereotype atheists, I hope you learn not to do the same about Christians. (2 likes)
C.S.:
Dave,
I still haven’t got a reasonable explain (Euthyphro [sp?] doesn’t count, if you read the wiki you provide for that argument it also provided the solution to the false dicotomy. Saved my grey cells alot of trouble hehe) of why I should feel ashamed…If there is no God right & wrong do not exist. Therefore you can’t shame me because I’ve done nothing wrong. Also I find your anger encouraging. According to CS Lewis’s theories (found in Mere Christianity I think…I sometimes get his apologetic works mixed up. Have you read any of his works?) you are probably closer to finding & having a relationship God than you ever were attending a church thinking you were set but apparently having no relationship. So happy TRUTH (all caps mind you) search!
Devin W:
i dont want hijack dave’s post. but can you explain how the existence of right and wrong are dependent upon there being a god? (2 likes)
Renee S:
LOL. ♥ (1 like)
Christian H:
Devin, can you explain where right and wrong comes from without a creator?
Stephen A:
Devin, I’m with you. There is no valid argument for that viewpoint; however, there’s tons of observable evidence to support the argument that “right and wrong” are social constructs, witnessed in other species. Unless someone is going to go batsh*t crazy and argue that animals know right and wrong because they made the conscious decision to accept Christ into their lives, then I think the discussion is settled.
Christian H:
So it is ONLY social? And you derived this because you observed other species having a standard of right and wrong? Please enlighten me.
Christian H:
Let’s say that you are right though. Right and wrong are merely social constructs. Then right and wrong does not really exist. It is arbitrary. It is not a standard, but an agreement. It can be changed if the majority changes. If all of society agrees that it is okay to eliminate a group of people say… simply for their ethnic background, then that would be okay. Because nothing exists outside of society to dictate otherwise. Or like, in the past, when different cultures and societies deemed women inferior and treated them like servant dogs for sex, etc. then that was totally acceptable because that society said so.
Dave Muscato:
Christian, if I may, I can. Economic anthropology is what I’m in school to study (esp. the evolution of morality in cooperative species). In under 50 words, here is where right & wrong come from (it is an ongoing process), without hypothesizing a magical intelligent agent:
Natural selection favors cooperative animals over their non-cooperative competitors for resources because of economies of scale and gains-from-trade. Animals that work together are able to accomplish more, have a higher standard of living, and therefore provide for and ensure the survival of more offspring.
It’s really not that complicated. If you want to know more of the details, I recommend “The Evolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod (NB it’s a little math-heavy) or one of my favorite books of all time, “The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation” by Matt Ridley:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Origins-Virtue-Instincts-Cooperation/dp/0140264450
Dave Muscato:
Stephen, right and wrong are not social constructs, unless you’re not drawing a distinction between non-human animal sociality and human sociality. There are solid biological foundations that cause them to arise in certain patterns, and we can predict those patterns by theoretical frameworks in game theory. Specific variations are culturally relative, but there are good, evolutionary-biology reasons for the universal traits we see in terms of right & wrong across all cultures.
Stephen A:
That’s what I meant by social construct. Thanks for explaining it better, Dave. (1 like)
C.S. (deleted post).
Dave Muscato:
Chantelle, it seems to me that you are trying to say that the lack of an *immutable* standard means that all standards are therefore arbitrary. This is a straw man and a non-sequitur. No one ever said that moral codes are arbitrary, just because they change over time. Quite the opposite, actually: They have a demonstrable, predictable biological basis. E.O. Wilson brought the term “sociobiology” to international attention in 1975 when he more-or-less founded the field of studying that basis, and there are thousands of scientists who have since made careers out of furthering our understanding of it. It’s not arbitrary.
C.S.:
Sorry i deleted that b/c my phone was behind the times. So why do we honor those who defend the weak or genetically inferior? Biologically speaking shouldn’t we admire those who snuff them out as that would improve the genetic code? Or rape is commonly disliked, but isn’t that just increasing the chances of the physically strong passing on genetic materials? & why do charitable deeds or try to cure chronic illnesses? Anyway you get the idea that there are many widely accepted morals that do not make sense biologically.
Dave Muscato:
Chantelle, read the book I linked to above. It will answer all of these kinds of questions and is a solid introduction for the layperson in beautifully readable language. You’re dipping your toe in an evolutionary subfield with a very academically-rich, 70-year history of solid research and excellent publications.
Stephen A:
Odd that you’d bring up rape as being deplorable, though, considering that the Christian moral tradition makes it clear where a woman’s place is.
Dave Muscato:
Indeed, until the 1970s, most states did not even consider spousal rape a crime. It wasn’t until 1993 that North Carolina became the last state to remove the spousal exemption. This was mostly based on the idea that married women are to be subservient to men in Abrahamic cultures, thanks to Bible verses like 1 Tim 2:13, 1 Corinthians 11:7-9, etc.
I will be expanding on some of the points raised in this thread in my next article, as well!
Regards,
Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Dave Muscato on Dr. Andrew Bernstein, Religion, and Morality
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Hello all,
I gave a talk, “Why Blasphemy Matters,” at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg on Monday (90 miles from Columbia). I look forward to giving the talk to more campus groups in the future. This was only the second time I’ve given that particular talk, and although I think it went well, I also think I can improve it. More about that another time: I found out that a philosopher named Andrew Bernstein would be in town the following evening giving a talk called “Religion vs. Morality.” I decided to stay in town an extra day so I could attend.
As it turns out, the Objectivist Club at UCM had scheduled a dinner with Dr. Bernstein before his 8 PM lecture, and I had the fortune of sitting next to him while we all ate. Dr. Bernstein, or Andy, teaches philosophy at SUNY Purchase. He is an objectivist and proponent of Ayn Rand’s work, as well as a philosopher (and novelist) in his own right. He’s written several books about capitalism, philosophy, and objectivism, lectures internationally, and he also wrote the Cliff’s Notes for Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
Me with Andrew Bernstein (on left)
At dinner, topics ranged from the current crop of Republican candidates (he plans to vote for “whichever sorry candidate the Republicans nominate”) to how to get into grad schools (his advice: Where you studied isn’t as important as what you have to say). I told him that although one of my majors is economics, I really know relatively little about market forces, capitalism, international trade, finance, etc, compared to most econ majors. I’ve taken a few required courses in those sorts of things, but my interest is game theory. I study altruism and the evolution of morality, especially its interplay with the history of religion, using the tools from behavioral economics & economic modeling. I admitted that this was my first real exposure to what objectivism is all about. He told me that his talk is not about religion AND morality, but more specifically religion VERSUS morality: in his estimation, an either/or proposal. I thought, this should be interesting!
At 8 PM, I joined an auditorium of people on the UCM campus as Angel Munoz Gomez Andrade, the president of the Objectivist Club, introduced Bernstein. Watching Bernstein speak is a real treat: He has a thick New York accent and a raw, passionate tone. Throughout his speech, he spoke with his hands as much as with his voice. The way he rapped his fingertips on the podium, shifted his weight when weighing what to say next, and stood on his toes to emphasize his points immediately brought to mind Al Pacino’s passion and mannerisms. An audience member, during the Q&A, said that he, lacking a philosophy background himself, had trouble following Bernstein on some of the more complex philosophy, but I found myself having the opposite experience: I think Bernstein has a remarkable ability to take complex philosophical ideas and illustrate them with digestible examples in such a way that they are readily understandable [disclosure: I'm minoring in philosophy].
The purpose of Bernstein’s talk, as stated above, is to argue that religion and morality are fundamentally at odds. Religion, because it is necessarily founded upon faith, requires irrational thinking, which Bernstein argues necessarily leads humans away from our values, and results in nothing short of death. There are certainly historical examples of this — he mentioned faith healing a few times, and the abysmal life expectancy of the third-world versus the first-world today. He argued that morality is, in so many words, whatever helps living things achieve their values, which (objectivism argues) are necessarily dictated by nature. These values are neither subjective in the social-consensus sense, nor the individual “whim” sense, nor the religious sense (via sacred text or divine revelation). According to objectivism, we need only look to the facts of what nature has presented to us in order to determine our values: There is, in fact, no need for subjective disagreement on what we “should” value or strive toward, because nature has already spelled out for us what is good and what is bad, whether we consent to it or not. We are living creatures, and what is “good” is whatever promotes life, and what is “bad” is whatever does not.
Dr. Andrew Bernstein presenting on "Religion vs. Morality" at the University of Central Missouri
I’m reminded of Craig Palmer (Mizzou anthropologist) and Lyle Steadman’s (ASU professor emeritus) definitions concerning moral behavior for humans living in groups: Morality is roughly synonymous with pro-social behavior, and immoral behavior is roughly synonymous with antisocial behavior (see their 2010 book The Supernatural and Natural Selection: The Evolution of Religion). A human being in complete isolation is incapable of moral or immoral action, following this line of thinking: Anything s/he does is morally justifiable if it’s a means toward the end of his survival, by virtue of the very fact that lacking are any other living things to harm in the process.
Objectivism, as I understand it, has this to say about the matter: Natural selection has provided every living thing with some sort of tool (insofar as it is necessary, given its biological niche) to aid in its survival. For an elephant, that might be its massive size, thick hide, tusks, etc. For an elk, this might be its antlers and speed. For a tiger or wolf, claws & teeth. Nature has also “provided” (selected for) fur coats to protect some animals from cold climates. In the case of elephants, huge floppy ears are very important for temperature regulation: They have lots of surface area and LOTS of blood volume, such that the elephant can flap its ears to cool down the temperature of its blood, as another example.
What is “good” or “bad” when we’re talking about these animals behavior? Well, what’s “good” for a tiger or an elephant or mushroom or mosquito or bacterium is whatever aids it in its “mission” to survive and reproduce. Moral reflection or indeed consciousness at all is actually unnecessary for this. Any living thing will, quite naturally, do whatever it needs to do in order to survive and reproduce (else go extinct). What’s “good” is what leads toward this, and what’s “bad” is what leads away from this.
In the case of humans, natural selection actually took away our survival mechanisms (claws, sizable canine teeth, fur coats, etc) some time ago. Ancient primates gave up claws for nails a very long time ago (65-85 million years), and we still have a hint of canines and body hair, though nothing even close to that of our ancestors. What we do have, what nature has provided to us via selection, is something far more interesting, and far more useful, in exchange: rational, thinking brains. These are our survival tools. They allow us to innovate, to invent technologies, and to increase our efficiency. We don’t need claws; we have hand-axes (for an EXCELLENT discussion of the importance of hand-axes to human evolution, see Matt Ridley’s beautifully-written The Rational Optimist). As time went on, ancient humans further innovated to produce hafted axes (axes with handles), spears, arrowheads, and much later, metal bladed weapons, etc.
We don’t need costly (in terms of energy input/output and time invested) guts & digestive systems; we have fire. In fact, we are the only animals that cook our food: By doing so, we are basically outsourcing a large fraction of our ancestors’ digestive process. By investing fewer calories (less energy) in growing and maintaining a complex gut, natural selection was able to divert that energy into growing more complex brains, instead, and the process went ’round and ’round in a magnificent evolutionary upward spiral of exponential innovation. From controlled fire (and therefore bigger brains) came an increased ability to ward off predators and stay warm, especially at night (meaning even less need for caloric investment in muscle mass and large, powerful jaws, and less need for temperature regulation via thick body hair), which led to even more freed-up calories for investment in bigger brains, and so on and so on, until we get to anatomically modern humans some 200,000 years ago.
What’s “good” when it comes to humans specifically? According to my understanding of objectivism, it’s not determined by a god (divine command theory), nor by societal consensus (moral relativism), nor by the individual: Values are dictated to us by nature, intrinsic in the fact that we are living things. What’s “good” is whatever helps us get closer to living up to those values. Except for rare suicidal cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value survival, and except in (relatively) rare cases, humans (like all living things) naturally value reproduction. This is more-or-less a restatement of the biological imperative. According to objectivism, as I understand it, this is sufficient to resolve Hume’s is-ought problem. There are other proposed resolutions to this problem, for example, Sam Harris also claims that science [the application of reason to evidence] can answer moral questions in The Moral Landscape.
The argument for reason as the best tool for achieving human values (or any living thing’s values, for that matter), therefore, neatly falls into place. By rejecting all forms of irrationality — religion included — we are necessarily left with the path of least resistance toward the end of attaining that which [nature has determined] is of value to us. The application of reason, Bernstein argues, is the most efficient, healthiest, and most direct way to reach our goals. Since these goals are dictated by nature and emphatically not subjective, it is an open-and-shut case.
Religion, because it embraces faith (and is, by definition, irrational), is therefore directly at odds with life itself. According to Bernstein, “Religion is a philosophical system based in faith, not reason,” and it necessarily includes an unquestioning obedience to God. Religion views humans as sinful, and a failure to obey God is at the very core of what it means to be immoral, from the perspective of religion. This is so fundamental to the Abrahamic religions that it’s in fact the very basis of sin itself, illustrated by the Fall of Man.
As a student of anthropology, I strongly disagree with this definition of religion, although admittedly “religion” is notoriously difficult to define, and Bernstein was upfront about this being a purely working definition. Some religions (e.g. theistic Satanism) place zero emphasis on obedience to God or indeed encourage disobedience as permissible behavior. Note: I’m not talking about LaVey Satanism here; LaVey explicitly denounced “devil worship” or the idea of praying to Satan, and LaVey Satanists are generally atheists. In fact, atheistic Satanism can, I think, rightly be called “ethical egoism with ritual.” Other examples of religions lacking a necessity of obedience to “God” are Buddhism, Taoism, and many American Indian religions. In the case of Buddhism, the Eightfold Path is a rough stand-in for a revealed text from a god, and in the case of Taoism, the idea is to live in harmony with reality through compassion, moderation, and humility. Although supernatural elements are present in each system, a rule-giving god is conspicuously absent, and disobedience is not immoral per se.
Bernstein’s working definition of religion is sufficient for the Abrahamic religions in this context, but I don’t think he adequately makes the case against all religion, just religions that require obedience to a god (which, admittedly, is most of the ones we’re worried about in practice).
During the Q&A, an audience member asked if there was room for faith in any of this. He said that he is a farmer and gave the example of having faith that it will rain within a certain window of time when choosing exactly when to plant his crops. He cited weather patterns over the last few decades as informing his choice of when to plant. Bernstein rightly pointed out that the farmer, then, is not depending on faith — there is no supernatural element present there. I wanted to add to this that perhaps a better way to word it might be that the farmer doesn’t have faith that it will rain: He has confidence that it will, in the scientific sense (evidence informing probability). This is very, very different from trust (an emotion) and faith (non-evidence-based belief), and we should take care to correct people who use the word “faith” when they mean “confidence.” If evidence is leading to your belief, you are, by definition, confident. There’s a big difference, and I applaud Bernstein on pointing this out.
My other main objection is that Bernstein, while simultaneously praising Scandinavia’s rational, secular approach to the rejection of irrationality, doesn’t seem to give credit where credit is due with regard to the success they have had in the application of liberal-leaning public policy. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc has some of the healthiest people on the planet in terms of nutrition, lifespan, and other factors for which he earlier criticized the Dark Ages for lacking . Phil Zuckerman, in Society Without God: What The Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment, makes strong arguments for why life in Scandinavia is downright heavenly (har har) for rational people, and atheists especially: Aside from long lifespans, they have some of the lowest abortion rates, divorce rates, murder rates, illiteracy rates, corruption rates, etc. Yes, they have very high tax rates, but health care and college is accessible to anyone who wants it (as I understand it). Looking at GDP per capita, a favored metric by Bernstein (who quoted these figures several times throughout his talk), is not necessarily an optimal way to compare the living conditions in one country versus another. While after-tax income of course measures “lower” in countries with high tax rates (and I of course admit the obvious role Pigovian taxes play on disincentivizing innovation), if tax-funded services are provided in lieu of direct income, if this is not accounted for in one’s metric, an individual’s actual standard of living may be more-or-less unaffected, even as the GDP per capita falls. This is why other metrics have come into favor over GDP per capita, which is easier to calculate but provides less information about the overall picture. More informative metrics are, for example, the Gini coefficient (based on the Lorenz curve), the Human Poverty Index (a composite index which accounts for literacy, unemployment, probability of falling below the poverty line, and the probability, at birth, of surviving to age 60), among others. GDP per capita as a metric, perhaps most importantly, only very weakly accounts for life satisfaction and experienced utility (see my previous article on welfare economics here).
I strongly agree with Bernstein’s overall message that religion and morality cannot peaceably coexist. In the words of Sam Harris, “The problem of faith is that it is a conversation-stopper. As long as you don’t have to give reasons for what you believe, you have effectively immunized yourself against the power of human conversation. You hear religious people say things like, ‘There’s nothing that can be said that will change my mind.’ Just imagine that said in medicine. If there’s nothing that can be said that will change your mind, if there’s no evidence or argument that can be educed, that proves that you are not any state of the world into account in your beliefs. The problem with this is that when the stakes are high, we have a choice between conversation and violence.” Bernstein made essentially the same point in his talk, that giving credibility to faith necessarily results in an irreconciliable struggle for (theoretically!) rational animals like us.
Bernstein is a strong public speaker, a good conversationalist, and extremely knowledgable in his field. I recommend him to any campus group interested in guest lectures about objectivism, reason/rationality, or why religion is harmful to societies.
Until next time!
- Dave
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
Why I’m Not Donating to Jessica Ahlquist’s Scholarship Fund
Or, “It’s good to be generous, but don’t forget to think critically”
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Hello all,
First off, I’m thrilled for Jessica’s victory.
I met Jess at the CFI Student Leadership conference earlier this summer, and again at the SSA Conference, where we had a good half-hour conversation about her situation and her plans in the movement. We’ve been Facebook friends since then, and I’ve chatted with her online many times. She knows I am supportive of her efforts, and I’ve even written before on this blog about that—twice—and how proud I am of her. My family even popped open a bottle of champagne when we got the news about her victory. Jess is dear to me, and in no way is this article intended as an attack on her or her family; merely some honest feedback from a fellow critical-thinking advocate, an economics student studying altruism, and a friend.
The aforementioned bottle of champagne, pre-popping.
Bloggers Hemant Mehta (the Friendly Atheist) and JT Eberhard, among many others, are promoting a scholarship fund for Jessica’s college expenses, based on the precedent example of Damon Fowler’s scholarship fund last year, which last I checked had surpassed $30,000. (NB: Neither Jess nor her family initiated the creation of this scholarship fund; they are merely the beneficiaries of it). Recently, JT suggested expanding Jessica’s fund to include selling T-shirts with the slogan, “Evil Little Thing” (as a reference to Rhode Island State Representative Peter Palumbo’s faux paus), the money from which would also go toward Jess’s scholarship fund. As of today, her fund is up to around $25,000 US (not including forthcoming T-shirt sales).
I know that supporting one of our own is very exciting and feels like the right thing to do. And it is the right thing to do—Jess deserves and indeed has earned our support.
But there are plenty of ways to support someone: financially, emotionally, morally, etc. Financially, I want to make clear, is only one way to do that.
I do not support the creation of a monetary scholarship fund for Jess, and I mean this in the best possible way, but we—as rational, skeptical, critical-thinkers—should pause for a moment and consider the priorities for our donation dollars.
Before making any donation, for ethical reasons, there are certain questions we must first ask. Among them:
1) Will this donation change someone’s life for the better?
If a donation changes no one’s life for the better above and beyond what they already had, and there are other ways to use that money that would instead, it is unethical to use resources in this way. This is true whether you’re talking about donating to an animal shelter (with the goal of changing those animals’ lives for the better), or an environmental preservation fund (allowing future generations of animals and people to enjoy that land), a scholarship fund (with the goal making college more accessible to someone), etc. Surprisingly, money is often not the “bottleneck” in achieving charitable goals. Take public schooling in the USA, for example: We spent about 3 times more tax dollars per student per year, adjusted for inflation, in the 2007-8 school year than we did in in the 1961-62 school year, yet we are falling further and further behind other countries when it comes to test scores and graduation rates. Clearly, there is something else going on besides just money.
2) To what degree will this donation improve someone’s life above and beyond current conditions?
There are many inefficient charities in the world. In fact, most charities accomplish very little. Charities that demonstrably improve people’s lives are the exception, not the rule. This is because fundraising for charity is nearly always based on emotional appeals, which is a type of informal fallacy, not on demonstrated accomplishment of their goals. This is something we, as skeptics, should recognize, and something for which we should be on the look-out, when we notice our heartstrings are being tugged.
As an analogy, take, for example, this 2-minute video, which makes me cry every time. Turn on your speakers (BC = British Columbia, Canada):
As a vegetarian, animal-welfare activist, former animal-shelter employee, and shelter volunteer, my heart breaks for these animals, and it’s not easy for me to put my emotions aside when I watch a video like this one. Makes you want to get out your wallet and pick up the phone, doesn’t it?
However, the critical-thinking side of me knows that the best thing to do, when making any economic decision, is to consider both my emotional AND rational reasoning. To paraphrase Richard Dawkins, by all means let’s allow our intuition to guide our ethics, but not so much that our brains fall out.
The question we should ask ourselves when we’re considering donating money is one of efficiency. We have an ethical obligation to ensure that our donations are being used as wisely and efficiently as humanly possible.
The video above quotes a statistic of 3,000 animals saved last year, and goes on to say that for hundreds of others animals, help came too late. The implication is that our (collective) donations can save other animals like these in the future. As critical thinkers, it’s our responsibility to ask, at what cost per animal? Are you doing everything you can to keep costs down (making all possible use of volunteers, foster homes, etc)? Are hard dollars your most urgent need? If our goal is to stop animal suffering, is this organization the most efficient one at actually accomplishing that goal? Is money even your bottleneck? (It could be things like lax local breeding laws, insufficient city services as far as animal control, insufficient legal penalties for dog-fighting or animal neglect, or lots of other things besides lack of hard dollars).
By way of example, our local animal shelter here in Columbia, MO took in over 5,000 animals last year, quite a few more than the 3,000 cited in the video. How many of these were euthanized? I don’t know; the website and donor FAQ don’t even say. From my experience there, I would guess roughly 1/3, but that is entirely speculative. Why were they euthanized? Was money even the bottleneck? Vicious animals (e.g. most of those recovered from dog-fighting operations) or fatally-injured animals cannot be put up for adoption, so money would not have helped them. Is the problem that people are bringing in their animals because they are destructive to their households? Maybe we should try to persuade local dog trainers to offer discounts and work with the shelter, if the problem is lack of training, etc. Critical thinking is how we solve problems like these, and as it turns out, money is often not really the root of the problem.
If your goal is to save animals from euthanasia, the fact is that we aren’t even given enough information, by looking at this own shelter’s website and donor FAQ, how much they need to save an animal’s life. So how on Earth can we compare the efficiency of this shelter with another animal charity with similar goals, competing for our donations? We can’t.
The reason charities don’t supply information about their efficiency is that nobody ever asks for it. In most cases they don’t even collect this data at all. This is especially true of charities who primarily solicit large numbers of small-figure donors (i.e. the ones that advertise for donations), versus those who focus on small numbers of large-figure donors.
Large donors tend to be more discriminating, and someone giving away a million dollars wants some quantifiable evidence, preferably significantly so, that their donation made a real difference. But why should a charity bother spending lots of money and time putting together all that data, when you can instead make one commercial and focus on getting 100,000 people to each donate $10, just by showing them sad pictures and providing two rather useless statistics? Especially when you consider that when a charity DOES put together all that data for a big donor, they are now in the position of having to make promises to that donor about results, which they now must keep or face some very bad PR and no donations in the future. Small donors tend not to check up on how much of a difference their donation made a year later when deciding whether or not to donate again, so it makes sense to invest in appealing to them, instead.
I am not saying that charities who focus on smaller donors are malicious nor manipulative. Most of the time, they in fact have very good intentions. But as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. This goes for charities as well as donors. By being MORE discriminating in where we donate our money, we can in fact do even greater good with the same amount of funds. (NB: This emphatically doesn’t mean we should donate less of our money to charity, rather, just that we should ask more questions when deciding where to donate it).
This is not to say that I don’t support my humane society’s mission in terms of moral or emotional support, but it is why I don’t donate money to them, and support them in other ways instead.
There is a calculation used in charity evaluation called “room for more funding.” In other words, we want to know, to what degree would additional donations advance the mission of the fund, over and above its current assets?
As I said above, there are many ways that we can support Jessica’s future: financially, morally, emotionally, and so on. I left out perhaps the most important one, because I want to discuss it here in more detail: Networking. This is an asset Jess has in spades, one that we can help her grow even more (for free!), and, in my opinion, the reason that her scholarship fund probably does not actually have room for more funding.
The goal of ANY scholarship fund is simple: To make a college education more accessible to its beneficiaries than it would otherwise be. That’s it.
So, the first question we need to ask ourselves is, “Is a college education indeed inaccessible to Jessica right now?” In other words, will she even need help paying for college in the first place?
I propose that the answer to this question, as I say this with all due respect and love for my friend Jess, is probably “no.” I’ve no doubt that the extra money wouldn’t hurt, but is “well, it wouldn’t hurt” really the highest & best use of the limited resource of atheists’ donations?
When Jessica is ready to apply for college, one of her (and her parents’) concerns will undoubtedly be finances. It is for nearly everyone who goes to college. It’s obviously less of a concern for some than others: I doubt the topic so much as crosses the mind of Jennifer Gates, the daughter of Bill & Melinda Gates, who is 16 years old, the same age as Jessica.
However, I submit that this isn’t for the reason you’d think: I’m willing to bet that Jennifer Gates will get scholarship offers from at least dozens of schools. The reason for this is not that they think she needs help financially affording tuition (clearly she doesn’t); it’s because many schools want to be able to tell other, future applicants, as well as alumni, that “Jennifer Gates is a student here.” These schools know Jennifer Gates can afford to go anywhere she wants, and that she will not make her decision based on cost, but rather, which school she thinks is truly the best for her.
In order to so much as stand a chance at recruiting Miss Gates, all but the very top schools in the world will have to offer her a full-ride. And even among those top schools, they must still compete with each other. They know that, whatever school she chooses, she and her family will be donating many millions of dollars there for many years to come, so it is in their best interest to attract her as a student in any way legally possible.
I think that Jess Ahlquist is actually in a better bargaining position when it comes to her choice of colleges than even Jennifer Gates. The reason for this is that Miss Gates, although I’d assume she’s a credible student, has not made a name for herself in the world yet. A quick perusal of Google doesn’t turn up anything particular newsworthy outside of the fact that she’s Bill & Melinda Gates’ daughter. The only thing I could really find about her at all personally is that she rides horses.
Jessica Ahlquist, on the other hand, has her own Wikipedia page (something even Jennifer Gates lacks). Jess has appeared on ABC News, in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, the Associated Press, etc. She has spoken at multiple major conferences already, done a Reddit AMA, and she will speak alongside Richard Dawkins, Dave Silverman, Lawrence Krauss, Dr. Greg Graffin (of Bad Religion), Tim Minchin, PZ Myers, James Randi, and others at the Reason Rally in March in Washington, DC. She has the explicit support of thousands and thousands of people around the country and the world. And she still has another year to go before applying to colleges!
When Jessica is ready to apply for colleges, she will have something even more valuable than $25,000. Consider her circumstance if she decides to apply to, say, Oxford: She will likely have little trouble getting an enthusiastic written reference and personal introduction & tour from none other than Professor Richard Dawkins himself. If she decides to apply to Harvard, she will have no trouble whatsoever getting a written reference and personal introduction from James Croft, or any number of others, and so on and so on. This list could go on for quite awhile!
There is a concept in economics, called opportunity cost, with which (I hope) everyone reading this is already familiar. The idea is simply that when you make a choice about how to spend your money (or time, or any scarce resource), the cost of that choice is not only what you pay for it, but also what you’re giving up by not spending your money (or time, etc) on your next best alternative.
There are a limited number of dollars available for donation by those supportive of separation of church & state issues. It’s important that we think critically here and ask ourselves how much help Jess really needs affording her college of choice, and if additional dollars from us is the absolute best use of our finite resources.
With Damon Fowler’s scholarship fund, his situation had some important differences: Damon’s parents were NOT supportive of his efforts, and as I understand it, he was kicked out of his parents’ house after coming out as an atheist, and had to leave the state to live with his brother. With the exception of the scholarship funds raised by his supporters (myself included), he is on his own as far as paying for college. In Jessica’s case, we don’t even know her parents’ financial situation (not that it’s any of our business), but we do know that they are supportive of her efforts (as I understand it, her father helped file the lawsuit), and as people who value critical thinking, I think it’s only appropriate that we consider whether or not her family has a true, pressing need for this money, above and beyond Damon, or the ACLU, American Atheists, the SSA, CFI, or other worthy causes to which we could donate, instead.
By donating to Jessica’s college scholarship fund, we are not donating to other organizations or young activists who may need it more. There are a lot of people, young campus leaders in the atheist movement, who cannot afford to attend the Reason Rally, or promote quality events on their own campuses.
If you want to support the future of the atheist movement in the United States, and again, I mean this in the best possible way to Jess and her family, please considering donating to the Reason Rally, American Atheists, the Secular Student Alliance, or the Center For Inquiry in honor of Jessica’s victory. The last two of these routinely help fund local events for campus skeptic groups, things like bringing in guest speakers, and setting up regional conferences to help spread awareness of atheism and introduce a younger generation to a lifetime of critical thinking and freethought. If you are interested primarily in supporting separation of church & state issues, please consider donating to the ACLU, or the Freedom From Religion Foundation, again in honor of her victory. NB: To my knowledge, donations made through all the links in this paragraph are tax-deductible; to my knowledge, donations made to Jessica’s scholarship fund are not, just FYI.
As I said above, I think that what Jess is doing is deserving of the highest praise, and of our support, but remember, support can take many forms. While it is certainly important to have nationally-renowned spokepeople for atheism like Jessica Ahlquist, it’s also very important to have well-funded local and regional leaders putting on events on their campuses, too. My only hope is that our financial support can go to where it’s not only most needed, but best used, whether you ultimately decide that is Jess’s scholarship fund itself, or another related, deserving fund.
Thank you for reading.
Dave
P.S. For an excellent series of articles on “smart giving,” I highly recommend this page: GiveWell’s “Giving 101.”
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, Dave posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current,NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
A More-Effective Way to Help
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Hello all!
If you eat at Chili’s today, they will donate 100% of their net profit to St Jude Children’s Hospital. Sounds great, right? Let’s take a closer look using some of the tools of skepticism.
According to a retail survey report, 50% of Chili’s checks for tables of two come in to between $20-30. With a tip of 15%, expect to pay around $28.75 total, if you and a friend go to Chili’s in order to support cancer research today.
Presuming a 10% net profit (not bad for a restaurant chain), we’re looking at a cost to you of about $14.38 for lunch, and in exchange, St Jude will get $1.25 from Chili’s. Something else to keep in mind is that Chili’s will get a tax write-off for this: By lowering their taxable income, they are lowering their tax liability. This actually won’t cost them anything out-of-pocket.
Now, if you were going out to lunch today anyway, by all means, go to Chili’s: $1.25 is better than $0. But please don’t think you are actually helping to cure cancer by simply treating yourself to lunch. If instead of going to Chili’s, you go to Jimmy John’s and get a sub sandwich, and a soda from the machine outside your office, you’re looking at around $6.39 (in my area, presuming $1.25 for the soda). This is less than half of what you would spend at Chili’s.
While you’re eating your sandwich, you can call this number:
1-800-805-5856
or go to this website:
and donate the $8 difference to St Jude. Just like that, you’ve helped cure cancer 6.5 times more effectively than you would have by going to Chili’s for lunch. And you still got a tasty sandwich that you didn’t have to make yourself for lunch — and really, once you’ve finished eating it, you can’t tell the difference, anyway.
Also, if you’re the sort of person who keeps track of this stuff, YOU get the tax write-off, instead of Chili’s. In other words, your taxable income base just went down by $8, which means that if you pay 20% in taxes, you could have effectively donated $9.60 and it would have cost you the same amount out-of-pocket. That would be more than 7.5 times what St Jude’s would have received if you had gone to Chili’s.
I’m not saying Chili’s is doing a bad thing here. They are raising awareness, and that’s a good thing. But my question is, how much is Chili’s spending to promote this campaign, versus how much they will donate to St Jude? We may never know. My guess is that they’re spending as much to promote this campaign–if not a lot more–than they will actually donate to charity. For one infamous example, consider the (RED) campaign to raise money for AIDS. The companies supporting it – Motorola, GAP, Target, among others – spent about $100 million to advertise the campaign, which raised $18 million for AIDS relief. The $100 million was a write-off for the companies as a business expense, and the $18 million was a write-off as a charitable donation.
What often ends up happening with things like this is that the restaurant chain gets a lot of positive attention, and the cause gets a token amount of money. Remember, this is a tax write-off for Chili’s. It doesn’t cost them anything; if they weren’t donating this money to St Jude, they would be paying it in taxes. So it’s not really Chili’s that’s doing the good thing here: It’s the United States government. The government is the one giving up money in exchange for St Jude’s getting the donation. But what is the United States government? Where does the government get the money it’s deciding to donate (indirectly) to cancer research?
Our government gets its money from us – we the people. YOU are getting fewer government services, paying more interest on government debt, and paying higher taxes, so that St Jude can do more cancer research. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying that cancer research isn’t a worthwhile thing on to spend government money. But I am saying, if YOU are the one ultimately giving money to St Jude’s, why do we need TWO middlemen here (Chili’s and the IRS)? Why don’t YOU just give your money DIRECTLY to St Jude’s? It’s hugely inefficient to go through even one middleman, let alone two.
If you really want to help, skip Chili’s, skip Jimmy John’s, bring a sandwich from home to work or school with you today, and donate $10 to St Jude’s at the website below. If you pay 20% in taxes, ask for the tax receipt, and donate $12.50 instead of $10. It’ll cost you about the same, and you’ll end up doing literally 10 times more for cancer research than you would with the $1.25 donation by going to Chili’s. Recognize this campaign for what it is: A way for Chili’s to get a positive press among its customers and stockholders, NOT a way to actually raise money for cancer research. Corporate accountants who greenlight these events know all of this; they are not stupid. They do it because it makes their companies look good, and a good corporate reputation = more profit in the future, on days that they’re not “giving away” their net profit. It’s not about cancer. It’s about money. The good news is, by thinking smarter, by being rational and approaching these things skeptically, we can make a difference, and a much bigger, more-effective one at that.
Have a great Monday!
Take care,
Dave
Addendum 1:
My friend Karen responded: “Your point is well taken, but if the posting on FB, or the $1.25, gives a sense of encouragement and community to folks whose kids are battling cancer, then I can live with supporting a canny PR stunt.”
My response:
Karen, I agree. A sense of encouragement & community to folks whose kids are battling cancer is important, and if this helps with that, I think that’s great. I just think that we can do better. Good intentions are not enough. See also this Cracked article, 6 Socially Conscious Actions That Only Look Like They Help. I definitely don’t think Chili’s et al should stop doing things like this. And on their website, they also take donations directly to St Jude’s, and at the restaurants, you can also sponsor a paper “Pepper” and donate directly that way, aside from the ~10% of your check total. It is better than nothing, and I encourage that. I just also hope people think about these things a little deeper as well. I think that we could probably solve a lot of problems in the world not necessarily by spending more, but by being smarter about how we spend the same amount we already do, or possibly even less.
mail@davemuscato.com
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, he posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
Follow Dave on Google+
Follow Dave on Twitter
Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too! 
Game Day a success! And now for something completely different…
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Hello everybody!
Our Game Day on Wednesday was a blast. About 20 SASHA members gathered ’round for Ergo, Axis & Allies, Uno, Settlers of Catan, and others. Due to the same room-scheduling snafu as last week, we do not yet know where our meeting will be next Wednesday, but I will post here and on the Facebook group as soon as I find out!
Ergo: An onotological competition using Boolean logic, for 4 players
Gamers be gamin'
More gameplay
As I’m a few days behind on the (cough: daily) blog, I’m going to write a rather in-depth article for today to make up for it: And now for something completely different, I also wanted to round out today’s post with a video explaining, in less than 4-and-a-half minutes, some damning evidence that we (humans aka Homo) share a common ancestor with the other great apes (chimps aka Pan, gorillas aka Gorilla, and orangutans aka Pongo).
First of all, and I hope this isn’t news to anyone reading this, but if you ever hear the argument, “If humans evolved from monkeys, how come monkeys are still around?” the correct response is, “Nobody’s claiming humans evolved from monkeys. Modern humans and modern monkeys are cousins; we both evolved from a common ancestor.”
Data from Jared Diamond's book "The Third Chimpanzee." Red squares indicate branching points.
That’s like asking, “If England colonized America in the early 17th century, why is England still here in the 21st century?” The answer is, because the entirety of England did not pick up & move to the New World… Those that left to colonize the New World became the ancestors of modern US natives (along with other immigrants along the way), and those that stayed behind became the ancestors of modern English natives. They may have even been close blood relatives once upon a time.
A parallel can be drawn with more familiar kinship terms:
The white numbers in the red boxes indicate the coefficient of relatedness r to the orange "self." r is defined as 2 times the Coefficient of Inbreeding, which is defined as the probability that the alleles at a particular locus chosen at random from two individuals are identical by descent. This has direct application to Hamilton's Rule and JBS Haldane's fantastic joke, "I would lay down my life for 2 brothers or 8 cousins."
Picture two brothers, both young men straight men without any biological children (but the desire for them) living in England in the year 1606. One brother goes to the New World to help settle the Jamestown colony, one brother stays behind in England. They each become fathers & start their own families a few years later, and after you fast-forward 400 years to the present day, not only do their respective great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren have completely different accents and dialect vocabularies from each other, but probably different politics, perhaps different religions, different last names, even different hair, eye, and/or skin colors, depending on with whom their ancestors bred along the way. It’s unlikely, if two people from each end of these respective genetic lines passed each other on the street, they would even have any clue they were at all related. And since their last common ancestor is separated from them by 13 generations, that would make them 12th cousins, and you’d frankly be hard up to even call them “related” in any meaningful sense. Consider that the relatedness coefficient of siblings is 50 (explained below). For each generation back you have to go in order to find a common ancestor, you divide by 4 (1st cousins = 12.5, etc). Therefore, the relatedness coefficient of 12th cousins is 0.00000298. I think that after 5 zeroes, you’re safe in calling them random strangers.
My favorite thing to study is altruism. This has huge applications to evolution as well. The science behind this is just more and more fascinating the more you look into it. Why do people (and other animals) self-sacrifice? Why do we sometimes risk harm & cost to ourselves in order to harm others (aka spite)? If we see someone in trouble, why do we have an instinctual urge to be charitable toward people, even people we do not necessarily “know,” even at sometimes great monetary or personal risk to ourselves? Why are we so much more charitable toward people in geographic proximity to us, even when they are in less trouble than others who may be in much greater need of our charity? Why do we just “know” that altruism and socially-promoting behavior is virtuous? Why do we just “know” that selfish and socially-demoting behavior is villainous?
“Kin selection” refers to apparent strategies in evolution that favor the reproductive success of an organism’s relatives, even at a cost to their own survival and/or reproduction. At first blush, charity/altruism seems to be something natural selection would not favor. What possible advantage could it confer to the giver, to give away their (finite) resources? As it turns out, there are many, especially once religion enters the scene, which is the part that fascinates me the most. In economic anthropology (and other fields, namely evolutionary biology), there is a concept called signalling theory. The idea is that you communicate information about yourself (the agent) to someone else (the principal) by doing or displaying certain “expensive” things or behaviors, whether calorically or monetarily or however else. Let’s take a labor example:
When two applicants apply for the same job, the potential employer is at a disadvantage when choosing between them. For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that the only thing this employer is interested in is intelligence — say, for sake of example, that the company is a complex systems logistics consulting company . The reason the employer is at a disadvantage is that the applicants know much more about how intelligent (or unintelligent) they really are than the employer could possibly know. As the employer (principal) in this scenario, how could we find out who would be a better fit for the job?
We could ask them how smart they are, but that’s not very precise, and there’s no way to know if they are lying. We could have them take an IQ test, but that would be costly and time-consuming, especially if you had a lot of applicants. A much faster way would be to look at costly signals:
What’s on their résumés? Say that Applicant A has a master’s in mathematics from Oxford and Applicant B has an associate’s degree in Communications from the University of Phoenix. And just like that, we have (very high confidence that we have) our answer. Frankly, it’s expensive to get a master’s degree from Oxford. I don’t just mean financially; I mean that it takes years of your life, a huge investment as far as not only brainpower but determination and tenacity, and assuming this company is based in the USA, that means our applicant moved overseas, presumably as an investment in going to such a great school. Assuming neither candidate is lying on his/her résumé, you can’t fake that kind of dedication and hard work. And that, in a nutshell, is costly signalling.
There are all sorts of examples of costly signalling in nature: The guy driving the Ferrari to feel sexier, the peacock investing huge numbers of calories into growing & maintaining his tail feathers (“I’m so badass/good-looking that I don’t have to worry about evading predators, and I’m so good at hunting/persuading-humans-to-feed-me that I don’t have to worry about preserving my calories for lean times; I grew these tail feathers to impress YOU, baby”), etc.
There are also ways to cheat at signalling, which is where the REAL fun comes in when you start to look at this from a game-theory perspective: Did she really go to Oxford, or did she lie on her résumé? Can that guy really afford the Ferrari, or does he have a 7-year loan at 10% interest (and no equity in his house) in order to fake it? Is that a real Rolex? The best costly signals are signals that are hard to fake. It’s easy to fake a Rolex, which is why not many drunk people at bars are very impressed by them. But it’s much harder to fake owning a Ferrari – even to get a loan for one requires some serious income – and we tend to pay more attention when someone pulls up in one than when we see someone wearing a Rolex, just like we pay more attention to someone with chiseled six-pack abs than we do to someone with a Gold’s Gym swipe card on their keychain, even though they could very well be the same person. It’s easy to fake being interested in physical health in order to impress a date, but pretty expensive (though not impossible) to fake the effort it takes to actually get six-pack abs (witness “abdominal liposculpture”: All you need is about 3 months and $25,000… and look at that; they even offer financing!).
To get back on topic, the point is, evolution is a fascinating topic with applications all over the map. There is so much evidence for evolution – in phylogenetics, anatomy (vestiges are, in my opinion, one of the biggest blows to “intelligent design”) – biogeography, fossil evidence/homologies, virology, not to mention the OBSERVED INSTANCES OF SPECIATION! - that disbelieving evolution is akin to disbelieving, at some point in the past, you were situated inside someone’s womb. I know this is a fallacy, but frankly, it’s ridiculous to believe that evolution isn’t true. Just in case, though, here’s the video I mentioned above, as promised:
I hope you all have a wonderful Friday, and I’ll catch ya next time!
- Dave
(573) 424-0420 cell/text
Dave Muscato is Vice President of MU SASHA. He is a vegetarian, LGBTQ ally, and human- & animal-welfare activist. A junior at Mizzou majoring in economics & anthropology and minoring in philosophy & Latin, he posts updates to the SASHA blog every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. His website is http://www.DaveMuscato.com.
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Helpful resources:
Godisimaginary.com
Iron Chariots Wiki
Skeptics’ Annotated Bible / Skeptics’ Annotated Qur’an
AtheismResource.com
TalkOrigins.org
YouTubers: Evid3nc3, Thunderf00t, TheAmazingAtheist, The Atheist Experience, Edward Current, NonStampCollector, Mr. Deity, Richard Dawkins, QualiaSoup
Blogs: Greta Christina, PZ Myers, The Friendly Atheist, WWJTD?, Debunking Christianity, SkepChick
and don’t forget… other SASHA members! We are here for you, too!
