Skepticular

What does science know about anything?

2013-01-12T16:26:00.001+00:00

David Hume: the original pro-science troll

Science lovers reckon scientific evidence is the only way to know anything. Other people call them arrogant, and say there are other ways of knowing, beyond science. Could both views be right?

With such polarised debates it is all too easy to sit in one corner and wave your fist at the other. It doesn't get us very far. It is more helpful to figure out exactly what the other side is thinking, and talk about why they think it.

In this case, perhaps the debate hinges on a definition. What do we mean by knowing?

When a scientist says they know something, they mean an idea has been shown to be consistent with observations by somebody trustworthy using a rigorous and reliable method. (Observation, by the way, is not limited to literally seeing things. It includes any reliable method for data collection.)

There is an assumption in this definition of knowing: the idea has to be unambiguously defined, in such a way that its implications can be observed. If the idea itself is so vague and open to debate that no implication of the idea could be observed, then a scientist would say you could never know the idea to be true.

Ideas, however, do not fit neatly into science's box. There are plenty of vague ideas out there, and many of their implications are difficult or impossible to observe with any certainty. Areas of thought such as economics, politics, theology and art contain a mishmash of ideas, some of which can be tested, others of which cannot. Progress in such areas works less like science and more like the law: a continual process of building upon precedent and examining one idea in the light of another. Ideas are rarely right or wrong, just fashionable and unfashionable.

There is also the realm of subjective experience. Whereas science hones in on tightly defined ideas and controlled observations, fighting to remove subjectivity, postmodernism revels in differences of opinion. No two lives are identical, and two people can perceive the same thing in quite different ways. The postmodern position is that no-one's experience is more valid than anyone else's.

When a postmodernist says they know something, they mean an idea is consistent with their own, subjective experience, even if the idea is not fully defined, even if there is nothing they could possibly provide as evidence to support the idea.

This version of knowing is so very far removed from the scientist's version, no wonder there is disagreement over how we can know things. Of course both sides believe they are right, because by their own definitions both sides are right.

So far, so much fence sitting. But it doesn't end there, because the point is not moot: there are implications.

In the real world, there is a crucial difference between the two kinds of knowing, and that is an ethical difference. If you know something in the postmodern sense, it only applies to you, because your knowledge is subjective. If you know something in the scientific sense, because you have removed subjectivity, you can use that knowledge to act in other people's interests.

This is not to deny the presence of subjective components within scientific arguments - you cannot prove something does more good than harm without a subjective definition of good and harm - but you can move an argument on from a simplistic 'I know this is right' to a nuanced 'I know this is right because...' and reduce the level of subjectivity by making as many concrete observations as possible.

As an example, if you know in the scientific sense that vaccinations do more good than harm (defining good as reducing disease and preventing illness and death), you can justify a programme of compulsory vaccination, because the observational evidence is objective and its truth is universal. If you only know it in the postmodern sense, you can only justify vaccinating yourself, because your subjective experience and opinion is yours alone.

So if you think science lovers are arrogant to claim they know the truth, remember that they are only talking about a very specific kind of knowledge, and consider that science's knowledge is universal and objective in a way that other kinds are not.

And if you are a science lover, frustrated with others' disdain for empirical evidence, remember that they have in mind a much more general class of ideas for which evidence is hard to come by, and consider that such ideas, being the stuff of human life, are the basis and the purpose of all scientific enquiry.

I'm not being sexist but women can't be bishops

2012-11-24T12:51:00.000+00:00

As the result came in from the General Synod's vote, against women bishops, the air was rent by the sound of an almighty facepalm - not the hand of God beating her omnipresent brow, but the simultaneous arm-to-forehead muscle spasm of millions of English citizens in utter disbelief. The Archbishop's sphinctral contraction at the thought of the oncoming furore would have dwarfed a catastrophe at CERN.

In reality, the decision says far more about the Church's peculiar political structure than it does about anyone's views on the actual issue. The vast majority of Church of England leaders and followers want to kick out this archaic tradition of sexism, but the way the Church works means practically everybody has to be happy with any changes to the status quo. Such a system has its merits - it encourages compromise and debate and prevents the back and forth between opposite extremes one tends to see in systems where the majority (or the biggest minority) rules - and those who have called for it to be thrown out should pause to consider that the alternatives have problems of their own.

Regardless of the majority view, there remains a significant minority in the C of E who believe in complementarianism, the belief that 'God has created men and women equal in their essential dignity and human personhood, but different and complementary in function with male headship in the home and in the Church'. Interestingly, it seems the people who hold this view don't like to be called 'sexist'. I discovered this by reading Krish Kandia's blog post Grace, Truth and Synod.

The OED definition of sexism is 'prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex'. So the definition of complementarianism abolutely fits that of sexism. If you're a complementarian, you - by definition - believe God is sexist.

This is a bitter pill for people to swallow, as we all know is it bad to be sexist, and if someone calls you a sexist you feel insulted - even if you are sexist. The thought of God being sexist gives a Christian a right headache, because God is supposed to be perfectly good, but sexism is seen as a bad thing. There is only one way to deal with this problem, which is the standard authoritarian trick of partitioning your mind: in the 'bad' partition you put sexism; in the 'good' partition you put your own beliefs; you never let the two partitions overlap. So you are complementarian AND you're not sexist. You love and respect women as equals AND a woman cannot do a man's work.

This kind of thinking goes on all over the place. It is not far from: 'I don't mind gays, I just hate campness'; 'Nothing against immigrants, but they don't accept our culture'. Even as these arguments deny being homophobic and racist they manage to be exactly that. There is a parallel in the offence taken by homophobic Christians at Stonewall's Bigot of the Year award: if you are offended by the title 'bigot', why would you continue to be a bigot?

Perhaps the offence these people feel is the key to changing their minds, a chink in their psychic armour. Deep down, they know the views they hold are wrong, and they only continue to hold them by artificially separating their own ideas from the bad stuff. How strong can those mental barriers be? Even if sexists will never be changed, it is important to shine a light on their self contradiction. Nobody is born a sexist. The more we publicly challenge sexist ideas, the fewer people will be persuaded to accept them.

Complementarians are dinosaurs, struggling to survive in a world which will no longer support them. Even with the Church of England's 'rock in a storm' approach to values, change will come. There'll be a woman Archbishop before long.

Praying for good governance?

2012-04-01T14:33:00.000+01:00

Recently, a court ruled that a local council did not have the right to hold prayers in their meetings.

Whilst I agree with the ruling, I find it deeply sad that it came to law at all. Secularism is all about religious freedom; we shouldn't be in the business of 'banning' things.

You could argue that this is a trivial matter, and that secularists shouldn't make such a fuss, but if the prayers really are so trivial, they can surely be held outside the meeting without complaint. If, on the other hand, the prayers are significant, then it is essential they are not held as part of the meeting, as they symbolically exclude the majority of UK citizens from local governance. Either way, it should be simple. Hold prayers before the meeting, not during the meeting.

The problem comes because some people think, just because they are generally free to do a thing, they should be allowed to do it whenever and wherever they like, regardless of the implications for other people. This applies to many issues of freedom, not just this case. Commonly, this is known as bad manners. If people have good manners and are considerate of other people, you don't need to make rules to govern their behaviour.

We shouldn't have to prevent councils from holding prayers in their meetings, for the same reason we shouldn't have to prevent them from playing football. "Why shouldn't I play football in council meetings? We've always played football - it's a tradition going back hundreds of years. This is a football playing country. What do you mean it excludes people who don't want to play? How dare you challenge my right to play football whenever I want? You should respect and tolerate my football playing."

Obviously Christian councillors should hold their prayers, and their football matches, outside of the meetings. There should be nothing more to say on the matter, but if Christian councillors are going to be selfish and continue playing football during the meetings, we're going to have to make a rule saying they can't do that. It is just a shame we could not rely on common sense and good manners to get the same result.

Fundamentalist? Moi?

2012-02-04T14:58:00.000+00:00

Atheists are often accused – falsely – of being fundamentalists. Atheists usually hold their views strongly and do not easily change them, so you might well think them fundamentalist, but this would be an unfair assumption. A well made argument based on solid evidence would surely change an atheist's mind. The real reason atheists believe so strongly that they are right is that the arguments against them fall apart under scrutiny. It has nothing to do with dogma.

That said, surely everyone must hold some things to be fundamentally true. I started to think about what my fundamental truths would be.

We can rely on reality

We can pick apart, if you like, the nature of reality and the fact that our experience of the world is entirely subjective; the fact that we can never know the true, underlying nature of things. Bit of a waste of time, in my opinion.

For all practical purposes, we should assume that the things we know now are true, whilst keeping an open mind that we might know better later. If a thing is genuinely unknowable, genuinely beyond the reaches of scientific detection, then it is irrelevant to our lives and there is no point playing guessing games about it.

I confess, I am a fundamentalist about this point. If you start to base your judgements on things no-one can possibly know, or to claim nothing can ever truly be proven, I'll ask you to walk through the wall, claiming there is an undetectable door and that you cannot prove the wall is real in any case.

The simplest explanation is the most likely

Occam's razor is a beautiful principle. It basically says, when trying to explain something, the less you have to make up, the more likely you are right.

Note, this is not to say the simplest explanation is the right one. The distinction between right and most likely is very important. In fact, this is a key difference between a fundamentalist view and a rational one.

Nevertheless, I must accept that I hold the validity of Occam's razor as a fundamental truth. I don't think there is any way to prove a maxim like this. It is, like relying on reality, a thing which I accept without proof, for practical purposes.

More?...

I am sure there must be more things I am genuinely fundamentalist about, but it is hard to know what they are, as fundamentals are the things we take for granted, things we accept without thinking.

I think thinking is important. We should all have a good hard think, about the things we never think about.

Why are atheists always picking on Christians?

2012-01-02T23:30:00.000+00:00

[Response to "....a face to meet the faces...." Religious Sensitivities?? (December 31, 2011)]

Tim Minchin's recently censored song about Jesus is far from the funniest or cleverest he has written, but it has a serious point to make (he highlights the absurdity of the supernatural qualities attributed to the man). Mr Minchin's songs express his view of the world; he didn't write the song deliberately to be mean to Christians. Nevertheless, in using humour to point out Christianity's flaws, he is mocking the beliefs of 44% of UK citizens.

With eloquent and strident atheist champions like Tim Minchin and Richard Dawkins at the forefront of our culture, and a population who are increasingly godless and likely to be rude about religion, it might well seem – although it is not true! – that atheists are simply bullies and Christians are their targets.

Sadly, we do have to accept that some people are not very nice. There are atheists who are not very nice and there are Christians who are not very nice. Atheists who are not very nice are unfortunately going to be rude to Christians and mock them. On the internet, I notice that not-so-nice Christians are just as likely to be rude back but are more likely to make death threats. Beyond encouraging these people to be nicer there's not much we can do to stop them.

Even excluding these not-so-nice people from consideration, there remains the question of how a nice atheist could possibly persuade others to their position without coming across as aggressive towards any particular religion. This is a tricky one to untangle, because the line between justified criticism and plain rudeness is so fine and different people draw it in different places. For example, many people (including some atheists) find Richard Dawkins aggressive, even nasty; many others consider his forthright criticism fully justified and necessary. Perhaps the necessity of criticism is particularly hard for a Christian to see.

Christians need to understand that many atheists not only think God is a myth but also see religion as actively harmful. It's nothing personal and it's no one religion in particular and it's not every aspect of every religion, but overall and in general we reckon religion as a whole makes the world worse: it would be better for the world if there were less religion. That must be hard to grasp when listening to sermons about peace, love and charity, but atheists do not accept that religion makes people more loving or more moral – atheists are every bit as loving and moral as Christians. Atheists do, however, attribute to religion the fundamentalism which defends and propagates all kinds of intolerant and oppressive behaviour around the world. Without religion, the thinking goes, we would be equally moral, equally social, but we would be guided by human empathy, reason and science, making the world a better place.

Given that making the world a better place is generally considered a good thing to do, most atheists would see it as their duty to stand up for their point of view, to encourage people away from religion and (most likely) towards a rational humanist philosophy. However, there is no suggestion of trying to impose atheism on people by banning religion or anything like that – that would be the kind of intolerant, oppressive behaviour despised by any atheist worth his salt. Instead, atheists are patiently making reasoned arguments and using humour to put their point across.

To understand why UK atheists focus on Christianity more than other religions, Christians need to remember that their religion is dominant in our country. Christianity naturally attracts the most direct criticism, because it is the religion running most of our schools, embedded in our national holidays, and entrenched in our government. In fact, atheists are critical of all religion, but Christianity is around us every day.

The atheists' open criticism which seems aggressive is actually the most peaceful, tolerant and liberal way of encouraging the change we hope to see. How could a point be made any more gently or with better humour than Tim Minchin's cheeky little song about Jesus?

Atheists, let sleeping gods lie

2011-11-10T07:06:00.000+00:00

In several books and numerous web comments, I have read atheists banging on about the non-existence of God. They show it is unlikely to impossible that God exists. They refute proofs of God's existence. They evidence that the world can be as it is without God. They explain why people might believe there is a God even though there isn't one. After a while, the obsessive harping on this theme becomes rather tiresome. It begs the question, who are we trying to convince?

If the answer is theists, we're completely missing the point. If the answer is atheists, we probably don't have to try that hard. Either way, there are more important things for atheists to do.

[Edit: an interesting counter to this argument can be found in The Pod Delusion ep. 103 (65m40s), Debating Religion (pt 2) by Richard Firth-Godbehere]

There is a stark asymmetry between theism and atheism. For the atheist, truth is a deal breaker. If you can't even rely on God being real, you can't rely on anything anybody says about God. If there is any possibility God is a fiction, it might seem the whole framework of religion collapses to a nonsense. Arguments about whether God exists are therefore essential to the construction of an atheist identity.

For the theist, this is not so. God's reality is taken on faith, and faith requires no proof. Obviously, many theists do make arguments for God, and most will at some time doubt their faith; nevertheless, the need for demonstrable truth is not a supporting pillar of religious identity, whereas for atheism it is the only pillar.

Richard Dawkins often points out that the term atheist is as laughable as the term a-fairy-ist. Were God in the same category as fairies, there would be no atheists. This highlights that atheism has meaning only whilst theism is so normal, and – crucially – atheism is predicated on one single idea: God is a myth.

Theism is not so simple. It comes entangled in the complex web of cultural values and practices which constitute a religion. Any individual may have a plethora of reasons for identifying with their faith, and chances are that evidence of God's existence is not one of them. Despite God being woven into every inch of religious fabric, I'd wager nobody signs up to a religion because they have actual proof God exists. God is a given. Theists either don't care about proof, or they suppress their desire for it; some perhaps kid themselves they have it.

Trying to prove God doesn't exist is tilting at windmills: atheists will obviously agree; theists will just get annoyed. Annoying theists is not helpful. It is that sort of behaviour which makes atheists come across as smug, reductive prigs.

There are many more useful things atheists can do with their time than make the same arguments again and again. Here are a few suggestions.

Let people know you are an atheist (just don't go on about the God thing)

It is harder to hold unfounded prejudices against a type of person if you are familiar with such people. The more common atheism is perceived to be, the more it will be valued and the less people will hold ignorant views like 'atheists are amoral'.

Stand up for science, freedom and equality

The main points of conflict between theists and atheists lie where religious values contradict scientific understanding or personal liberties. There are important battles which can be won, and increasingly are won, for these good causes.

Of course, a great many theists also consider science, freedom and equality to be important human ideals and do not hold with the authoritarian position of others (check out Ekklesia). When atheists share such values with them, it demonstrates that believers and non-believers alike can be passionately ethical people, and gives the lie to the notion that there is no morality without God (learn about Humanism.)

Campaign for secularism

Secularism means everyone having the freedom to practice any religion or none and to be treated equally by the law and public institutions. Governments should neither impose religious values, nor favour one religious group over another. Secularism is emphatically not about keeping religious viewpoints out of politics, but it is about ensuring those who hold a particular view are not given a privileged position because of it. (Support the National Secular Society.)

The 'Competition Makes Everything Better' Fallacy

2011-06-19T20:19:00.000+01:00

One of the pillars of right wing economic thinking is that things are made better by the existence of competition. Without competition, the theory goes, people get lazy and organisations go downhill. On the other hand, create a free market where all the players must fight to succeed, and the competition between them will force them to work harder and run more efficiently - they'll be better.

This thinking has a clear parallel in Darwinism. Only the fittest survive, so species gradually become fitter. The free market believer would probably look on impressive creatures like tigers and sharks and see admirable examples of how the free market of nature produces deadly efficiency. By contrast, isolated ecosystems, protected from the greater competition of the mainland, allow the proliferation of sluggish leaf chewers and dozy flightless birds. The message is clear: greater competition produces stronger, better animals.

This argument has two major flaws: one, we mistake the efficiency of the result for the efficiency of the process; two, we assume that 'fitter' within the market or ecosystem is the same as 'better'.

The first flaw is apparent from a consideration of how evolution works. The resulting organisms are indeed well adapted to their environments and efficient to boot. What we don't see is all the failures, the millions of ill adapted and inefficient organisms which were spewed blindly into the world only to die without offspring. Even well adapted species might produce thousands of young in the hope that just a couple will make it to adulthood. When you consider the success rate of individual organisms, evolution can be the least efficient process imaginable.

This flaw also applies to a free market. A successful organisation is likely to be effective and efficient, but for every winner there will be many failures and also-rans, and it can take a long time to eliminate all these failures. You can't just introduce competition and expect everything suddenly to be better. Moreover, whilst some of these lesser players will be swiftly eliminated, others may continue to plod along being slightly rubbish but never quite bad enough to be knocked out. These successful failures are all over the place in evolution. Wisdom teeth and hay fever are pointless and irritating, but they're not bad enough to kill you so they never get fixed.

The second flaw is a confusion of values. Does the crocodile's high energy efficiency and success as a predator make it better than other animals? I dare say you would not think too highly of the beast were it chewing on your leg. Evolution created the wonder that is humanity; it also created cholera. I don't hear many people using cholera as a great example of the benefits of competition between intestinal bacteria.

Similarly, this applies to free markets. Frequently, the most successful organisation within a market is not the one that makes the best products, or the one providing the best service. The most successful might be the best at marketing, the best at litigation, the most ruthless, the most exploitative, the most corrupt. The measure of success is not necessarily aligned with the interests of the general public.

This is not to say that all competition is bad. It can be a great motivator within individuals of the right mindset, and sometimes the successful are also good. However, it is certainly not a universal cure for inefficiency, and it does not guarantee that the winner will be good at anything except the rules of the game.

In some circumstances, a properly regulated monopoly could be more beneficial than multiple, self interested competitors. When crocodiles, sharks and tigers come to play, the wise hesitate to let the competition in.

A Referendum On Truth

2011-06-13T17:25:00.000+01:00

We should never have had a referendum on the Alternative Vote in the UK. We should just have had the Alternative Vote, because it is a fact that AV is better that the current system.

That statement is bound to make some people angry. It will sound extremely arrogant. It is there to raise a point about the nature of the UK government. Bear with me.

We have had very few referendums in the UK's history, and these have all been on constitutional issues, but a referendum could theoretically be held regarding any point of policy. We could, for example, have had a referendum on the current government's austerity measures, on student tuition fees, on changes to the NHS, on reform of the House of Lords, etc. We have never been offered a referendum on such matters, yet on 5th May a referendum was held on whether to adopt the Alternative Vote system for general elections.

I am going to argue that all of my examples above are good subjects for a referendum, because they are matters of opinion, and that we should press the UK government for more referendums on such matters. Instead, we were asked a question about a logically provable fact because the government knew they could manipulate us to get the result they wanted and serve their own political ends.

Facts vs Opinions

There is a big difference between a fact and an opinion. A fact can be proven by observation or experiment, whereas an opinion is formed in the absence of proof.

Of course, it is not nearly that simple.

For starters, when we can't prove something, we might call our best guess an opinion. This immediately turns my first, black and white description into a whole smear of different greys: the dark grey of guesswork; the mid grey of partial knowledge; the light grey of expert opinion; the near white of well proven theories like 'the sun will come up tomorrow'.

To confuse matters, no fact can ever be 100% proven. There is always an element of doubt. This means what we call a fact is only a fact for as long as our best evidence holds. For example, it used to be a known fact that the world was flat. Then somebody sailed around it.

On top of that, there are all the things we cannot disprove. I cannot prove there are no unicorns. Actually, I find it quite likely that there could be unicorns lurking somewhere in the forests, it's just we've never seen them. Until somebody finds a unicorn, however, most of us operate on the assumption that there are none.

Does that mean that all facts and opinions are equal? Are the shape of the world and the existence of unicorns opinions, like my opinions on politics and sprouts? Not quite. The key difference is that the truth of these matters is out there somewhere: there is an answer. If I believed the world was flat, I would be wrong. I don't know about unicorns, but either they are real, or not. The truth is not an opinion.

Opinions are most useful when we cannot prove what is the best course of action, but still have to make a decision. Lacking real knowledge, we fall back on subjective qualities: instinct, experience, ethics, ideology. Each person's subjective view will be different, and will guide them in different ways.

Why we want more referendums

Now, when we are talking about politics, we are deciding what is good for an extremely complex system which nobody understands. This means, in most cases, the best course of action is down to opinion. The purpose of democracy is to ensure that the opinions of the whole population are taken into account, and a referendum is the purest form of democracy: every voter is asked their opinion on a specific issue.

This being the case, if we believe in democracy, we should press for more referendums on key matters of opinion. It is too easy for a cabinet member to put their own ideology, or their own political gain, above the will of the people. This is only too evident in UK politics, where a mostly centre-left population is dominated by right wing governments. Right wing ideologies, like the belief that the free market will solve every problem, would be rejected by a majority in the UK, which is precisely why the government has no interest in holding a referendum on any such issue.

Our government despises democracy

I make my final point about the Alternative Vote not to exhume the corpse of electoral reform but to highlight the arrogance of a government which sees its role not as serving the needs of the country but as manipulating the vote by any means necessary to achieve its own ends.

You see, there is another kind of truth: logical truth. An argument is logically valid when the basic starting point leads undeniably to its conclusion, so you can know it is true no matter what situation it is applied to. An example would be "all red buses are red". You could also say "all red things are red". You could even say "all things of a colour are that colour": always true, no matter what things and what colour you are talking about.

Although the details are way beyond the scope of this post, there are ways to analyse voting systems to prove that one system of voting is more democratic than another. In some cases, it is not clear; however in the case of AV and First Past The Post, there is no contest: AV is a more democratic system. If you support democracy, it is logically true that you should support AV.

We could therefore logically expect a government which believes in democracy to switch to AV without question. Arguments around the fringes (such as, is AV too complex for people to understand) can be proven out with trial runs. There is no need for a referendum, because it is not a matter of opinion.

The only reason we held a referendum at all was to put the kibosh on the Lib Dems' demands for electoral reform. The Tories benefit massively from the current system, but they had to address the issue for the sake of the coalition. They knew they could put out lies and disinformation to discredit AV, and it would stand no chance of a 'yes' vote. Once they had their 'no', it would put an end to the discussion.

Their gamble paid off, and their arrogance and disdain for both the electorate and the democratic process were vindicated.

36% of people are getting what they deserve. The rest of us deserve better.

The menace of multiculturalism

2011-05-02T20:56:00.002+01:00

Words are such a problem. In February, The Prime Minister made a speech describing the failure of multiculturalism. The speaker being David Cameron, I naturally assumed whatever he was saying would be odious, short sighted and wrong, and I wasn't far off the mark. However, I was surprised to find that on the point about multiculturalism, the National Secular Society agreed with Mr Cameron.

My surprise hinged upon my understanding of the word multiculturalism. You see, when I say "I live in a multicultural society", I mean that every day I encounter people with a broad range of skin colours, faiths, social backgrounds and behaviours, which may or may not originate in one part of the world or another, and - importantly - those differences don't really matter: people are people. I naïvely thought multiculturalism was kinda the opposite of racism.

From a political point of view, that is not the case at all. Multiculturalism is originally a racist, right wing idea: we have our culture and they have theirs, and if we keep 'em seperate it'll be easier to send 'em back where they came from. It is based on the prejudice that each person belongs to a fixed cultural group and each group should be treated seperately.

In the UK, multiculturalism is not so hard line but is nevertheless based upon discrimination between specific cultural groups. Johann Hari explains the problems of multiculturalism better than I could, but one example I can give is the pernicious notion of the faith school. The idea that a child belongs to a specific faith group and should be educated in a specific faith school is prejudiced, nonsensical and discriminatory, and can further segregate communities - if you doubt this, ask yourself why there is no such thing as a catholic fire station, which is allowed to discriminate in favour of catholic fires.

At its nicer, fluffier end, multiculturalism is an earnest attempt to address the needs of minority demographics. It is essential to acknowledge non-cultural minorities: the blind, or wheelchair users, for example. It would be reasonable to think that should extend to cultural minorities too. The problem comes when identifying our cultural group. We start to make assumptions, to label people and seperate them. When this becomes government policy, our laws and public institutions begin to discriminate based on these labels and drive wedges into the community. Hardly the way to promote tolerance and cohesion.

Mr Cameron is right: although this is a happily multicultural society, multiculturalism is the last thing we need. What we do need is called secularism. Secularism may originally relate to religion, but essentially it is about respecting and protecting each individual's right to their individual culture, and ensuring that the state is not biased or discriminatory towards any individual because of that culture. It is the very opposite of multiculturalism, which labels everyone according to some narrow definition and then purposefully discriminates between those labels.

In a country where so many cultures meet and mix, and statements of identity are never simple, secularism is surely the best way to ensure fair governance and intercultural understanding.

Postscript: the National Secular Society campaigns for secularism in the UK. I wish they were a bit less atheistic in tone because that obscures the aspect of secularism which protects freedom of religion: a campaign against religious privilege is not a campaign against religion; it is a campaign for fairness, for people of all faiths and none.

Videogames or Sewage?

2011-02-15T00:07:00.002+00:00

In response to IGN article 'Stacking Up Facebook Games', 1st Feb 2011 suggesting that social networking games make more money than most traditional videogames.

What makes more money: Tom Clancy or Hello Magazine? McDonalds or Heston Blumenthal? Videogames or sewage processing?

Social networking games are all the rage. Analysts, like the writer at IGN, are keen to make a comparison to traditional games, and it does indeed seem that social networking games, generating Monthly Active Users figures with many, many enviable digits, are going to be very profitable to those who can dominate that space; perhaps much more profitable than traditional games.

But what should the industry do with this information? Should developers all start to make social networking games, or at least include more social networking features, if that's where the biggest profit lies?

Change the context. If sewage processing makes more money than videogames, should games developers switch to sewage, or start to include more of the features of sewage in their games? Or, vice versa, if videogames make more money, should our sewage plants all become game developers and not bother treating sewage any more?

Far from being metaphorical sewage, the best social networking games are really good. They are creatively designed, extensively tested and honed, beautifully presented and clearly quite captivating to their players. I cannot criticise them for their content, although they are not the kind of game which interests me.

Nevertheless, I believe the success of social networking games to be bad for videogames in general. The problem arises because the good qualities I list above are not the reason for the games' success: the real reason is cynical user manipulation. Social networking games operate by engendering three behaviours in the players: (1) keep playing; (2) encourage your friends to play; (3) give us money. Every element of the game has to be engineered to optimise these behaviours, and whilst this does not necessarily preclude the creation of cultural value, it doesn't exactly encourage it. Citizen Kane doesn't compel you to watch it every day, drip feeding its story to a frenzy of mouse clicks. Hamlet doesn't stop mid-soliloquy until your friends also come to the theatre. The Mona Lisa doesn't charge you to upgrade her smile.

Social networking games are here to stay, at least for a while, because whether or not they are of cultural merit, they can be highly profitable. There is nothing wrong with profit - if it don't make dollars, it don't make sense - but there is more to life than the bottom line of a spreadsheet. If profit is our only aim, we may as well work with sewage.

The difficulty of making any kind of argument about anything whatsoever.

2010-12-23T22:09:00.001+00:00

Turns out there is a problem with the meaning of words like 'logic' and 'faith'. In point of fact, there is a problem with the meaning of words generally, and even with meaning itself.

The trouble is, you can only define the meaning of words using other words, or perhaps by pointing at an object of reference, but no word or object can be taken as a consistent and clearly defined thing: everything changes constantly. If you want to be really pedantic about it, you can argue we can never know the exact state of all the subatomic particles kicking about the place, so we can never define once and for all where one thing stops and another begins. Eventually, no two people can ever be sure they mean the same thing, nor that anything really exists at all. Maybe we're all living in the matrix. Red or blue pill - take your pick.

This makes it very easy to spend a long time circling around an argument without ever addressing the central issue. You can pick at the precise meaning of words, or - in a tight corner - you can always take the tack that the argument cannot be proven because, subatomic particles being what they are, you can never really prove anything. QED OMG LOL.

Such nit picking is a fine pastime, but it doesn't add much to a discussion. It just takes a long diversion until everybody has established exactly what they are arguing about, so we can be more clear why we disagree. It is ultimately unproductive; after all, just because an argument is made badly doesn't mean its premise is false.

If you argue the world is round, I could argue that 'the world' doesn't mean the same as 'the planet Earth' which in any case is not a perfect sphere but an oblate spheroid with all sorts of bumps, and the assertion that you can know the true shape of an object is unprovable. But that would be a waste of time.

Perhaps we could forgo the dictonary bashing if we were allowed to make one fundamental assumption: that other people mean well.

Faith vs Logic

2010-12-05T16:20:00.000+00:00

Response to Victoria Coren's Observer column on belief, 5th Dec 2010.

Trouble is, 'irrational' and 'illogical' sound like bad things.

Without wishing to imply anything bad, theism cannot be 'logical'. As soon as one starts to say "I believe God is like this and wants us to do that", based on scripture or tradition or feeling, surely you have stepped away from logic and into the realm of pure faith. If I'm right and theism is not logical, that makes atheism the logical position - which is not to say that it is better.

We cannot tell whether doing away with religious faith would be overall good or bad. Certainly, faith cannot be blamed for all conflict, and there is nothing wrong with faith as a comfort, but religious faith does cause some problems - those clever atheists will give you the list. This is why secularism, which defends the freedom of religion, is so important.

Voting for change?

2010-04-14T20:12:00.000+01:00

Can we please vote for electoral reform?

What is so bad about a hung parliament?

2010-04-07T22:27:00.001+01:00

"A hung parliament? Oh! That would be disastrous! The government wouldn't be able to get anything through."

What do you mean?

"They wouldn't have enough seats to out vote the opposition."

The opposition? You mean other members of parliament who disagree with them on an issue.

"Yes. Obviously."

...But those members were also democratically elected to represent their slices of the population. If they strongly disagree with something the government wants to do, shouldn't they be able to stop it?

"That would cripple the nation! You need the government to have power, otherwise nothing gets done."

So, what you're saying is, the government would only be able to make changes with the approval of another party. In order to achieve anything the parties would have to work together, to cooperate, thus representing a greater proportion of the electorate. And that's a bad thing.

"Yes. It would slow everything down."

Don't you believe that debate and compromise are important, that everyone's views should be considered?

"You're never going to get everyone to agree."

You think we're better off if all the decisions are taken by the largest minority, even if the majority disagree with the outcome.

"It's the only way to make things work."

Rant Against The Media: "Plus Size" Models

2009-09-29T15:17:00.000+01:00

Every so often a model who isn't a stick manages to get a catwalk job, and the media go into a frenzy, like it's important or something. It taps into a bunch of issues about female body image: isn't it awful that models don't look like "real" women; doesn't this bombardment with images of skinny little flakes turn impressionable young gels into anorexics? I mean, what absolute rot! If exposure to skinny models caused people to stop eating, there'd be far fewer fatties around, and - to be serious for a moment - this kind of twaddle belittles the very serious psychological issues which actually underlie an eating disorder.

For goodness sake, being thin is the only skill a model actually possesses. That and the ability to pout and walk at the same time without falling over. Models have to look weird, otherwise you wouldn't be able to tell they were models. What next? Should we complain about models being pretty, because that gives ugly people low self esteem? It's PCGM.

Here are the simple truths: (1) skinny models make a designer's life easier because the clothing, and not the body, creates the shape they want; (2) in an age of excess, to be thin makes you look healthier and hence more attractive, and models are supposed to be attractive, because that makes us think the clothes look better.

Of course, no-one should have to starve themselves into corpse-like wastage before they're allowed out. I'm just ranting about the cheap bullshit peddled by our lovely media. Most people in this country are too fat, and even for those unfortunates who are too thin, it is insulting to lay the blame for all their problems on Kate Moss.

Freedom for Somewhere

2008-04-25T12:44:00.002+01:00

When the Olympics come to the UK, will people around the world protest against the continuing Anglo-Saxon domination of the Romano-Britons?

For how long does a people need to be subjugated, before it is subsumed? Hundreds of years after the kingdoms were united, the Scots retain a strong sense of national identity, as do the Welsh. Yet I have never met an Anglo-Saxon who was still unhappy about the Norman invasion. Can we infer from this that it takes somewhere between 500 and 1000 years, before people stop worrying about whose side they are on?

As an aside, how about this solution to the Northern Ireland problem: a federal union of the Republic of Ireland and the UK, governed from the Isle of Man. It may not be very popular, nor practical, but it would really piss off Londoners.

Smoking

2008-02-05T20:15:00.001+00:00

Time for a whinge. This time it is about another kind of whinger: the smoker. Whilst I appreciate that nicotine addicts must be feeling harried by the recent wave of smoking bans, it doesn't half get my hackles up when I hear or read their complaints.

The offending arguments usually go thus: "Blasted nanny state telling us what we can and can't do! I should be allowed to do whatever I want! Froth, froth, foam!" I find it scary that even supposedly intelligent people, such as columnists in national newspapers, come out with this guff. They describe smoking as if it is a hobby, merely a pleasant thing to do, when actually it is an addiction. They talk as if smoking were a human right, and neglect to consider other peoples' desire for simple things like breathing clean air and smelling nice. Intervening when one person's activities impinge upon the freedoms of another is not nannying, but is exactly what a government ought to do more often.

Whilst I feel for those poor, shivering souls huddled outside pub doorways in a sad little cloud of toxins, I cannot express my joy at the revolution in my own social experience. The pub is now a nice place to go, and in combination with the death of the 11 o'clock curfew, the ban has turned "going for a pint" into a pleasant and civilized way to spend time with my friends. I am therefore in full support of the ban. This does not, however, imply any kind of moral judgement on smokers, and I would fight for a smoker's right to smoke in their own home.

The more thoughtful smokers of my acquaintance are phlegmatic about the ban. They accept that smoking is an addiction and does have a negative effect on the people around them, and they understand that this is why it needs to be stopped in indoor, public spaces. They agree that smoking is bad for the health and that people should be encouraged to quit. They do not see all this as an attack on their personal freedom.

Nobody likes to be told they are in the wrong. I reckon the whinging smokers are merely reacting in an emotive way, feeling told off for their addiction and responding defensively, when they should be thoughtful. I wouldn't mind, but if those wrong headed values are spread about, it encourages people to continue smoking, which will encourage pubs to find ways around the ban – more covered, outdoor spaces with those awful, wasteful outdoor heaters – and even encourage people to reverse the ban.

Asking people not to smoke in certain places is not an attack on their freedom, any more than smoking around me was an attack on mine.

Evil

2008-01-31T17:26:00.002+00:00

It's all evil: murder, rape, theft, littering, loitering. It's all evil: smoking, international fraud, globalisation.

There's carbon footprints and identity theft, paedophilia and racism, sexism, ageism. War - that's evil too - and pulling the legs off insects. Eating too much. Being rude about Islam. Being too openly religious; not being religious enough. Binge drinking. Extremism. Fundamentalism.

Did you know, every time a child drops a crisp packet, it causes a tsunami in the third world? Did you know, last time you made a cup of coffee, not only were you giving yourself cancer, you were torturing South American farmers and melting the polar ice? How does that make you feel? To know that you are directly responsible for the drowning of the last cuddly, white bear?

How can you live with yourself?

You must be a terrorist. Or a pervert.

I hope you feel that weight of responsibility, that guilt and pressure to ensure that every minute decision of your life is perfect and hurting nobody. I hope you feel that crushing fear that the world is going to die and it is all your fault.

No, no, no. This is all wrong. You aren't evil.

You know what's evil? People and organisations and systems spreading guilt and fear because it makes money or wins elections, or simply because it is easy, exploiting those who should be supported and guided. That's where all this evil comes from.

And what's really stupid? We lump it all together. Actually, there are problems - large and small - which we, as a species, could do something to remedy, but there is not one big problem with one big solution. The world is more complex than that. Yet every time there is a political summit, all the banners get waved. Our media bombard us with problems, one after another. Issues get confused. Campaigning and protesting loses its clout.

The very notion of evil is a lie. There are problems - difficult problems - and they need careful consideration by intelligent people who actually understand the issues. The media can create a gradual cultural shift and popular pressure which might help in some instances, but coverage which is high in drama and light in detail encourages governments to make quick, crowd pleasing fixes, which may do more damage in the long term.

If we genuinely hope to make the world a better place, we should stop worrying about the evils beyond our control, and really focus on things we can change, starting with the little things that really matter: in our work, around our home towns, for our friends.

Bugger Rugger

2007-10-22T09:31:00.000+01:00

Call me a heretic and a national traitor, but I wasn't in the least bit bothered about the rugby world cup final. Nor would I be bothered about the cricket, tennis, snooker, grand prix, golf, olympics; nor in fact any other sport which might be in the public eye at any time.

The thing sports fans don't get is that being interested is something you have to work hard at. They don't get it because most people have been watching sport all their lives, and have over the years accumulated a great wealth of knowledge which they now take for granted. I don't even know the rules of rugby, let alone the names and strengths of the current players. I would have to make a special effort to learn all that stuff before I could understand what was going on.

Some sports are better for people like me than others. Football, for example, is quite good for me to watch, because the tactics and skills involved are very clear from the positions of the players on the pitch; football is about geometry. In rugby, I could tell who was winning, and I could appreciate the speed and strength of the individual players, but I would not be able to discern any strategy; as far as I can tell, all they do is run at each other very fast, like a game of British Bulldog where one person has to carry a ball. Cricket, for those outside of the loop, is utterly indecipherable, a repeating cycle of hit the ball, catch the ball, with apparently nothing of interest going on.

Don't get me wrong: I think sports are great - as things to play - and I cannot deny that people enjoy the watching of sport a great deal. It is the importance of sport which I believe is overrated. Sport is elevated above its station because people perceive it as 'real': there are real people out there really competing, and sometimes the prize is a lot of money, so they think it must be important. The proportion of our news media allocated to sport bolsters the perceived importance of the subject. Sporting events, wars and other disasters are given equal credence. People believe sport is important because they are told it is important, and so they get all excited about it.

In truth, sport is no more and no less than an improvised soap opera. It has characters with histories and is packed with drama and intrigue. It provides people with plenty of things to have opinions about which don't require too much brainpower to understand, and events to look forward to. For me to watch a single rugby match now would be like watching a single episode of Hollyoaks - I wouldn't know what was going on and it would seem boring and, frankly, a bit shit. If you watch Hollyoaks a lot, you will know the characters and the plot threads and the whole thing is (theoretically) more enjoyable. If the plot of Hollyoaks was reported in the news, perhaps we would see pubs full of Hollyoaks fans, cheering the nice characters, booing the nasty ones, maniacally whooping and hugging each other when a character gets laid.

Ah, maybe not.

The reason I am whinging is simple. I get fed up with the aghast codfish gapes of people who find out I didn't watch whatever match and I have never heard of such and such a player. Of course I didn't and of course I haven't. One may as well be shocked I didn't watch Hollyoaks yesterday and don't know the name of that blonde girl who posed in her pants for FHM.

I have never watched sport properly and have no interest in doing so and moreover there is no reason why I should be interested - sport is not important, it achieves nothing useful and says nothing worth hearing. Other people enjoy it, and that is fine. I enjoy different things, and that is fine too. Just please don't tell me it is important, because that gets on my tits.

How's Married Life?

2007-06-03T16:07:00.001+01:00

Why do people ask about married life, as if it is somehow different to other kinds of life?

Well, Danny and I are getting on just fine and, although those pink hearts and twinkly stars floating around our heads are getting a bit irritating and whilst obviously I miss having sex with all those underwear models like I used to, the deep and meaningful married joy I now feel each married day makes everything much more fluffy than it was before we got married.

Actually, we've been together for eleven years, and living together for seven of those, so being married - well... - it's pretty much like not being married, to be honest.

On the other hand, it seems to make a big difference to other people - obviously so, or they wouldn't keep asking about it. Our families take us more seriously as a couple too, as though being married indicates we intend to stay together, whereas unmarried, after eleven years, we might suddenly have decided - nah! - let's go our seperate ways.

In these enlightened days, for we irreligious people, it would be easy to assume that marriage is an archaic tradition with no relevance. Not so. Marriage comes from a deeper place than organised religion; it is a symbol we all recognise instinctually, with roots at the very heart of culture.

Thanks for Injustice

2007-05-28T11:12:00.001+01:00

Thank goodness for that! Bewildered and exhausted I crawl to the end of the half-term, quite ready for a week of lying down.

Like anyone does, I moan about my job; what is unusual, they also moan about it on the Today programme. As I dress myself in the morning, Danny's radio-alarm pipes out Radio 4's well-educated voices, gnashing at the dreadful state of British education.

Our education system is a bit slap-dash, I'll grant you, but it isn't that bad. Most of us come through with the ability to read a tabloid newspaper and count our change, and frankly that is the useful bit. I have never needed, for example, to recount the many causal factors of the Peterloo massacre of 1819, nor to utilise the chemical equation for photosynthesis. No, the real issue in education is not learning, but social justice.

Schooling in Britain has grown up piecemeal. We have independent schools, including the old elite of public schools, we have grammar schools left over from the tripartite system, we have faith schools, we have the bog-standard comprehensive, and now the newfangled city-academy, whatever that may mean. Viewed one way, it is a right old mess, with a child's schooling options depending mostly on their parent's income and where they live, entrenching social divides. Viewed another way, it is a triumph of heterogeny and offers maximal parental choice.

One question is whether independent schools, which exclude by money, and grammar schools, which exclude by ability, provide a better quality of teaching. I would say there was no guarantee. Good teachers are more likely to gravitate towards good schools; however, teachers tend to be left-wingers and many would refuse to work at an exclusive school. Often, teachers head for independent or grammar schools because they 'couldn't hack it' at a comprehensive. I reckon quality of teaching varies amongst exclusive schools as much as amongst comprehensives.

A different question is whether the opportunities provided by exclusive schools are greater. They certainly are. Allowing a school to select it's pupils creates an environment where the pupils are in general better behaved and better motivated, and hence more likely to succeed. This fact, combined with the greater funding available to an expensive independent school, creates a clear advantage for its already wealthy pupils. The higher social status associated with grammar schools over comprehensives is another form of advantage, this time for pushy, middle-class parents who have their children tutored to pass the relevant exams. Exclusive schools certainly help to maintain social division in this way.

"Death to exclusion," comes the war cry! The envious glare of the disadvantaged and their sympathisers sees injustice and howls, and a bit of me can see their point. After all, nobody likes that the world is unfair.

My worry is that whilst removing the advantages of the few creates a level playing field, it does nothing to improve the position of the many. The end result would be greater social equality, but overall educational standards would be impoverished, as we take away the opportunity for at least a few of our children to have a better learning environment.

Which is better: a fair world of homogenous mediocrity, or an unfair world where a lucky few get the chance to unveil their potential and shine?

Digititilation

2007-05-17T20:35:00.001+01:00

I, am a man. And, being a man, I love the boobies. Yes yes I do. Mm mmm... For getting me all stirred up there ain't nothin' like the frame of a dame. So, praise be for the internet, which was invented with the singular purpose of cataloguing every conceivable configuration of feminine body parts in billions of bountiful pixels.

Kids today don't know how good they have it. When I was but a verdant scampful of sexual whimsy, the only release for my swelling manly tension was the mail order catalogue. At that time, women were delicately curved and a softly lit tan, sweetly wrapped in floral swimwear. And I remember well the long, late nights when my parents went out. I would watch European art-house films on Channel 4, straining my eyes in silence, like a pervy leopard just inches from that elusive flash of nipple. Now, with a few swift clicks of a mouse, young men have access to every female angle. Lucky little sods.

The female body is unequivocally the most beautiful thing a heter man could ever see. The Taj Mahal is an ugly stump; the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, an embarrassing daub; the sunset in the desert, a red blotch over some dust. The world in all its complexity and majesty is but a mouldy turnip, and nothing to a woman's rolling hills and dales.

On a recent trip to Brighton, Danny and I stumbled upon an exhibition of photography. Its advertisement displayed a partially naked young lady, so I suggested to Danny that we should investigate further. The photographs were the work of that same semi-nude twenty year old, who called herself Miss Aniela, and all were self portraits. The whole exhibition came across as massively narcissistic and viewing it felt voyeuristic, like looking through a window onto another life.

The photographs themselves were good. I know little about photography, but clearly they were the work of a person developing their craft, experimenting with angles, poses, lighting, colours and effects. All were very attractive and some, quite striking; however, I could not help but feel the main reason I liked them so much was the artist and subject herself.

I was not alone in this feeling. In fact, the exhibition had come about as an extension of Miss Aniela's collection on flickr.com, which had attracted some attention. It is obvious the photographs have much artistic merit, but also obvious they are slightly erotic in their moodiness and nudiness, and as such they raise many questions about privacy and the body which on the flickr fora created an art versus pornography debate.

My personal wrangle was this: do I like the pictures only because they have a pretty girl in them? After much thought, I decided, no - I like many qualities of the pictures. But then: do I like them so much only because of the girl? The answer to this is yes, which begs the further question: are they somehow lesser than other works because they use the cheap trick of including a pretty girl? I would argue, no.

Art is always about the beautiful - even art which is deliberately ugly, is ugly in a beautiful way - and throughout history, the image of beauty has been the human body, sometimes male, sometimes female. Of course we find human bodies beautiful - we are human. It is therefore natural that great art will include great bodies. It is also natural that a great body will be sexually arousing; otherwise we'd never get down to it.

I therefore find Miss Aniela's work beautiful, and simultaneously I find it sexual. These two responses come naturally together: art can be arousing, and porn can be beautiful. In the "is it art or porn" debate, there is really no decision to make. The best of both must be both.

Grace in-yer-Face

2007-04-29T11:28:00.000+01:00

It was Friday night, and I had just left the other teachers of the maths department in the pub. As it is always nicer to sleep in one's own bed, I had elected to depart a little early and take the bus home.

Arriving at the bus stop, I noted a pair of lanky youths hunched beneath the shelter. Normally I would give a wide berth to any stray, gangly, hooded night creatures, but I needed to scan the timetables and so stepped inside. Coming closer, I felt their gaze upon me. I risked a glance in the corner of my eye: they were students from my school.

I felt a little relief - my own students were unlikely to start on me - but as the bus would not be there for some time, I would have to make conversation.

"Evening lads. Having a good night?"

The boys bore a scabrous, pointy-eared grin. These are 14 year olds who lurk at the back of the classroom. In lessons, they will banter and squabble, hide each other's property and snigger oafishly. They will chew gum, fiddle with mobiles, doodle all over their books, and make paper planes. They will interrupt and argue and show outrage if accused of any wrongdoing. They will do pretty much anything, in fact, except follow my instructions.

"Orroight, Sir?"

They were polite - well... friendly, at least. Polite is relative. I recognised the look of blank amazement common to students who encounter a teacher outside of school, like a sheepdog meeting a camel. There is obviously a relationship between the student and teacher, but, out of context, neither party knows what the rules are going to be.

We opened by establishing that, yes, I had been to the pub and, yes, I had been drinking, three pints as it happens and, yes, it was with the maths department but, no, Mr Featherweight isn't gay, at least I don't think so but, okay, he is a bit camp but that doesn't mean he's gay and, no, I don't know where he lives and I wouldn't tell you if I did.

Then I asked them what they had been doing. I did not expect the answer: ice-skating.

"Seriously?" I asked. They were serious. They proudly got out their ice-skates to show me. "These cost three hundred quid!" one boasted. "You're kidding!?" I replied. They weren't kidding. "And you kids claim you can't afford calculators," I sighed.

Ice-skating! These boys, whose behaviour in class is chaotic and lumpen, enjoy a pastime which is all about control and grace.

The main difference between a grade B student and a grade D student is not intellectual capacity but attitude to learning. In maths, many a grade D student is perfectly capable of grasping the concepts and learning the techniques to get grade B, but for some reason they reject the possibility. Perhaps they are afraid of failure; perhaps the mental conflict inherent in deposing old notions and installing new ones makes them anxious; perhaps their low self esteem means they do not believe they can succeed, so trying to learn would not be worth the effort.

Many support their decision not to learn with the claim that mathematics is irrelevant to their lives. They are probably right, but in reality most of what we learn in school is irrelevant. This does not mean learning is unimportant. It is not the forgettable stuff we learn which matters; it is the process of learning itself which brings us greater mental prowess and expanded horizons.

Mathematics is an important subject to study because it connects together different facets of thought and encourages abstract reasoning in a way which is not encountered in any other discipline. One may forget how to do long division or work out the angles in a triangle, but the thinking involved exercises bits of our brains which we will use throughout our lives.

It is therefore sad that these boys, who love the control and grace of skating, may never perceive the control and grace of mathematics.

It is also sad that, of these whole people, I only get to see that part which is defensive and aggressive, bored and boring, rejected and rejecting. I never see the part which is generous, luminous and full of grace.

Beta Males

2007-04-26T19:15:00.000+01:00

Why do the girls always love the bad boys?

It is a phenomenon I remember from my school days with much pain, and recognise all too frequently in the classroom. "I'm going out with Andy! Ooh I love him! Sir, is he the naughtiest in your class?" The boys who get all the ladies' attention are the ones they perhaps should reject as emotionally retarded.

It is well known that girls will always go for the alpha males. The interesting question is why do girls identify bad boys as the alphas? In the long run, it is the quiet, shy, intellectual creatures - the dorks - who band together to get on calmly with their school work, who have the highest chance of achieving financial or political power, and who will make the more sensitive partners and more stable parents. Yet girls and young women largely love the rogues.

I have a couple of theories about this. Both are actually fairly obvious, but it is interesting to note how our modern society turns the tables on the bad boys, and makes the dorks into a more intelligent choice of partner.

The first theory relates to the ancient instinctual mechanisms by which girls select a mate. In a more primitive society, as one might witness in a group of apes, the alpha males are essentially the ones who can bully the others into submission. These individuals will be physically strong and selfish by nature. In order to fight to the top, they will be unafraid to challenge the incumbent leaders. These characteristics are all displayed by bad boys, with their machismo, play fighting, rebellious spirit, and disinterest in who they upset in getting their way. In a primitive society, the bad boys would indeed be the successful males, with the most power to support and protect their partners and progeny.

The second theory is about the ability to build relationships. Dorks obviously have a lot of trouble with this, where bad boys move in with an easy charm. This most likely stems from the respective levels of self-consciousness versus self-confidence. A thoughtful person will naturally gravitate towards introspection. In constantly questioning the self, one undermines one's ability to function confidently; there are too many 'what if's to ponder, leading to stiltedness or inaction. Introspective behaviour is never attractive. A bad boy has no such worries. They can roll into a relationship in a simple, honest and open manner.

These two ancient aspects of attraction are overturned by the workings of the modern world. To function in a large and complex, information driven society, one requires the ability to compromise with others, to defer short-term gains for longer-term growth, to conceptualise and theorise and plan. All of these are skills of the dork, but are way beyond the scope of the bad boy's simplistic behaviour. Furthermore, the easy charm which helps a bad boy to open a relationship, makes it harder for them to carry it on. Their apparent confidence stems not from genuine self-belief but from an inability to understand and control their own behaviour, which can eventually cause problems in a relationship.

The smart girls wait until the dorks grow up a bit, and then bag the best ones for keeps.