TIA: it is science

Okay, you can all stop sending this to me now. Look, I don’t think anyone should have been terribly shocked by news of the scientific link between atheism and autism which supports my original hypothesis from four years ago:

People with ‘mild’ forms of autism are more likely to be atheists, according to a controversial new study – and more likely to shun organised religion in general. The study, which looked at posts on autism forums, focused on people with high-functioning autism such as Asperger’s. The study, from University of Boston, speculates that common autistic spectrum behaviours such as ‘a preference for logical beliefs’ and a distrust of metaphor and figures of speech, could be responsible.

The amusing thing about the vehement reaction by many atheists to my description of their observable tendency towards socially autistic behavior is that it was not only based on my personal observations over the years, but also by the Asperger’s Quotient results proudly reported by dozens of the Internet’s most militant atheists. But the link should have always been obvious because it is logically inevitable. Even if one believes that a god is nothing but a social construct, it should not be hard to grasp that a degree of social dysfunction would tend to inhibit one’s understanding of those constructs.

Now, obviously god-blindness will take a variety of forms, just as color-blindness does. My belated discovery of my own very mild color-blindness has, in some ways, helped me understand what Brent Rasmussen once described as a missing sense more than my longtime agnosticism ever did. You can explain it to me all you like, you can walk me slowly and patiently through all the lines on the image, but I am still not going to see it. Even if I trust that it is there, I simply cannot see it and no amount of desire allows me to detect it. It is perhaps worth recalling that just as my color-blindness is totally undetectable by others whereas the total or red-green versions are readily observable to anyone paying attention to the individual’s behavior, god-blindness is not going to automatically translate into full blown New Atheist social autism.

What is slightly misleading about the article’s description of these socially autistic individuals is that what is described as a “preference for logical beliefs” should actually be phrased as a “preference for beliefs that appear to be logical”. For, as we have repeatedly seen, socially dysfunctional atheists tend to be extraordinarily illogical, to such an extent that they will deny the existence of straightforward dictionary definitions in use for hundreds of years in order to cling to their pseudo-logic.

It’s not so much logic as static rules that appeal to them. Where the cognitive deficiency is revealed is in their inability to understand that the decision tree they have adopted with quasi-religious fervor is insufficiently dynamic. I suspect it is somehow related to their concomitant emotional immaturity, as I see a similar problem with static decision trees all the time in children’s soccer.

For example, you might tell a young defender to closely mark #12 because he is the most dangerous striker on the other team. Then you will watch in disbelief as that defender obediently stays wide and out of the play at #12’s side instead of moving into the center and attacking the other striker who has the ball and is heading for a shot on goal. What the young defender doesn’t understand that the order to mark the one player is a conditional one and that the order should no longer be considered in effect once a greater danger to the goal presents itself. So, it’s necessary to keep building more and more complex decision trees as the player develops until the light bulb goes off, the logical bases underlying all the various trees are finally understood, and the defender can begin thinking and analyzing the situations for himself rather than simply attempting to identify which branch of the decision tree applies to the present situation.

An inability or dislike for processing dynamic if-then situations has nothing to do with logic per se, it is simply a need for clear-cut rules that remove any necessity for active thinking. To the socially autistic, both “Science” and “Reason” are perceived as The Legitimate Rulegivers and they represent far more than the simple tools they are to the neurotypical. Of course, it is more than a little ironic that those who claim to be freethinkers and paragons of logic are actually exhibiting illogical behavior that is fundamentally based on an aversion to thinking.

VPFL Week Three

106 Greenfield Grizzlies (2-1-0)
54 RR Redbeards (2-1-0)

72 Moundsview Meerkats (2-1-0)
51 MS Swamp Spartans (2-1-0)

52 GroverBeach Quixotes (1-2-0)
49 Bane Sidhe (1-2-0)

88 Green Reverends (1-1-1)
37 Macau Marauders (1-2-0)

83 Bailout Banksters (1-1-1)
62 Cranberry Rhyneauxs (1-2-0)

It looks as if the Redbeards used up all their roster magic against the Meerkats last week, as the Grizzly put a serious beatdown on them. As for the Piranha of the Serengeti, they managed to overcome the absence of their WR1, RB1, RB3, the severe devaluation of their WR2 (Reggie Wayne), and the disappearance of the Dream Team Philadelphia DEF thanks to the six combined TDs of the Aaron Rodgers-Jermichael Finley connection. Can you say 43 combined points? Yes, yes you can.

Of course, it’s hard to take too much pleasure in that high-performance connection when you realize that your NFL equivalent is Donovan-McNabb-Jim Kleinsasser. I’m not entirely convinced that Leslie Frazier can’t coach in The National Football League yet, but the entrails are looking rather dire. Stupid penalties and stupid players are seldom the sign of an intelligent coach, nor is an apparent inability to anticipate an opponent’s halftime adjustments. McNabb isn’t throwing interceptions or fumbling the ball, which is an improvement over The Tarvaris Jackson Experiment, but he’s also not throwing balls anywhere near his receivers. And I simply cannot understand what the Vikings offensive coordinator has against play-action passing; McNabb is still mobile enough for roll-outs to be an effective tactic when the defense is keying on AD. That’s not going to prevent him from throwing his patented worm-burners or keep the ball in-bounds on deep balls, but the occasional 12-yard out or 15-yard crossing pattern should still be viable.

It is beginning to look as if Denny Green, not Tony Dungy, is the best case scenario for Frazier. But if they can’t beat a terrible and poorly coached Kansas City team next week, even that scenario will look optimistic and one can expect the drums to begin beating in earnest.

I note in passing that Yahoo Sports appears to have granted half-credit for last week’s tie game between the Banksters and the Reverends without even asking me, the league commissioner, about it. But a team that is (1-1-1) obviously should not have a “winning percentage” of .500 when it has only won one game out of three! It should be in the same place in the standings at .333 as one that is (1-2-0). That makes me so angry! It just cheapens the whole thing and I am seriously considering resigning as league commissioner.

The Jew tax

I suppose that’s one way for the Obama administration to address the budget deficit. Question: do they have to wear Yellow Stars of David on their sleeves too?

If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that.

It’s really rather cruel of Obama’s teleprompter to mess with him that way. Of course, it couldn’t possibly be easier for the Democratic Party elders to force him to announce that he won’t be running for president in 2012. Just arrange for a few minutes with the teleprompter prior to his speech and he’ll not only announce his decision to sit out the election in order to spend more time with his family, he’ll admit to being on the grassy knoll in 1963.

The Fed creates its own CIA

Zerohedge has the details on the Federal Reserve’s plans to spy on the economically astute:

Two weeks ago, the media’s heart went aflutter when it learned that the president had borrowed a page right out of ole’ Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt book with the launch of Attack Watch. The response by everyone, even fans of Obama, was immediate and brutal. Yet where Obama took about 24 hours to crash and burn, someone else has stepped in with a far stealthier method of ferreting out the traitors amongst us: none other than our old friends, the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, which in a Request for Proposals filed to companies that are Fed vendors, is requesting the creation of a “Social Listening Platform” whose function is to “gather data from various social media outlets and news sources.” It will “monitor billions of conversations and generate text analytics based on predefined criteria.” The Fed’s desired product should be able to “determine the sentiment [ED:LOL] of a speaker or writer with respect to some topic or document”… “The solution must be able to gather data from the primary social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Forums and YouTube. It should also be able to aggregate data from various media outlets such as: CNN, WSJ, Factiva etc.” Most importantly, the “Listening Platform” should be able to “Handle crisis situations, Continuously monitor conversations, and Identify and reach out to key bloggers and influencers.” Said otherwise, the Fed has just entered the counterespionage era and will be monitoring everything written about it anywhere in the world.

I could save them the trouble and expense of spying on the world with a simple summary: Everyone who understands the U.S. central banking system despises the Fed and understands that it is an organization that was created to inflate the money supply and funnel money to the banks. And while investors once feared its influence over the financial markets, no one fears it anymore because Chairman Bernanke’s predictions are uniformly wrong, his policies have uniformly failed, and the shortcomings of the its debt currency are becoming obvious even to non-economists.

On the other hand, perhaps Helicopter Ben is simply looking for hot investment tips. Obviously his investment strategy hasn’t been working out so well.

WND column

Immigration is the Issue

The mainstream media are desperately attempting to gloss over the real reason that Rick Perry self-imploded at the Florida straw poll. It wasn’t that his debate performance was poor, although it certainly was. The reason Rick Perry is imitating Fred Thompson’s rapid decline from favored frontrunner to candidate-in-crisis is because the debate revealed the depths to which his pro-immigration position runs counter to that of most Republicans.

Review: Kobo eReader Touch

This may be going a bit far afield, but since most Black GateVox Popoli readers are, well, readers, I suspect it will be of interest to many here. While I am a big advocate of eReaders and digital books, I have avoided eReading devices in the past because they haven’t offered any significant upgrade over reading on my smartphone, at least not without imposing significant costs. I started with reading .pdb books on various Palm Treos, then enjoyed a significant graphical upgrade to reading .epub books on an Android phone. This works quite well and I still do the vast majority of my reading that way since whether I am out and about or at home, my phone is always handy. And, since it emits light, it permits reading in the dark, which is an advantage for anyone who customarily goes to sleep later than the bed’s other occupant.

Read the rest at the Black Gate.

Trouble in Meerkatville

Nate and the WB conspired to beat me up in the first two weeks of the season. My RB1 and RB3 are both Q and RB1 may as well be O. My TE, and WR1 are both O. If the key to championships is remaining injury free, I would appear to be in trouble.

This is your weekly open NFL thread. With regards to which I am curious as to whether the Vikings will find a way to choke in the second half against the Lions or if they will simply get blown off the field by Megatron, the Ndominator, and company.

Kill only in ignorance

Unsurprisingly, the advance of technology is rapidly forcing pro-abortion feminists into severe logical contortions:

The Council of Europe is due to consider a draft resolution in October which recommends that all its 47 member states – including Britain – instruct hospitals to “withold information about the sex of the foetus” from parents. The move is a bid to prevent the practice of selective abortion, which they say has reached worrying proportions in some former Soviet states…. Now, a survey of maternity units in England discloses that several are already refusing to share the information.

What a pity scientists never managed to find that gay gene. Then we would be presented with the spectacle where women only possessed “the right to choose” so long as she was carrying a normal male child. But how interesting that a woman’s “right” to her own body doesn’t appear to extend to the knowledge of what is in it.

Mailvox: an erroneous answer

In which the ex-judge responds to Spacebunny’s question and attempts to claim he did not involve himself in the debate:

I kept myself out of the debate. Writing justifications for one’s decisions isn’t “putting themselves in the debate.” Roasting the contestants isn’t putting oneself into the debate. What’s your evidence that I “put myself in the debate?”

There is considerable evidence in both of the very posts he presented as a judge. CL clearly did not limit himself to writing justifications for his decisions. He also offered advice, engaged in coaching, anticipated unmade claims, attempted to start his own side-debate with a contestant, prejudged arguments that were still in the process of being made, and presented his own rebuttal in lieu of one presented by a contestant.

Nor, quite clearly, does he understand that a debate judge is not supposed to “roast the contestants”. A debate judge is supposed to judge the merits and defects of the arguments presented by the contestants.

Here are the direct quotes from his two judgments:

This debate concerns the evidence [E] and logic [L] for the existence or nonexistence of “gods,” which are unfortunately defined loosely as, “superhuman beings worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes.” I’m disappointed that these guys didn’t nail down a specific God concept. By the current definition, ET’s, the traditional monotheist God and superintelligent AI are all fair game for “gods.” I consider it a waste of time to be discussing the mathematical probabilities for ET’s and other such distractions. Hell, why not Criss Angel? This debate should be about God, not some loosely-defined concept of “gods” that may or may not include Terminators and other carbon-based oddities produced by the very theory Vox dedicates so much energy to denigrating elsewhere.

As should eventually become clear in the course of the debate, and as at least one of the other judges has already shown some signs of understanding, the broader definition of gods is not only integral to the question of atheist disbelief in all gods, it is hugely relevant to the primary basis of the atheist disbelief in the existence of the Christian God. But CL’s failure to understand the significance of an argument that I am still in the process of elucidating is less important than his expressed desire to adjudicate a different debate than the one that he actually volunteered to judge. And his erroneous declaration about what arguments would be a waste of time before the arguments were even complete tends to indicate that his mindset was inappropriate for a judge from the start. What sort of judge presents his judgment prior to the conclusion of the event being judged?

“Since an eternally existent Prime Mover undeniably solves the problem of infinite regress, I was expecting something spectacular in support of this assertion.”

Who cares what he was expecting? It’s not about him. He was supposed to be a judge, not a participant.

“What about all the simple explanations that turned out to be quite right, for example the vast majority of murder convictions sustained by forensic evidence? Dominic gives no reliable criteria by which one might differentiate a true simple claim from a false simple claim. That Dominic finds gods “too convenient” is an indication only of Dominic’s subjective preference and has no bearing on the veracity of God or gods. Dominic’s approach also seems to disregard the general principle that one should not multiply entities beyond necessity. IOW, Ockham’s Razor actually favors the “simplest” explanation, provided that explanation can account for the pertinent evidence.”

Had he simply said that Dominic gives no reliable criteria, that would have been fine. Instead, he brought in examples from outside the debate and attempted to substitute his rebuttal for my own. This is obviously not appropriate for a judge.

“As I said in my opening paragraph, I’m not interested in debating the existence ET’s and Terminators.”

That’s fine, but he wasn’t supposed to be debating at all. Nobody asked what interested him. CL was supposed to judge, not inform us about his favorite flavor of ice cream, who he likes in Week Three of the NFL season, or his own opinion concerning the potential existence of gods, ETs, Terminators, or God.

“Burn the dross and resubmit.”

This is coaching, not judging.

“He needs to flesh this out quite a bit if he’s trying to make the WLC-esque claim that objective good exists, ergo one or more Creator Gods.”

Since he admitted he didn’t even know what claim the contestant was making, it was not for him, as a judge, to say what needed to be done to prove the claim he imagined the contestant might be making.

“He writes, “I believe we can all be in agreement that objective evil, as defined as a self-aware, purposeful, and malicious force which intends material harm and suffering to others and is capable of inflicting it, is quite real.” Really? On what grounds? I believe these forces exist, but that’s because I accept the existence of the traditional malevolent deities, i.e., Satan, demons and their offspring. What sort of “self-aware evil force” can an atheist possibly assent to?”

It doesn’t matter. As a judge, all CL was required to do was note that Dominic conceded the point. When he brought up new questions about a point that was already settled, he directly involved himself in the debate as a participant. If he was wondering if the two contestants were using the term “objective” differently, the appropriate thing to do would have been to raise that question, not attempt to initiate his own separate debate with one of them about what atheists can or cannot believe about evil.

“As this debate proceeds, I’d like to see a narrower focus on the traditional God concept. The definition of “gods” as any “superhuman being worshipped as able to control nature” is simply too wide a goalpost, one that diminishes this debate’s relevance to traditional (a)theist dialog.”

Again, what CL wanted to see was totally irrelevant. The dictionary definition is entirely apt and this was a blatant appeal to modify the terms of a debate that had been established more than three years prior. The line judge might like to see Tom Brady throw the ball more or have touchdowns count for ten points, but his desires are irrelevant because such things are beyond his area of responsibility.

“Dominic should have done the research.”

It’s not for him to say. Being a judge required CL to comment upon what someone had or had not done, not what they should or should not have done.

“The first time around, he said he finds “simple claims too convenient,” and although Vox’s rebuttal missed the mark, mine did not [murder convictions sustained by straightforward forensic evidence; Ockham’s razor].

And here CL openly admits that he involved himself in the debate, to the extent of directly referring to his own previous rebuttal and claiming its superiority to the one provided by the contestant.

In light of this conclusive body of evidence, I await with interest CL’s admission that he did not, in fact, keep himself out of the debate he was supposed to be judging prior to his resignation. And fortunately, with Markku replacing CL as the Christian judge, we can reasonably expect the judges to concentrate on adjudicating the debate rather than attempting to participate in it over the course of the final three rounds.

Cain wins Florida

And, as I suggested, Perry’s remarkably stupid pro-immigration position is sinking him:

Every winner of Florida’s Presidency 5 straw poll has gone on to win the GOP nomination. And if that tradition continues this year, Herman Cain will be the Republican nominee in 2012.

He overwhelmingly won the straw poll, nabbing 37 percent of the votes. That put Cain more than twenty percentage points ahead of Rick Perry (15 percent) and Mitt Romney (14 percent). Rick Santorum won 11 percent of the votes, while Ron Paul came in fifth at 10 percent. Newt Gingrich was backed by 8 percent. And Michele Bachmann, who won the Ames Straw Poll, finished dead last at 1.5 percent. Jon Huntsman beat her to come in seventh place with 2.3 percent of the vote.

For Perry, whose campaign very aggressively courted delegates — his campaign hosted a breakfast, sent out direct mail, telephoned delegates, and appointed a leadership commission lead by Florida House speaker Dean Cannon — the distant second-place finish has the potential to curtail the momentum he’s had as frontrunner since entering the race. Many of the straw poll delegates expressed frustration at his poor debate performance Thursday night, along with irritation at his immigration positions.

Cain is a corrupt joke as a presidential candidate, but then, so were Bob Dole and John McCain. Obviously that wouldn’t stop Republicans from putting him up, especially since the party base despises Romney and is quickly coming to dislike Perry. I still don’t see Cain winning the nomination, but Perry’s ongoing meltdown makes it less implausible than before.