At TAM7Fintan Steele gave one of the more interesting talks. He is currently Director of Communications at MIT’s Broad Institute. He holds a Masters of Divinity degree from St. Meinrad School of Theology as well as a Masters of Arts in Medical Ethics/Religious Studies from Indiana University.
As part of his Masters of Divinity courses, they ordered different activities into a moral hierarchy. The example that he use during his talk was the following:
Bestiality
Contraception
Homosexual acts
Incest
Masturbation
Premarital Sex
Rape
The audience was asked to order these from least bad to worst. He presented his ordering and that from his Catholic divinity textbook “Moral Theology“. There may be some minor variations but most people would likely come up with similar lists. We tried this at the last skeptics meeting and got similar results. The biggest problem is that some of these activities were not considered immoral or “bad” so how could you order them.
Try this yourself.
Admittedly the text is somewhat dated and is no longer used. The copyright date given by Amazon is in the early 50s. There are still many in the clergy who have been trained using such texts and the Pope has been emphasising a return to traditional values.
The ordering given in his textbook is:
Premarital Sex
Rape
Incest
Contraception
Bestiality
Homosexual acts
Masturbation
In this example, things that possibly lead to conception are not as bad as things that do not. As Money Python pointed years ago every sperm is Sacred.
This goes a long way to explaining such things as the excommunication of a mother who arranged and the doctors who performed an abortion for a 9 year old Brazilian Girl. The girl was impregnated by her stepfather who remained in the church.
It may also help explain why the church has historically covered up reports of abuse. Perhaps molesting children is preferable to having priests masturbate.
I have been reading a paper published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, 10, No. 6-7, 2003, pp.175-198 “Is Astrology Relevant to Consciousness and Psi?” by Geoffery Dean and Ivan W. Kelly. Dr. Kelly was kind enough to send me a copy.
The paper is partially a survey of other papers and a reanalysis of an experiment conducted in 1985. Specifically they investigated the conjunction between astrology and intuition or psychic ability of astrologers. By astrology they mean “real” astrology where abirth chart is drawn up based on the subjects date and time of birth. Not the daily sun sign horoscopes printed in newspapers. I am going to focus on this experiment.
In reading birth charts many astrologist report using intuition/psychic ability in preparation of a reading for a client. The experiment evaluates the difference in ability between the intuition/psychic astrologers and those who do not use such skills.
Experiment
Astrologers
45 from a range of countries, ages, and years of experience
Subjects
160 subjects were selected from a pool of 1198. The selected subjects had an average age of 30 (range 15-66), 72% were female, and 46% were university students.
Subject Selection
The subjects took the Eyesneck Personality Inventory. The selected subjects scored in the top and bottom 6.67% for extroversion/introversion and psychoticism (tough-minded and uncaring/tender-minded and caring). The average scores for the selected subjects were seven standard deviations from the overall average. 40 subjects were at one of the two extremes on the extroversion scale, 40 at the extremes of the neuroticism scale and 80 were on the extreme ends for both scales. The astrologers agreed that these personality attributes would be reflected in the subject’s charts and would be easy or moderately easy to determine.
Experiment
Based on the subjects’ birth chart the astrologers determined how the subject scored on the personality inventory for the two scales. The astrologers determined if each subject was high, low or none for each extraversion and psychoticism rating.
Data Collected
Astrologer’s determination of the subject personality, how long it took to make the determination, how confident they were in the determination.
Results
Where the Astrologers who use intuition/psychic abilities more accurate? No, there was no significant difference between those that relied on intuition or psychic abilities.
Were the astrologers accurate? No, the effect size was, 0.01 or approximately 50.5% vs. 50.0% by chance. Range -0.01 to 0.02 for both extraversion and neuroticism. The range for the agreement and accuracy is based on grouping the astrologers’ amount of intuition.
Did the astrologers agree? This needs a little explanation. If astrology is a science based on a date and time of birth, different astrologers reading the same chart should agree, even if they are lead to the wrong conclusion. For extroversion there was some agreement, the effect was 0.12 to 0.17 but for neuroticism the agreement was 0.00 to 0.05.
When astrologers agreed, were they more accurate? When the judgments were ranked by astrologer agreement. The correlation for the top third was 0.01 and -0.01 for the bottom third.
Did astrologers who were more accurate on the first half of the subject do as well on the second half? No, they tended to revert to the mean, correlation -0.13.
When the astrologers were more confident in their determination were they more accurate? No, Extraversion 0.00, 0.03 and -0.02 for low, medium, and high confidence. For neuroticism the effects were 0.05, 0.02 and -0.04.
Does astrology only work for some people? For the group of 80 subjects who were at extremes for both scales, if astrology worked for some of them then the astrologers should be correct on both attributes. This should show up as a positive correlation. Unfortunately the correlation was 0.02.
Summary
This was a dismal result for astrology. It was not accurate, there was no effect based on confidence or claimed intuitive abilities. There was a trivial amount of agreement between astrologers for only extraversion. The correlation of 0.17 is very low, and higher agreements did not have higher accuracy. In the experiment neither psychic or non-psychic astrologers had any predictive power with regards to subjects personality.
Secondly, the totally renovated American History museum is opening this weekend.It has been closed for two years.I even had someone tell me that they had gone to it. They may have confused it with the new Sant Ocean Hall at the Natural History museum.
I will have to hit the American History Museum next time I am in DC.
Instead I visited several other sites.
I made my second visit to the Sant Ocean Hall. I have mixed feelings about it. I think the glossy exhibits overwhelm many of the items on display. Big glossy sign boards for a four ounce jar containing a dessicated fish is a jarring disconnect. As much as I love the institution, I always think of the Smithsonian as being a bunch of packrats who display what every they have managed to collect. The resulting collections are often hodgepodges. The Sant Ocean Hall just reinforces this image. My main reason for returning to the Natural History Museum was to go to the two gift stores on the lower level. My nephews are getting 36″ gummy snakes and suckers with edible insects in their stockings.
The last time I was in DC we went to the National Portrait Gallery, but we did not make it to the third floor. Since I parked nearby I went back. If you go, do check out the mezzanine sections of the third floor. The Luce Foundation Center is on one of the mezzanines, basically a visible archive. I always like those. It is like a easter egg hunt, you never know what you are going to find. The Jug with Rattlesnake was one of my favorites.
The US Naval Memorial, is worth stopping at if you are walking by or are really into naval history, I am not. I was there for five minutes. Maybe if it was not pouring down rain I would have enjoyed it more.
I pretty much stumbled upon the Air Force Memorial. I was heading for the shopping mall nearby and took some wrong turns. The memorial is certainly worth seeing.It has a simple elegance and it overlooks the pentagon and Arlington cemetery.I would like to return some time at night.
I always recommend seeing the memorials at night. My all time favorite is the Korean War Memorial. It is dark an spooky. The Korean War Memorial is beside the Lincoln Memorial. If you are in that area go find Albert. He is a bit hard to find but well worth visiting.
I saw Religulous last night. While I enjoyed it, I thought the editing was juvenile at times. My partner (a recovering Catholic) seemed to enjoy it more than I. I think in my case they were preaching to the converted.
In my mind the editing was done poorly. They are trying to make it funny, but you can make anyone seem stupid if you edit appropriately. The audience is too often told when to laugh by splicing in old movie clips. Perhaps they should have added a laugh track as well.
One of my friends died this week. She was a skeptic and a believer. She believed in ghosts, God, blond jokes and many other things. She was also deeply skeptical, especially of American politics. She was an ethical vegetarian who cared deeply about all animals great and small.
We frequently emailed each other jokes. This is one she sent me . . .
An atheist was taking a walk through the woods. What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals! He said to himself.
As he was walking along side the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him. He turned to look, he saw a 7 foot grizzly charging towards him. He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him. He looked over his shoulder again and the bear was even closer. He tripped and fell on the ground. He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear right on him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.
At that instant the atheist cried out: “Oh My God!” Time Stopped, the bear froze and the forest was silent. As a bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky: “You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don’t exist, and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?
The atheist looked directly into the light, “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps you could make the BEAR a Christian?”
Very well,” said the voice. The light went out, and the forest resumed.
He looked at the bear and the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together and bowed his head and spoke these words: Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive from thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen.”
Posted by theskepticnextdoor 
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