Why are some people more religious than others? Answers to this question often focus on the role of culture or upbringing. While these influences are important, new research suggests that whether we believe may also have to do with how much we rely on intuition versus analytical thinking. In 2011 Amitai Shenhav, David Rand and Joshua Greene of Harvard University published apaper showing that people who have a tendency to rely on their intuition are more likely to believe in God. They also showed that encouraging people to think intuitively increased people’s belief in God. Building on these findings, in a recent paper published inScience, Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia found that encouraging people to think analytically reduced their tendency to believe in God. Together these findings suggest that belief may at least partly stem from our thinking styles.
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Reason, Evidence and the Rule of Logic. A collection of interesting articles and posts.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
Tests of the supernatural fail again: new study can’t replicate findings of precognition
from Why Evolution Is True
Tests of the supernatural fail again: new study can’t replicate findings of precognition:
Who says that you can’t test the supernatural? Intercessory prayer, near-death experiences, and ESP—all have been tested (and refuted) using science; all are classical “supernatural” phenomena whose mechanisms, if they existed, would seem to defy the laws of physics (I’m not going to get into arguments about the definition of “supernatural” here). And now there’s a new paper in PLoS ONE by Ritchie et al. (free download at link, reference below) that refutes a recent paper presenting evidence for precognition: the idea that somehow one could have intimations in the present about stuff that hasn’t yet happened.
The original paper, published in 2011 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Daryl Bem of Cornell University (download the paper here, and see my post on it here), gave statistically significant evidence for precognition in several experiments. In brief, experimental subjects who were asked to memorize a list of words, and then type as many as they could remember onto a computer, did better at remembering those words to which they were subsequently exposed when presented with random selections of the initial word list and irrelevant “control” words. This implied that seeing the words later increased one’s ability to remember them in the past.
The paper, appealing as it did to many people’s love of psychic stuff, got a lot of attention; it was, I believe, a subject on my radio interview with woo-meister Alex Tsakiris at Skeptiko. (Alex loved it of course.)
Bem’s experiment was criticised by other scientists, and I think there are still some attempts to replicate it in the works; my own judgment was that the results couldn’t be replicated by others. That seems to be the lesson of the paper by Ritchie et al., who took Bem’s most significant experiment and replicated it three times in three different laboratories: The University of London, The University of Edinburgh, and the University of Hertfordshire.
The results are simple: none of the three replications achieved anything near statistical significance. The respective probability values (the values that results as extreme as those seen could be due solely to chance) were 46%, 94%, and 61%; the overall probability was 83%. For “one-tailed” tests like these, results are considered significant only if the probability of attaining them by chance is 5% or less; and the replication results didn’t even come near that threshold. Conclusion: Bem’s results are severely in question.
What happened in Bem’s study if his results really were wrong? Ritchie et al. have several theories:
An interesting side note: Chris French, one of the authors of the Ritchie et al. paper, wrote a piece in the Guardian, “Precognition study and the curse of the failed replications,” giving his take on Bem’s study and describing their own difficulties in getting their failure of replication published. It was rejected by three journals, including the original journal—the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology—before it was finally accepted in PLoS ONE! The unwillingness of the original journal’s editor to even send Ritchie et al.’s paper out for review is reprehensible, particularly in light of the splash made by Bem’s paper. Extraordinary results deserve extraordinary scrutiny. As French notes:
h/t: Diane G.
__________
Bem, D. J. 2011. Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. J. Personality Social Psych. doi: 10.1037/a0021524:DOI: 10.1037/a0021524.
Ritchie, S. J., R. Wiseman, and C. C. French. 2012. Failing the future: three unsuccessful attempts to replicate Bem’s ‘Retroactive facilitation of recall’ effect. PLOS ONE 7(3): e33423. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033423
Robinson E. 2011. Not feeling the future: A failed replication of retroactive facilitation of memory recall. J. Soc. Psychical Research 75:142-147.
Tests of the supernatural fail again: new study can’t replicate findings of precognition:
Who says that you can’t test the supernatural? Intercessory prayer, near-death experiences, and ESP—all have been tested (and refuted) using science; all are classical “supernatural” phenomena whose mechanisms, if they existed, would seem to defy the laws of physics (I’m not going to get into arguments about the definition of “supernatural” here). And now there’s a new paper in PLoS ONE by Ritchie et al. (free download at link, reference below) that refutes a recent paper presenting evidence for precognition: the idea that somehow one could have intimations in the present about stuff that hasn’t yet happened.
The original paper, published in 2011 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Daryl Bem of Cornell University (download the paper here, and see my post on it here), gave statistically significant evidence for precognition in several experiments. In brief, experimental subjects who were asked to memorize a list of words, and then type as many as they could remember onto a computer, did better at remembering those words to which they were subsequently exposed when presented with random selections of the initial word list and irrelevant “control” words. This implied that seeing the words later increased one’s ability to remember them in the past.
The paper, appealing as it did to many people’s love of psychic stuff, got a lot of attention; it was, I believe, a subject on my radio interview with woo-meister Alex Tsakiris at Skeptiko. (Alex loved it of course.)
Bem’s experiment was criticised by other scientists, and I think there are still some attempts to replicate it in the works; my own judgment was that the results couldn’t be replicated by others. That seems to be the lesson of the paper by Ritchie et al., who took Bem’s most significant experiment and replicated it three times in three different laboratories: The University of London, The University of Edinburgh, and the University of Hertfordshire.
The results are simple: none of the three replications achieved anything near statistical significance. The respective probability values (the values that results as extreme as those seen could be due solely to chance) were 46%, 94%, and 61%; the overall probability was 83%. For “one-tailed” tests like these, results are considered significant only if the probability of attaining them by chance is 5% or less; and the replication results didn’t even come near that threshold. Conclusion: Bem’s results are severely in question.
What happened in Bem’s study if his results really were wrong? Ritchie et al. have several theories:
- There were statistical and methodological “artifacts” outlined by several critics (see references 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 in their paper)
- Other variables, not recorded by Bem (subjects’ use of self-hypnosis or meditation, anxiety level, etc.) could have been responsible for the results. I don’t really understand this criticism because it seems that the “supernatural” character of precognition would be unaffected by those variables
- the effect might be genuine but is hard to replicate. Ritchie et al. note that this is a common claim by psi advocates when results aren’t replicated. It’s like theologians who say, “God cannot be tested.”
At the end of his paper Bem urges psychologists to be more open towards the concept of psychic ability, noting how, in Alice in Wonderland, the White Queen famously stated, ‘Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast’. We advise them to take a more levelheaded approach to the topic, and not to venture too far down the rabbit hole just yet.Bem has published a response to Ritchie et al.’s piece: it’s basically a non-response, calling for more work and floating the possibility that the negative attitudes of Ritchie et al. could have had an effect on their results (that, too, would be a paranomal result). As Bem said, “Ritchie, Wiseman, and French are well known as psi skeptics, whereas I and the investigators of the two successful replications are at least neutral with respect to the existence of psi.” That’s a pretty lame defense. Why would you re-test someone’s results if you weren’t a skeptic? On Thursday Ritchie et al. published a response to Bem’s critique.
An interesting side note: Chris French, one of the authors of the Ritchie et al. paper, wrote a piece in the Guardian, “Precognition study and the curse of the failed replications,” giving his take on Bem’s study and describing their own difficulties in getting their failure of replication published. It was rejected by three journals, including the original journal—the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology—before it was finally accepted in PLoS ONE! The unwillingness of the original journal’s editor to even send Ritchie et al.’s paper out for review is reprehensible, particularly in light of the splash made by Bem’s paper. Extraordinary results deserve extraordinary scrutiny. As French notes:
This whole saga raises important questions. Although we are always being told that “replication is the cornerstone of science”, the truth is that the “top” journals are simply not interested in straight replications – especially failed replications. They only want to report findings that are new and positive.Doubt and replication are the sine qua non of science, and journals must always send out failed attempts to replicate for peer review, and find a way to publish them if they’re sound.
Most scientists are aware of this bias and will rarely bother with straight replications. But straight replication attempts are often exactly what is required, especially when dealing with controversial claims. For example, parapsychologists are typically happy to accept the findings of a new study if it replicates a previously reported paranormal effect. However, if it fails to do so, they are likely to blame any deviation from the original procedure, no matter how minor. It was for this reason that we chose to follow Bem’s procedure as closely as possible (apart from a minor methodological improvement).
Given the high cost of paper publications and the high submission rejection rate of “top” journals, it might be argued that rejecting replication studies was defensible in the pre-internet era. But what would prevent such journals from adopting a policy of sending reports of replications, failed or otherwise, for full peer review and, if accepted, publishing the abstract of the paper in the journal and the full version online? Otherwise, publication bias looks set to remain a major problem in psychology and science in general.
h/t: Diane G.
__________
Bem, D. J. 2011. Feeling the future: experimental evidence for anomalous retroactive influences on cognition and affect. J. Personality Social Psych. doi: 10.1037/a0021524:DOI: 10.1037/a0021524.
Ritchie, S. J., R. Wiseman, and C. C. French. 2012. Failing the future: three unsuccessful attempts to replicate Bem’s ‘Retroactive facilitation of recall’ effect. PLOS ONE 7(3): e33423. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0033423
Robinson E. 2011. Not feeling the future: A failed replication of retroactive facilitation of memory recall. J. Soc. Psychical Research 75:142-147.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
You Don't Have Free Will
March 18, 2012
You Don't Have Free Will
By Jerry A. Coyne
The term "free will" has so many diverse connotations that I'm obliged to define it before I explain why we don't have it. I construe free will the way I think most people do: At the moment when you have to decide among alternatives, you have free will if you could have chosen otherwise. To put it more technically, if you could rerun the tape of your life up to the moment you make a choice, with every aspect of the universe configured identically, free will means that your choice could have been different.
Although we can't really rerun that tape, this sort of free will is ruled out, simply and decisively, by the laws of physics. Your brain and body, the vehicles that make "choices," are composed of molecules, and the arrangement of those molecules is entirely determined by your genes and your environment. Your decisions result from molecular-based electrical impulses and chemical substances transmitted from one brain cell to another. These molecules must obey the laws of physics, so the outputs of our brain—our "choices"—are dictated by those laws. (It's possible, though improbable, that the indeterminacy of quantum physics may tweak behavior a bit, but such random effects can't be part of free will.) And deliberating about your choices in advance doesn't help matters, for that deliberation also reflects brain activity that must obey physical laws.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Tricks of the Psychic Trade How psychics talk (and manipulate)
By Karen Stollznow.
Psychic mediums perform one-on-one sessions for sitters. Stage mediums typically offer personal readings, but they also perform short psychic readings to an audience. Unless the stage medium performs a hot reading, otherwise known as cheating, the main tool is cold reading. This involves observation, psychology and elicitation to provide the appearance of psychic powers. Let's look at the typical formula used by stage mediums, and explore some commonly used linguistic and psychological techniques.
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Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Why Atheists Are NOT Wasting Their Time
By Thomas Keane from doubtingthomas
***NOTE: This article was originally published by the people at www.PathofReason.com and is reprinted here with their permission.
One of the most common criticisms Atheists are confronted with is the question of why we waste so much time discussing religion, god worship, the bible, etc.? Why do we focus so much time on something we don’t believe in? Don’t we have anything better to do with our time? The reason why these questions are always so frustrating has less to do with how often we are confronted with them and more to do with how obvious the answers should be. When your child tells you they believe there is a monster in their closet or under their bed, do you ignore them or tell them the truth? If she told you that the reason she believed there was a monster under her bed was because she had read a story that told her about these monsters, wouldn’t you be curious to read this story in order to better understand how your child came to her erroneous conclusion? Now what if your daughter is 21 and has a 3 year old daughter of her own. Her boyfriend, the father of her child, is involved with a group that believes their founder (Avalon) is the second coming of Christ and is in direct communication with God. If you discovered that your daughter had also become a follower of Avalon and was teaching/raising your 3yo granddaughter to believe in the same things, would you be wasting your time if you decided to speak up and express your belief that Avalon was a fraud and even offer proof to support your opinion?
What if your daughter refused to listen and instead ran away with her boyfriend, your granddaughter and Avalon to an isolated compound somewhere and you didn’t see them again for another fifteen years? What do you think the likelihood is, that once you are finally allowed to see your, now 18yo, granddaughter, that anything you say will convince her that what she has been raised to believe isn’t true? The odds are that your words would fall on deaf ears; however, that doesn’t make your efforts meaningless. Nor does it mean you should give up. The more you learn about this cult that swallowed up your daughter and granddaughter the greater your ability will be to address the issues you have with it. After all, even the strongest barrier of misinformation can’t withstand a constant barrage of truth.
There is a reason why the majority of god worshipers are devoted to the same god that the people who raised them worshiped. It isn’t because their god is any more legitimate than any of the other 2,000+ gods mankind has invented over the years. It is simply because once myth has been established as fact in a child’s innocent, naïve mind, it is very difficult, even as an adult, for that person to shake that belief. Faith is not a synonym for fact, it is a synonym for hope and it is the definition of foolishness to devote one’s every life decision around thehope that a thing is true.
Once upon a time, people believed that the earth was the center of the universe and everything (including the sun) revolved around it. Once upon a time people believed that tossing a virgin into a volcano or carving out their still beating hearts was the only way to appease their god(s). Once upon a time people believed Zeus’ wrath resulted in thunder and lightning and Poseidon’s resulted in tidal waves. Once upon a time people believed that you could take ‘it’ with you and as a result they built elaborate tombs and filled them with treasures and even servants so that in the afterlife they would continue to enjoy the lifestyle to which they were accustomed. Once upon a time people believed in a great many things that we now know to be erroneous.
If we discovered that there were people in the world who still believed in established myth, would we be wasting our time to confront them with evidence that reveals the fallacy of their beliefs? And when a Christian or Mormon missionary travels deep into the Amazonian jungles to tell the native people there that the gods they worship are false and that they should instead believe in this or that god, aren’t they doing the same thing that an Atheist does when they contradict Christian beliefs? The only difference here seems to be that an Atheist supports his beliefs with evidence while a believer relies only on hope, AKA – faith.
What could possibly be more admirable than knowing the truth of something and, when encountering someone who only knows the lie, taking the time to share with them what you have learned. How could this ever be considered a waste of time? How many people ‘wasted their time’ trying to talk reason with a follower of Jim Jones (900 dead, 300 of whom were children). How many people ‘wasted their time’ pleading with family and/or friends who were members of the Heaven’s Gate cult? How many of the 80+ followers of David Koresh, 21 of whom were children, who died in the Waco, Texas catastrophe might have been spared if more people had ‘wasted their time’? If an Atheist had encountered a member of any of these groups you can bet that they would have spoken up. Are we to believe that a Christian would have tucked their bible away and bit their tongue?
It is in all of our best interests that we resist the tendency to dismiss the opinion of another simply because it differs from our own. If someone is willing to take the time to challenge something you believe in, the least you can do is take the time to listen and consider. Christians like to act all mystified as to why Atheists spend so much time discussing something they don’t believe in but the fact that they never protest when an Atheist wastes his or her time playing Guitar Hero or watching an American Idol marathon reveals that what they are really expressing is anxiety, not confusion. No one likes to be confronted with the prospect that what they accept as truth could possibly be a lie. But such a revelation can only benefit us, individually and as a society.
If anything it is the religious who are wasting their time. Just consider how much further along we would be as a society, not to mention as a species, if it weren’t for religion. The endless struggle for religious supremacy has led to innumerable wars and countless lost lives. Consider the incomprehensible amount of literature that was hunted down, confiscated and/or destroyed by the church. How much knowledge have we lost because of the fears of the religious? How many of our greatest minds were persecuted and imprisoned because they dared to disagree with someone’s concept of one god or another? How many dreams, ideas and inventions were snuffed out by worshipers of gods? How many more men like Aristotle, Galileo, Voltaire and Socrates would we have if not for religion? Consider all the trials, the imprisonments, the banishments, the riots, the persecutions, the genocides, the repression, the bigotry, the sexism, the mutilation and the division, so much division. Has anything in history ever divided one man from another more than religion? But it’s the Atheist who is wasting his time? Could anything be more laughable? Just imagine where we would be now as a people if we had focused on peace, coexisting, civilization, progress and philosophy instead of saving souls and deciding whose god was better than another’s. No one has wasted more of their own time, and worse, humanity’s time than the religious.
If the human race has any hope for a bright future it certainly doesn’t rest with the religious or whatever god they may worship. Their god will not create peace on earth. Your god will not protect our children from the evils of the world. His god will not reward us with eternal life. Her god will not assure our armies of success in battle. We can only rely on ourselves and on each other. There simply is no one else. And it’s not a waste of time to say so.
Thomas Keane (DoubtingThomas)
Please visit my main page (http://doubtingthomas426.wordpress.com/) to gain a better understanding of where I am coming from. There you will find all my observations regarding religion and the bible categorized on the Right hand side of the page. Please feel free to read through them and leave a comment or two if you like.
My Top 25 Substantive Posts in 2011
Here they are:
25) I Stand in the Gap
24) The Top Ten Misconceptions About Atheists
23) The Ten Marks of a Deluded Person
22) Once Again, Atheism is Not a Belief Nor a Religion
21) In Defense of Debates
20) Ten Ways How To Resist Preaching to the Choir
19) Science Based Explanations vs. Faith Based Explanations
18) Christians demand that I must show their faith is impossible before they will see that it is improbable
17) The Danger of Belief is Thinking You Believe What God Does
16) The Problem of Miracles
15) Answering Once and For All The Christian Complaint That Skeptics Would Refuse to Believe No Matter What God Did
14) Who Answers Prayers?
13) An Omniscient God Solves All Problems and Makes Faith Unfalsifiable
12) How Christian Apologists Work
11) When Christians Criticize Each Other I Think They're All Right
10) A New and Better Pascal's Wager: If God Asked You to Wager Before Being Born What Would You Choose?
9) The Deuteronomist and King Josiah
8) The Outsider Test is Not Hard to Understand
7) Responding to Thomas Talbott: On Why I Think There is a Material World
6) Assessing The Minimal Facts Approach of Habermas, Licona, and Craig
5) Does a Religious Context Increase the Odds of a Miracle?
4) Michael Licona's Book is Delusional on a Grand Scale
3) William Lane Craig On Whether the Witness of the Spirit is Question-Begging
2) In Defense of William Lane Craig
1) Let's Recap Why William Lane Craig Refuses to Debate Me
25) I Stand in the Gap
24) The Top Ten Misconceptions About Atheists
23) The Ten Marks of a Deluded Person
22) Once Again, Atheism is Not a Belief Nor a Religion
21) In Defense of Debates
20) Ten Ways How To Resist Preaching to the Choir
19) Science Based Explanations vs. Faith Based Explanations
18) Christians demand that I must show their faith is impossible before they will see that it is improbable
17) The Danger of Belief is Thinking You Believe What God Does
16) The Problem of Miracles
15) Answering Once and For All The Christian Complaint That Skeptics Would Refuse to Believe No Matter What God Did
14) Who Answers Prayers?
13) An Omniscient God Solves All Problems and Makes Faith Unfalsifiable
12) How Christian Apologists Work
11) When Christians Criticize Each Other I Think They're All Right
10) A New and Better Pascal's Wager: If God Asked You to Wager Before Being Born What Would You Choose?
9) The Deuteronomist and King Josiah
8) The Outsider Test is Not Hard to Understand
7) Responding to Thomas Talbott: On Why I Think There is a Material World
6) Assessing The Minimal Facts Approach of Habermas, Licona, and Craig
5) Does a Religious Context Increase the Odds of a Miracle?
4) Michael Licona's Book is Delusional on a Grand Scale
3) William Lane Craig On Whether the Witness of the Spirit is Question-Begging
2) In Defense of William Lane Craig
1) Let's Recap Why William Lane Craig Refuses to Debate Me
Monday, January 30, 2012
What makes scientists tick?
from the NewScientist.com
Psychologist Greg Feist is trying to find out what drives scientific curiosity, from ways of thinking to personality types
You are championing a new discipline: the psychology of science. What exactly is this?
It's the study of the thought and behaviour of scientists, but it also includes the implicit science done by non-scientists - so, for instance, children and infants who are thinking scientifically, trying to figure out the world and developing cognitive conceptual models of how the world works.
It's the study of the thought and behaviour of scientists, but it also includes the implicit science done by non-scientists - so, for instance, children and infants who are thinking scientifically, trying to figure out the world and developing cognitive conceptual models of how the world works.
What areas interest you and what discoveries have you made in this field?
My area is personality. I look at the personality characteristics and qualities that distinguish scientists from non-scientists.
My area is personality. I look at the personality characteristics and qualities that distinguish scientists from non-scientists.
The personality characteristic that really stands out for predicting scientific interest is openness to experience: how willing and interested someone is to try new things, to explore, to break out of their habits. Open people get bored with routine. Another thing I've found is that social scientists tend to be higher in extroversion whereas physical scientists tend to be a bit more introverted.
I understand that certain people - Jewish people, for example - are more likely than average to become scientists. Why?
I was brought up Catholic and I married a Jewish woman. I spoke to my wife's rabbi and asked him this question. He said that in Judaism there is no hierarchy. No one person who has more access to the "truth" than anyone else. And there is a healthy tradition of debate. That way of critical thinking and debate is more congruent with the scientific attitude than Catholicism, say, which is based on dogma and hierarchy.
I was brought up Catholic and I married a Jewish woman. I spoke to my wife's rabbi and asked him this question. He said that in Judaism there is no hierarchy. No one person who has more access to the "truth" than anyone else. And there is a healthy tradition of debate. That way of critical thinking and debate is more congruent with the scientific attitude than Catholicism, say, which is based on dogma and hierarchy.
In the US, only 2 per cent of the population is Jewish, yet about 30 per cent of the members of the National Academy of Science and 30 per cent of the Nobel prize recipients are from a Jewish background. That's no coincidence.
What other areas of the psychology of science are ripe for research?
A couple of graduate students and I have started investigating if there is evidence that any kind of mental disorder is associated with scientific thought and behaviour. The general answer is no. In fact, most disorders seem to be screened out to a greater extent in the sciences than in the arts.
A couple of graduate students and I have started investigating if there is evidence that any kind of mental disorder is associated with scientific thought and behaviour. The general answer is no. In fact, most disorders seem to be screened out to a greater extent in the sciences than in the arts.
Have psychologists looked into the issue of how objective the scientific process really is?
Scientists are human. They're not perfectly objective and rational, but the scientific method tries to limit that as much as possible by having repeatable, observable, empirical methods to minimise the subjective element. The more we understand about the psychology of scientists the more we can mitigate the effect of cognitive bias.
Scientists are human. They're not perfectly objective and rational, but the scientific method tries to limit that as much as possible by having repeatable, observable, empirical methods to minimise the subjective element. The more we understand about the psychology of scientists the more we can mitigate the effect of cognitive bias.
How will this new discipline benefit science?
One of the things it will do is shed light on how and when people become interested in science. And why do some kids, who started out with an interest in science, then leave it? In the US it's a pretty big deal to discover what is lacking in our training and development of young scientists.
One of the things it will do is shed light on how and when people become interested in science. And why do some kids, who started out with an interest in science, then leave it? In the US it's a pretty big deal to discover what is lacking in our training and development of young scientists.
Profile
Greg Feist is at San Jose State University, California. He is president of the International Society for the Psychology of Science and Technology, and author of The Psychology of Science and the Origins of the Scientific Mind (Yale University Press, 2006)
Friday, January 27, 2012
Answering 13 Questions About 2012 by Kyle Hill
Via Psychology Today, arm yourself against the pseudoscience of 2012 apocalypse with answers to 13 questions about the supposed end of the world.
[spoiler alert: the whole theory is bogus]
The Mayan Apocalypse is Nonsense
Here are the questions you will find answers to, with a short summary of the answers (read the full article linked to above for the complete explanations):
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