As John Muir once said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”

Here too is another video from Symphony of Science on the theme of connectedness.

Enjoy!

Look at how people are living these days! On the one hand, the world is more prosperous and vibrant than it has ever been. On the other, it’s an ever growing cesspool of irresponsibility and waste. Either way, we have exceeded our ancestors in our ability to produce and consume more than we need.

Theoretically no one living today should starve to death, or need to worry about having enough potable water for themselves. Our technology is sufficient today to eliminate the need for both fossil fuels and child labor, if we could only get past our need for instant gratification. Ideally, since 2+2 =4 and the Earth goes around the Sun no matter where you live, education standards for certain subjects could be established that would allow us – for perhaps the first time in history – to cultivate a common understanding of our world, without sacrificing ingenuity, creativity, or cultural identity.

But we seem to have difficulty bringing any of these things about. Money is, of course, always an issue, but it’s much more than that. It’s also our ideas, and the attitudes we have about and toward them. We have no problem whatsoever sharing these things freely, and whether or not anyone wants them.

The sheer volume of ideas floating around out there – new and old, good and bad – that we’re exposed to on a day-to-day basis is so utterly overwhelming that many of us labor more or less constantly under the weight of information overload. At the same time, many of these ideas and attitudes have been processed; filtered and re-worked by expert wordsmiths whose job it is to manipulate rather than persuade. Those who accept their product are welcomed aboard the bandwagon. Those who don’t, well, they’re grist for the mill; targets of every opportunity.

Thus navigating a river of sound bites, we wind up getting lost in an ideological logjam. Facing this bumping throng of notions we cling more desperately to our own, eager to find a clear path through the maze by identifying friend from foe. We seek, in a word, separation.

We separate ourselves from ideas with which we disagree by sorting them into categories labeled ‘good’ and ‘bad’ regardless of actual content or worth. Labels are become more important than what’s in the box. Rare is the person who remains willing to entertain ideas long enough to extract lessons worth learning. But really, if there are lasting solutions to be had, more of these kinds of people are needed.

What’s needed are visionaries – iconoclasts, in one sense – who recognize the need for synthesis rather than separation.

Ideas are not so easily grouped into good & bad, right & wrong. Most have some pieces and parts that are useful or meaningful in some way, and in any case we don’t need to reinvent the wheel in order to resolve our issues. Some ideas are, in fact, better than others, but might be made even better than they are by the inclusion or exclusion of certain bits & pieces.

What I propose then is an experiment in reverse engineering. Let’s unpack our ideas and see what’s there, taking only what’s needed for progress and leaving the rest. For that, we’ll have to cozy up to some ideas we’re not comfortable cozying up to, and consider some possibilities we might feel are a little risky (or a lot, as the case may be). We’ll try to live up to the standard set by Aristotle: “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

Maybe, if we consider fairly enough, we might achieve a degree of consensus that can be shared with others regardless of which label we identify with most. We don’t even need to agree wholeheartedly to get there, either. We can instigate our own revolution; a revolution built on an ideological hybrid, rather than loyalty to a closely related set of beliefs.

If nothing else, it might be fun to try.

Going with the flow that way never really worked for me. As a matter of fact, I tend to think that if it does work, it works for a minority. We are pattern seekers, all of us. We’re programmed to arrange our world in neat little categories for easy consumption. Flakiness turns us off, and reliability is a highly sought after quality.

Consistency. We love consistency.

Of course, this is why we tend to favor the status quo, and why change often comes more slowly and costs much more than we’d like. It takes a lot of build up and sustained effort to change the way things are. But when change is called for (as it is, sometimes), it really helps to be changing in ways that are worthwhile.

Rearranging our natural predispositions might be worthwhile for a number of reasons. In fact, I can think of quite a few. Yet reliability is the key to trust. Lose it, drop it, set it down for a few minutes and it’s gone. And so I view the post from Friday before last as a mistake in the sense that last week’s missing posts are like letters expected but never delivered.

Promises are meant to be kept, so let me clarify one thing from Friday before last. In that article, I stated that from 1 to 5 articles per week would be published. Expect that minimum of one to be published no later than Friday of each week.

That’s a promise.

Perhaps not.

Actually, having gotten some good feedback about the site, and having discovered what’s been working well (and what hasn’t), I think there’s room for improvement. Most importantly, it has occurred to me – and pointed out independently, too – that the purpose and message of the site isn’t really coming clear yet. Fair enough.

Starting today, some changes will be taking place. One of these changes (particularly for email subscribers) is that the posting schedule is about to become more flexible. Instead of a two-article-per-week model with posts being published only on Tuesdays & Fridays (a bit of an odd schedule anyway), expect no more than one post on any given day, and between 1 to 5 posts per week.

The reason for the schedule change is, quite simply, that there hasn’t been any space for posting “at will,” so to speak.

I’d read somewhere that setting a consistent publishing schedule would be more user friendly. That may be so, but I have a feeling that the schedule will settle itself over a short period of time. Two fixed days a week is just too restrictive for what was originally envisioned.

Email subscribers might’ve already noticed another change already. Initially I had some problems getting the email to go out on time, and for new content to show up on Facebook or Twitter when it was supposed to. Basically, the article feed kept going out a day or more later. A bit of trial and error eventually fixed that, so you should receive email on the same day that an article is published, rather than a day or so after the fact.

It’s hard to believe I’m writing this, but there may also be some changes to the site itself. I’m amazed by how comfortable this minimalist design feels to me, but readers have pointed out some key features that would help navigation and interaction. Over the weekend I’ll be trying to work out a few of the kinks, but being an amateur I may have to resort to a different (albeit still minimalist) theme with the necessary pieces & parts. I want to keep the same look, if possible. Hopefully you agree.

There are a few other small things too, but maybe not as obvious.

To those who’ve already decided to invest some of your time & energy reading, thank you so much. Really. I appreciate the opportunity you’ve given me to share with you a few of my thoughts.

Not everyone likes the technique (autotuning) that the composer used, but I personally like the songs in spite of the technology.

Enjoy!

The M1941 “potbelly” stoves we brought on exercises like that were little more than squat, black barrels with a burner fed from a liquid fuel source. They burned either gasoline or diesel, and as long as you didn’t mix the two fuels, turn the burner up too high, or allow the fuel to pool in the bottom when not in use these stoves generated copious amounts of glorious heat.

Each type of fuel had its quirks, but the particulars never really mattered to us. Heat was heat regardless of what was burning, and I don’t recall ever debating the merits of one fuel over the other. As long as we were comfortable, there were more important things to worry about.

Sometimes, I find myself having similar thoughts regarding competing belief systems. It’d be nice if people could stop spending so much time & energy arguing over what the ‘right’ set of beliefs are, wouldn’t it? If we could just overcome our tendency toward ideological tribalism, we might accomplish great things in service to ourselves, our planet, and posterity.

In other words, like the heater stoves, as long as the results are generally favorable it shouldn’t matter what the fuel source is.

Unfortunately, despite its appeal this friendly little metaphorical truism isn’t at all helpful. Our beliefs are just too diverse and too contradictory, and are so thoroughly woven into the fabric of human society that conflict is inevitable. More than that, I think it’s necessary.

Conflict has, after all, been a part of the human experience since the dawn of time. History itself is largely a chronicle of our struggles with each other over territories, resources, and dogmas. The clash between science & reason vs. pseudoscience, mysticism and religious dogma is simply an example that’s lasted longer than most, and one that many people view as primarily academic or personal. And yet, like any other conflict, there are real casualties.

For example, diseases such as measles, thought to be all but eradicated in some parts of the world have once again begun claiming victims, thanks in no small measure to activist fear-mongering and sensationalism.[¹][²] HIV/AIDS too remains at epidemic levels in some third world countries thanks to misinformation and faith-based campaigns to malign condom use as ‘sinful,’[³] even as pedophile priests are shuffled from one appointment to another in order to protect the reputation of the world’s oldest surviving religious organization.[⁴] Meanwhile, science and education have become politicized to the point that it’s hard to tell whether either will be taken seriously by future generations,[⁵] and self-appointed guardians of rectitude continue to insinuate their ideas into the public sphere dressed as traditional values, even as their earnest counterparts elsewhere pour acid on children accused of witchcraft[⁶] or legislate the death penalty for homosexuals.[⁷]

In response to all this some advocate a policy not unlike benign neglect, in which the goal – ostensibly – is to ease tensions by toning down the rhetoric. Yet I can’t help but notice that this has the unintended consequence of marginalizing the real issues at hand. With civility, respect, and political correctness as the new causes célèbre, the victims of the original conflict are sacrificed yet again, this time on the altar of pluralism, and a resolution is deferred indefinitely.

It’s all well-and-good in a pluralistic society to treat your neighbor with the same basic level of respect you would expect for yourself; rudeness for its own sake is of dubious merit. Yet pluralism of a sort that treats facts as opinions for the sake of avoiding conflict is unbelievably asinine.

So it is that I find myself unable to remain neutral. People aren’t potbelly stoves, and what we believe influences how we act. To the extent that we act inappropriately toward one another, we must speak up.

Of course, the human drama is mostly a comedy of errors in which most of us play bit parts, and it’s very likely that the controversies of our generation will mean little to future generations. At least we might hope so. But if there’s the slightest chance of leaving a positive legacy, I’d like to think most of us would try. Surely the stakes are high enough to force us to make a choice.

Image © WW2 US Medical Research Centre; Used without permission; Retrieved from 8th Evacuation Hospital Unit History

Click the title below to go to the original website.

(Republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License)

Twelve Virtues of Rationality

The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning itch of curiosity requires both that you be ignorant, and that you desire to relinquish your ignorance. If in your heart you believe you already know, or if in your heart you do not wish to know, then your questioning will be purposeless and your skills without direction. Curiosity seeks to annihilate itself; there is no curiosity that does not want an answer. The glory of glorious mystery is to be solved, after which it ceases to be mystery. Be wary of those who speak of being open-minded and modestly confess their ignorance. There is a time to confess your ignorance and a time to relinquish your ignorance.

The second virtue is relinquishment. P. C. Hodgell said: “That which can be destroyed by the truth should be.” Do not flinch from experiences that might destroy your beliefs. The thought you cannot think controls you more than thoughts you speak aloud. Submit yourself to ordeals and test yourself in fire. Relinquish the emotion which rests upon a mistaken belief, and seek to feel fully that emotion which fits the facts. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is hot, and it is cool, the Way opposes your fear. If the iron approaches your face, and you believe it is cool, and it is hot, the Way opposes your calm. Evaluate your beliefs first and then arrive at your emotions. Let yourself say: “If the iron is hot, I desire to believe it is hot, and if it is cool, I desire to believe it is cool.” Beware lest you become attached to beliefs you may not want.

The third virtue is lightness. Let the winds of evidence blow you about as though you are a leaf, with no direction of your own. Beware lest you fight a rearguard retreat against the evidence, grudgingly conceding each foot of ground only when forced, feeling cheated. Surrender to the truth as quickly as you can. Do this the instant you realize what you are resisting; the instant you can see from which quarter the winds of evidence are blowing against you. Be faithless to your cause and betray it to a stronger enemy. If you regard evidence as a constraint and seek to free yourself, you sell yourself into the chains of your whims. For you cannot make a true map of a city by sitting in your bedroom with your eyes shut and drawing lines upon paper according to impulse. You must walk through the city and draw lines on paper that correspond to what you see. If, seeing the city unclearly, you think that you can shift a line just a little to the right, just a little to the left, according to your caprice, this is just the same mistake.

The fourth virtue is evenness. One who wishes to believe says, “Does the evidence permit me to believe?” One who wishes to disbelieve asks, “Does the evidence force me to believe?” Beware lest you place huge burdens of proof only on propositions you dislike, and then defend yourself by saying: “But it is good to be skeptical.” If you attend only to favorable evidence, picking and choosing from your gathered data, then the more data you gather, the less you know. If you are selective about which arguments you inspect for flaws, or how hard you inspect for flaws, then every flaw you learn how to detect makes you that much stupider. If you first write at the bottom of a sheet of paper, “And therefore, the sky is green!”, it does not matter what arguments you write above it afterward; the conclusion is already written, and it is already correct or already wrong. To be clever in argument is not rationality but rationalization. Intelligence, to be useful, must be used for something other than defeating itself. Listen to hypotheses as they plead their cases before you, but remember that you are not a hypothesis, you are the judge. Therefore do not seek to argue for one side or another, for if you knew your destination, you would already be there.

The fifth virtue is argument. Those who wish to fail must first prevent their friends from helping them. Those who smile wisely and say: “I will not argue” remove themselves from help, and withdraw from the communal effort. In argument strive for exact honesty, for the sake of others and also yourself: The part of yourself that distorts what you say to others also distorts your own thoughts. Do not believe you do others a favor if you accept their arguments; the favor is to you. Do not think that fairness to all sides means balancing yourself evenly between positions; truth is not handed out in equal portions before the start of a debate. You cannot move forward on factual questions by fighting with fists or insults. Seek a test that lets reality judge between you.

The sixth virtue is empiricism. The roots of knowledge are in observation and its fruit is prediction. What tree grows without roots? What tree nourishes us without fruit? If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? One says, “Yes it does, for it makes vibrations in the air.” Another says, “No it does not, for there is no auditory processing in any brain.” Though they argue, one saying “Yes”, and one saying “No”, the two do not anticipate any different experience of the forest. Do not ask which beliefs to profess, but which experiences to anticipate. Always know which difference of experience you argue about. Do not let the argument wander and become about something else, such as someone’s virtue as a rationalist. Jerry Cleaver said: “What does you in is not failure to apply some high-level, intricate, complicated technique. It’s overlooking the basics. Not keeping your eye on the ball.” Do not be blinded by words. When words are subtracted, anticipation remains.

The seventh virtue is simplicity. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry said: “Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” Simplicity is virtuous in belief, design, planning, and justification. When you profess a huge belief with many details, each additional detail is another chance for the belief to be wrong. Each specification adds to your burden; if you can lighten your burden you must do so. There is no straw that lacks the power to break your back. Of artifacts it is said: The most reliable gear is the one that is designed out of the machine. Of plans: A tangled web breaks. A chain of a thousand links will arrive at a correct conclusion if every step is correct, but if one step is wrong it may carry you anywhere. In mathematics a mountain of good deeds cannot atone for a single sin. Therefore, be careful on every step.

The eighth virtue is humility. To be humble is to take specific actions in anticipation of your own errors. To confess your fallibility and then do nothing about it is not humble; it is boasting of your modesty. Who are most humble? Those who most skillfully prepare for the deepest and most catastrophic errors in their own beliefs and plans. Because this world contains many whose grasp of rationality is abysmal, beginning students of rationality win arguments and acquire an exaggerated view of their own abilities. But it is useless to be superior: Life is not graded on a curve. The best physicist in ancient Greece could not calculate the path of a falling apple. There is no guarantee that adequacy is possible given your hardest effort; therefore spare no thought for whether others are doing worse. If you compare yourself to others you will not see the biases that all humans share. To be human is to make ten thousand errors. No one in this world achieves perfection.

The ninth virtue is perfectionism. The more errors you correct in yourself, the more you notice. As your mind becomes more silent, you hear more noise. When you notice an error in yourself, this signals your readiness to seek advancement to the next level. If you tolerate the error rather than correcting it, you will not advance to the next level and you will not gain the skill to notice new errors. In every art, if you do not seek perfection you will halt before taking your first steps. If perfection is impossible that is no excuse for not trying. Hold yourself to the highest standard you can imagine, and look for one still higher. Do not be content with the answer that is almost right; seek one that is exactly right.

The tenth virtue is precision. One comes and says: The quantity is between 1 and 100. Another says: the quantity is between 40 and 50. If the quantity is 42 they are both correct, but the second prediction was more useful and exposed itself to a stricter test. What is true of one apple may not be true of another apple; thus more can be said about a single apple than about all the apples in the world. The narrowest statements slice deepest, the cutting edge of the blade. As with the map, so too with the art of mapmaking: The Way is a precise Art. Do not walk to the truth, but dance. On each and every step of that dance your foot comes down in exactly the right spot. Each piece of evidence shifts your beliefs by exactly the right amount, neither more nor less. What is exactly the right amount? To calculate this you must study probability theory. Even if you cannot do the math, knowing that the math exists tells you that the dance step is precise and has no room in it for your whims.

The eleventh virtue is scholarship. Study many sciences and absorb their power as your own. Each field that you consume makes you larger. If you swallow enough sciences the gaps between them will diminish and your knowledge will become a unified whole. If you are gluttonous you will become vaster than mountains. It is especially important to eat math and science which impinges upon rationality: Evolutionary psychology, heuristics and biases, social psychology, probability theory, decision theory. But these cannot be the only fields you study. The Art must have a purpose other than itself, or it collapses into infinite recursion.

Before these eleven virtues is a virtue which is nameless.

Miyamoto Musashi wrote, in The Book of Five Rings:

“The primary thing when you take a sword in your hands is your intention to cut the enemy, whatever the means. Whenever you parry, hit, spring, strike or touch the enemy’s cutting sword, you must cut the enemy in the same movement. It is essential to attain this. If you think only of hitting, springing, striking or touching the enemy, you will not be able actually to cut him. More than anything, you must be thinking of carrying your movement through to cutting him.”

Every step of your reasoning must cut through to the correct answer in the same movement. More than anything, you must think of carrying your map through to reflecting the territory.

If you fail to achieve a correct answer, it is futile to protest that you acted with propriety.

How can you improve your conception of rationality? Not by saying to yourself, “It is my duty to be rational.” By this you only enshrine your mistaken conception. Perhaps your conception of rationality is that it is rational to believe the words of the Great Teacher, and the Great Teacher says, “The sky is green,” and you look up at the sky and see blue. If you think: “It may look like the sky is blue, but rationality is to believe the words of the Great Teacher,” you lose a chance to discover your mistake.

Do not ask whether it is “the Way” to do this or that. Ask whether the sky is blue or green. If you speak overmuch of the Way you will not attain it.

You may try to name the highest principle with names such as “the map that reflects the territory” or “experience of success and failure” or “Bayesian decision theory”. But perhaps you describe incorrectly the nameless virtue. How will you discover your mistake? Not by comparing your description to itself, but by comparing it to that which you did not name.

If for many years you practice the techniques and submit yourself to strict constraints, it may be that you will glimpse the center. Then you will see how all techniques are one technique, and you will move correctly without feeling constrained. Musashi wrote: “When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the Way of the Void.”

These then are twelve virtues of rationality:

Curiosity, relinquishment, lightness, evenness, argument, empiricism, simplicity, humility, perfectionism, precision, scholarship, and the void.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (Ecc. 1:2; KJV)[¹]

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (Ecc. 1:2; NIV)

So begins one of the most famous books of the Bible, Ecclesiastes. For those who don’t know, this is same book that inspired Pete Seeger to write the song, “Turn Turn Turn,” which became a number one hit for The Byrds in 1965.[²]. Coming across this phrase on the web the other day I was inspired to re-read this book that was once one of my favorites.

I’m glad I did, because I was reminded that Ecclesiastes is one of the more poetic (albeit somewhat confused) expressions of naturalistic (hence, atheistic) thought to be found in Ancient Near Eastern literature.

The book opens with the author, self-described as “the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem,” contrasting the apparent meaninglessness of man’s activities against the enduring backdrop of nature; man is thus viewed as if from the cosmic perspective. Offering no comfort, the writer then goes on a cynical quest to find meaning in a world that seems full of “vanity and vexation”; a world in which wisdom, laughter, wealth, and so forth are incomparable to the works of God, which are everlasting.

Ecclesiastes’ god, by the way, isn’t like the meddlesome creature described elsewhere in the Bible. The Preacher’s god is distant and aloof; a creator god that stays out of daily life. Humanity is left to its own devices while God is cast as part of the scenery. While not strictly compatible with atheism, the language used by the author does properly place mankind in his natural context, leaving God out of it, for the most part. This is at least compatible with deism and, to a lesser extent, pantheism, both of which are philosophical cousins of atheism.

Conceiving of mankind as equivalent to other animals, the author writes:

“For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Ecc. 3:19-20).

What’s more, the writer goes on to tell us several times that since life is without ultimate meaning, we should “enjoy good in [our] labor,” and “rejoice in [our] works,” because living is better than the alternative. Hardly the sorts of things that one expects to read in a book often used to exalt humanity as the focus of divine attention!

At one point the author emphasizes the value of companionship in general as well as teamwork in the face of adversity, without suggesting any hint of reliance on supernatural influence (Ecc. 4:9-12), and in Chapter 9 we’re treated to this tidy little bit of wisdom that’s hard to dispute:

”For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them. (Ecc. 9:4-12)

To Ecclesiastes, all life is related, and is intrinsically worthwhile because nothing follows after. And, since our triumphs are a matter of timing and luck rather than fate or skill, we shouldn’t worry. We should live life to the fullest and throw ourselves completely into whatever it is we choose to do, because death has nothing in store for us. On this view, God is surprisingly little more than an afterthought.

It’s also worth pointing out that Ecclesiastes’ prevailing view seems deterministic, at least in the sense that humanity has little choice and really no control over its circumstances. We are altogether subject to the ravages of “time and chance,” in keeping with the naturalistic view that free will (of a certain, specific type) is a myth. Whether this is desirable or not isn’t even part of the equation; what will be, will be.

Although the writer clearly struggles with his subject, vacillating between stoic acceptance and abject despair with some frequency, it’s notable that he never once prescribes turning to God for relief. Throughout the book there is no expectation that God (even in a Providential aspect) will intervene on our behalf, though toward the end the writer unexpectedly shifts gears, admonishing the reader to “Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecc. 12:13). All in all, however, the message is a positive one that places the onus for finding a purpose in life squarely on our shoulders; a fact already embraced by many having a naturalistic outlook.

In keeping with the author’s lament in the very first chapter that “there is no new thing under the sun,” admittedly the message here isn’t really new, and wasn’t even in its day. Lao Tzu, living in China more than a century before expressed similarly naturalistic sentiments, and the Buddha preceded both authors by almost half a millennium, so it’s not as if Ecclesiastes should be regarded as a unique or seminal exposition on naturalism. I do, however, think Ecclesiastes stands on its own in defiance of modern thinking with respect to Christian scripture, especially for those commonly engaging on the subject of Biblical relevancy and reliability.

What I’d really like to suggest is that in spite of the writer’s difficulties, the book presents a view we don’t expect to find in the Bible. And although it isn’t comprehensive, it’s sufficient as an expression of naturalistic thinking to recommend it as a Biblical challenge to prevailing Christian wisdom, which has it that life isn’t worth living without imagining God’s continual involvement.

In any case, and whether you agree with my interpretation or not, I hope you agree that life is its own reward regardless of what anyone believes about god(s), and that for better or worse we’re all facing the same reality. We can either rejoice or grieve in the face of cosmic indifference, but whatever we do, we need not (and should not) rely on god(s) to come to our rescue.

Ecclesiastes would approve.

In a 2008 paper, Richard Lynn, John Harvey, and Helmuth Nyborg put forth the case that there is a negative correlation between IQ and religious belief.[¹] That is, populations with higher average IQ scores are generally less inclined to be religious. IQ is one of the things that Richard Dawkins regrettably suggested in 2002 during part of his otherwise remarkable ‘call for militant atheism’ speech[²] during a TED conference that year, and elsewhere since. Interestingly, I’ve had the same reaction every time:

Bullshit.

As for the paper itself, I’m no expert but it seems to me to be seriously flawed. The authors appear to have set out to find a particular answer rather than find the truth. By failing to really address numerous other potentially influencing factors (i.e., cultural, economic, social, filial, etc.), relying on a somewhat dodgy data set[³], and choosing a dubious metric, their conclusions seem questionable at best.

Plotting their data on a graph shows where their conclusions start to disintegrate. For nations with an average IQ below 86-87, disbelief tracks well with IQ. Above that things become far less predictable and, in fact, the correlation appears to dissolve. Yes, the upward trend continues, more or less, but the disparity of the results also increases, which seems indicative of the other influencing factors Lynn et. al. left out.

The first graph below shows the data in numerical terms. The second is for comparison purposes.

Graph #1

Graph #2

Regarding the numbers themselves, one wonders how much of a difference there really is. After all, only six IQ points separate the average atheist from the average theist in this study. Maybe I’m wrong, but considering that IQ tests are mostly a measurement of academic potential, rather than sheer intelligence, and scores can vary as much as five points from week to week, and ten points or more over a period of years, it seems unlikely that the reported 0.60 correlation is as meaningful as it’s made out to be.

And why would anyone want to make schoolyard comparisons like this in the first place? Many religions throughout history have licensed exclusivism, and there’s no call for an atheistic elitism or triumphalism to compete with fundamentalist faith. We have quite enough dogma and irresponsible rhetoric issuing from the mouths of mullahs, rabbis, pundits and pastors, thank you very much.

But really, why intelligence? It’s a serious question. Why would anyone want to be known for being smarter than someone else? Or stronger? Or more beautiful? I would think most of us would want to be known for something more meaningful. Haven’t we learned the lesson that, in the end, life is not a competition anyone can win? Einstein is known for his contributions, not his test scores.

Surely we can do better than this.

Footnotes