Wayback Machine http://insecular.com/ 43 captures 2 May 2012 - 13 Apr 2026 Jul JAN Mar 05 2012 2013 2014 About this capture insecular Skip to content Menu Home About Search Categories Atheism 17 Critical Thinking 7 Pseudoscience 1 Quote of the Day 1 Religion 3 Secularism 4 Skepticism 10 Social-Sciences 3 All Categories 8 Victim blaming or risk reduction? Jan 2, 13 12:20 AM I’ve encountered the concept of victim blaming in health literature, particularly from a sociological perspective. Some scholars think that health-promotion can be a form of victim blaming or at the very least, people tend to blame themselves if they become ill. I share the positions of critics who think health education and promotion are good and necessary, regardless of how some people internalize certain messages. Because of my forays into this discourse about victim blaming, I’m probably oversensitive about how it’s used in other contexts. Recently, Hayley Stevens changed her mind about Heather Keating’s tweet “Its always sad to see young women become victims of sexual offenses, Don’t drink too much on New Year’s Eve and regret your actions!” Stevens initially criticized Keating, writing in response that she should stop victim blaming. She now thinks that she overreacted and that there is a “certain amount of responsibility that all of us should take to keep ourselves safe.” My first thought when I read Keating’s tweet had nothing to do with victim blaming, but the utility of this kind of advice. Putting aside for a moment whether women should change their behaviour to avoid being assaulted, do they follow this advice? Alcohol or drugs are involved in about a third to two-thirds of sexual assaults and about half of perpetrators are under the influence of alcohol when committing an assault. So, for whatever the reason, there is a link between sexual assault and alcohol or drugs. Testa and Livingston (2009) investigated whether reducing women’s drinking can prevent rape, while also providing a survey of research which shows that sexually victimized women tend to consume alcohol more than women without a history of victimization. This in itself is a controversial statement to some people, but the authors make it clear that women are not responsible for their own victimization: Few would dispute that it is the perpetrator, nearly always male, who is responsible for sexual victimization and that it is imperative that prevention efforts target male perpetration. Nonetheless, without in any way blaming the victim, it is also responsible to help women to reduce their risk of sexual victimization by altering the behaviors that increase their vulnerability. They conclude that because there is a strong relationship between women’s heavy episodic drinking and sexual victimization, existing alcohol consumption interventions should be targeted towards reducing heavy episodic drinking. Perpetrators are solely responsible for their actions and everyone “should” have the right to go out in public without fear of harm. Additionally, coercing anyone into avoiding certain areas or limiting their mobility and normal public behaviours is of course unwarranted, but that’s not what we’re talking about here; we’re talking about verbal warnings. Of course, we have the freedom to ignore warnings, and doing so doesn’t shift responsibility from perpetrator to victim, but the warnings are justifiable insofar as they address risk. Regarding the issue of victim blaming, Testa and Livingston seem to agree: Advocating drinking reduction for women as a way of reducing their vulnerability to rape implies neither that women are to blame for their own victimization nor that prevention directed toward male perpetrators is unnecessary. College drinking reduction programs have most commonly been directed toward women and men, and this two-pronged approach, targeting both victim and perpetrator drinking, may prove especially effective in reducing sexual victimization. As one would expect, the regular consumption of alcohol is related to risk taking behaviours, but Hertzog and Yeilding (2009) argue that “drug awareness is not correlated with the incorporation of risk reduction strategies.” Their study used a small sample and it was limited in the sense that it’s cross-sectional, but it appears to be consistent with other studies. It might be argued that changing the culture might reduce the prevalence of rape myths and decrease incidents of sexual assault and violence, but it is perhaps utopian to think that drinking in public will every be a risk-free proposition. We could tell men to avoid having risky sex or putting themselves in positions where they are likely to be sexually aggressive. It’s an interesting idea, but I’m not convinced that men are any more likely to implement risk reduction strategies than women. Hertzog, J. & Yeilding, R. ( 2009). College women’s rape awareness and use of commonly advocated risk reduction strategies. College Student Journal, 43(1). Testa, M., and Livingston, J.A. (2009). Alcohol consumption and women’s vulnerability to sexual victimization: Can reducing women’s drinking pre­ vent rape? Substance Use & Misuse, 44. Leave a Comment Loving Personal Attacks Jan 1, 13 11:35 AM Is it possible that ad hominem attacks are a sign of progress in debate? Indefatigable CAM critic Edzard Ernst thinks so, arguing that an ad hominem attack is “nothing else than an open admission by ‘the other side’ that they have no more reasonable arguments.” This rings true to me, but I’m not sure how helpful it is. Sure, you might get a tiny jolt of satisfaction, realizing that you’re stomping an interlocutor in debate, but what then? Reading through the comments on Ernst’s post, I noticed that he was called out for referring to a CAM advocate as a “quack.” Ad hominems are not the same as personal abuse; as long as you address the arguments under consideration, you can be as sarcastic and offensive as you like. Misuse of the ad hominem as a label for an opposing position amuses me far more than an actual ad hominem, but maybe I should be more humble, given that David Hitchcock at McMaster university argues there’s no such thing as an ad hominem fallacy. Leave a Comment Coyne and Kloor on the Atheist Fundamentalism Dec 31, 12 10:34 PM Keith Kloor is whining about being labeled an accomodationist by Jerry Coyne: If you dare to say (as I do) that religion still has some redeeming qualities for people, you’re branded an ‘accomodationist.’ If you dare to say (as I do) that science and religion can coexist, you’re branded an ‘accomodationist.’ I think dare is an important word in this sentence, in that accomodationists don’t dare to do anything. Yes, I think the label is useful because Kloor and other Mooney-like (Mooneys?) critics are unusually predictable. There isn’t much diversity within the accomodationist crowd, and while I can’t speak to their motivations, they do seem to spend a great deal of energy attacking other atheists, and not bridge-building or whatever it is they claim to do on holiday. The only thing interesting about accomodationists like Kloor is that they don’t seem to understand why so many atheists think science and religion are incompatible. I suspect that a great many accomodationists took one too many undergraduate courses taught from a hard social-constructivist perspective. A core part of Kloor’s criticism of confrontational atheists is that they want to support the “purity” of science. Sounds a lot like Thomas Gieryn‘s concept of boundary work. According to this view people use science to gain legitimacy by claiming themselves as credible while distancing themselves from others, whose efforts are dismissed as non-science, “junk” science, or pseudoscience. One of the major limitations of boundary work as a concept is that it fails to consider the integrity of an argument, let alone the principles guiding a position, but it is very useful for coming up with explanations based on non-epistemic factors like authority, power, ideology, and the like. Coyne and other “confrontationalists” can’t possibly mean what they say. Surely, there’s something else going on. Oh, I know, it’s ideological purity! Yes, that must be it. It’s all so bloody boring. I find the science warriors refreshingly frank, rather than Machiavellian, but I’m not so sure about the accomodationists, who, per usual, are highly invested in maintaining things as they are. They know they have a marginalized status, but they still want invitations to all the dinner parties. Leave a Comment The Limits of Egalitarianism? Dec 31, 12 2:26 AM I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ve become increasingly embroiled in offline discussions about anti-elitist trends within society. I use the word “society” here because it’s bloody difficult to locate where exactly these trends are gaining a foothold, so a hazy abstraction will have to do for now. Some members of my cohort and a number of acquaintances from the social sciences and humanities seem to agree that democratization is uniformly a good thing, and that it should be encouraged in politics and science. There is something rather frightening about the changing boundary between lay and expert knowledge. Harry Collins seems to agree, at least in part, acknowledging his role in the deconstructive analysis of knowledge production, and calling for a Third Wave of Science Studies which brings back in the value of scientists’ and technologists’ knowledge and experience. But I’m not just worried about science. Philosophy also seems to be under attack, with a number of public intellectuals like Alain de Botton poking at academic philosophy out of some misguided notion that regular people are being oppressed by stuffy philosophers. I’m very wary of utopian projects tied to the elevation of the amateur. Some people seem to think that if we convince everyone that epistemic authority is reducible to social authority then people will suddenly be freed from intellectual slavery. I don’t think that doing away with the boundaries between experts and non-experts will lead us anywhere pleasant, but maybe I’m just being paranoid. Leave a Comment Is doing nothing safer than doing something? Nov 23, 12 9:44 PM There are a number of arguments that homeopaths use to defend their ineffective remedies, and I thought I was familiar with most of them until today. I presented a criticism of homeopathy and its advocates from a sociological perspective, which as you might imagine, is an unusual approach, especially from within the sociology of health and illness. My fellow graduate students, always ready for a scrap, made the following interjection while I was taking questions (paraphrasing): Sure, homeopathy is no better than placebo, but many people use it to treat illnesses which remain unaffected by orthodox medicine. Why not seek homeopathic treatments given that conventional medical care is more likely to lead to harm? In other words, doing nothing, depending on the nature of the disease, may be the best option given that conventional medical practitioners will try to medicate their patients or offer treatment programs that cause more harm than good. While homeopathy may be indirectly dangerous in some cases, there is a proportionally higher body count from conventional treatment. I think this argument is similar to the “What’s the harm?” question that is sometimes asked, but I think it’s interesting because of how convoluted it is. Homeopathy emerged at a time when medicine was in its infancy and many treatments, in addition to being ineffective, were often more dangerous than the conditions they were intended to treat. Testimonials were the norm, frequently accepted as facts, without consideration to testing the varied and often contradictory claims made by experts and non-experts alike. It is understandable why homeopathy became popular in this kind of environment. But does the “less dangerous” claim hold today? The UK government seems to think so. Despite the scientific consensus on the implausibility of homeopathy, the government notes that if regulations were applied to homeopathic medicines, they would be withdrawn from the market as medicines, consequently constraining consumer choice. Since homeopathic medicinal products are ineffective, the main public health risk is “their inappropriate use in serious” conditions. More to the point, are ineffective medical treatments safer than medical treatments? Asked like that, the question seems rather absurd, but it’s a question that needs an answer. Comments (2) Beliefs don’t have consequences Oct 24, 12 4:03 AM I’m not the first to notice that some people have developed the strange idea that beliefs don’t have consequences. Actor and comedian David Mitchell, in his autobiography Back Story, has the following to say about atheists: Don’t they get it? Humans will always find an excuse. The avowedly atheist communist states of the twentieth century killed greater numbers than any regimes before or since and needed no religious justification. A politically ideological one served just as well. Humans don’t kill, or boss each other around, or say sex is evil and should be controlled or that certain people are wicked should be oppressed, or that certain clothes are inappropriate or compulsory, because of their religious beliefs – we do it because some of us want to and religion is a convenient excuse. Atheists are being incredibly naive if they that, in the absence of religion, other reasons won’t be found for disguising violence as virtue – or indeed that atheist belief systems aren’t just as potentially susceptible to murderous extremism as any of the religions they oppose. By stating that religion is a convenient excuse, Mitchell’s implication is that people either don’t believe what they claim to believe or that their beliefs are irrelevant. Any belief system is just as likely as any other to lead to murderous extremism because that’s just the way humans are and there’s nothing we can do about it. I don’t think Mitchell care’s much about the issues at hand. If anything he’s reacting to the “trendiness” of atheism among his friends, acquaintances, and colleagues. Perhaps if atheism hadn’t sold out, in his view, he’d be a fan. Mitchell’s position is symptomatic of postmodern values: religion can’t be defined; it’s just a historical thingamabob. Atheism is no different of course, which is why it’s so easy to pair with what its adherents claim to oppose. Even human nature is a recent historical construct, which we can either define or ignored at our leisure. We can’t really say anything useful about religion or irreligion. We should just give up and finally accept that we live in a postmodern (meaningless) universe. Comments (6) “Pretentious? Moi?” Oct 21, 12 2:01 PM While reading Steve Bruce’s “Defining religion: a practical response” for the International Review of Sociology, I came across a sentence which stuck out at me: “the uses to which some idea is put does not exhaust the idea and even demonstrating that an idea has been used for bad ends does not of itself demonstrate that the idea is badly conceived and should be discarded.” He’s talking about the notion of religion, but I find his claim so sensible and obvious, that I wonder how I might apply it to other concepts. Stephen Fry loves Wagner or he at least claims to love him, the pretentious pedant. He was asked on twitter “Why is ‘art’ always so pretentious?” to which he replied, pretentiously, “Art is never pretentious. It’s almost a definition. Fear & contempt of art is pretentious however. Caliban’s fear of his reflection.” Pretentious, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, refers to the attempt to “impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed; making an exaggerated outward display; ostentatious, showy.” Art, as an expression, is necessarily honest, which precludes it, almost by definition, from being pretentious. The intentions of the artist may be up for grabs, but unless you’re telepathic, distinguishing real or authentic art from fake or pretentious art is impossible. Even if you could read minds, and you discovered that an artist was just having a laugh when he sculpted a donkey out of his own earwax, once the work has been taken up by another, it loses its attachment to the creator’s intentions. What, then, is pretentious? I think most people would agree that a good example of pretentious behaviour is Clark’s failure to humiliate Will in Good Will Hunting. Clark meets someone that apparently knows more than he does about the material he’s using to impress the ladies and belittle Will’s friend Chuckie. Will soundly trounces the trust-fund graduate student. It’s not so much that the villain, Clark, is wrong, but that his knowledge of his subject is built around memorizing other people’s arguments. The point is that Clark doesn’t know what he pretends to know. In some sense, we all pretend to know things that we don’t know, but when a smug arse calls you pretentious, they’re unlikely to be thinking about the problem of induction. Certain types of people, according to folk sociology, like Wagner. They have money; they’re educated; and they’re self-important because they’re wealthy and educated. Stephen Fry is wealthy and he is educated, though I’m not sure why we should hold either against him. Taste is an indicator of class, which means that it’s never really authentic unless it comes from below. Will is a great example of achievability. He’s a janitor at MIT, but he’s a genius and well-read. He doesn’t need a big Harvard education, and he’s content with his life. The problem is when someone like Will is faced with something he doesn’t understand. He gets suspicious. We learn throughout Good Will Hunting, that Will is scared of emotion and commitment. If other people value those things, he reacts to them with hostility. Is there anything more pretentious than cynicism and seeing pretension in others? While it may be pretentious to love Wagner, at least it’s music, which means it’s somewhat accessible. If you really want to piss people off, develop (or pretend to develop) an appreciation for James Joyce’s Ulysses. I’m sadly lacking in this skill, but I still wouldn’t describe Joyce or Joyceans as pretentious. Commenters on the BBC website were less inclined to regard Ulysses as anything other than pretentious twaddle. Stephen Fry of course has a different view. Lord help us all. ‘Pretentious drivel’, ‘better off with a good walk rather than reading dusty books’. What possible hope is there for a country which with such self-righteous philistinism scorns its own treasures? Ulysses is the greatest novel of the twentieth century. It is is wise, warm, witty, affirmative and beautiful. it is less pretentious than a baked bean. Read it. read it out loud to yourself. It won’t bite. It wasn’t written either to shock or to impress. Only pretentious barbarians believe artists set out shock: and how these philistines delight in revealing how unshocked they are. Those who attack it are afraid of it and rather than look foolish they prefer to heckle what they don’t understand. Ignore all this childish, fear-filled criticism, Ulysses will be read when everything you see and touch around you has crumbled into dust. Why are some people afraid of other people’s tastes? Do they feel that they can’t or won’t measure up? I think labeling someone or something as pretentious shifts the attention away from our own lack of understanding to the artist or the fan inspiring our insecurity. Suspicion is enough to justify contempt. I don’t think Will Hunting would like Stephen Fry very much. Leave a Comment The Innocence of Muslims and the guilt of fools Sep 25, 12 1:04 AM Shame on you Ms. Hudson. “Makers of Islam film trailer deserve some blame for violence” is the title of an editorial comment written by The Gateway‘s April Hudson. I don’t normally respond to campus newspaper editorials, but in this case I am going to make an exception. Hudson manages to pay lip service to freedom of speech while claiming that the filmmakers responsible for the Innocence of Muslims were vital in causing the deaths of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. Hudson describes a “pseudo-North American radicalism that has developed as an answer to the notion of radical Islam,” a feature of which is freedom of speech. What does she mean by her use of pseudo? A false North America or a false species of radicalism? Later, she refers to Western radicalism, “Western” being one of the most contested terms–geographically and culturally–in the social sciences. No matter. It is clear that she uses the term pejoratively, contrasting Canada’s restrictions on hate speech with our apparently racist neighbor to the south. “Speech incites actions,” writes Hudson, and though there is no “justification for extremist violence,” we should behave appropriately to avoid poking the sleeping bear. If speech does incite actions, I am far more concerned about this particular editor’s speech than anything in an anti-Islam video. Hudson dismisses freedom of speech early on in her plea for cultural sensitivity. How tedious it must be to constantly be faced with such a radical ideal, when there are so many other exciting ideals to strive for, like blasphemy. I have no sympathy for thugs, regardless of their motivations and I won’t be cowed by those who want me to live by their particular brand of theocratic Islāmic fundamentalist totalitarianism. It’s intellectually lazy and morally irresponsible to suggest that the Innocence of Muslims has “no right to exist” or that its filmmakers must take some of the blame for murder, which by all accounts appears to have been pre-planned and executed in response to the death of Abu Yaya al-Libi. In the unlikely event that the Benghazi attack turns out to have been motivated by the film, my response will remain the same. The cultural sensitivity advocated by the author is nothing more than a transparent attack on freedom of expression. This sort of cultural suicide is genuine Islamophobia wrapped in the soothing baby-talk of appeasement. Freedom of expression is a fragile right, and it must be constantly defended, regardless of how boring it must seem to those of us who forget the lessons of history. We need more blasphemy, not less. Leave a Comment Contrary to the Official Explanation Sep 23, 12 3:45 AM “How do you feel about vaccinations? Do you think they’re a good thing?” These questions say a great deal about the person asking them, but context is also important. Have you heard of the vaccine industry? Who’s funding these things? For some people, being skeptical means more than waiting for the evidence. It’s easier, when faced with competing discourses, to base one’s decisions on the promise of certainty. “Once science has proven that it is safe,” he might say “I will consider it.” Until then he prefers the uncertainty of nature running its course to the uncertainty of fallible, imperfect, and mysterious science. Nature doesn’t conspire. No one is lining its pockets: a conspiracy theory is an explanation of an event that is contrary or opposed to the received, official explanation. Let’s call the received explanation from an official source the official story (Buenting & Taylor, 2010). The cultural authority of science makes it particularly vulnerable to accusations of officialness. Is it ever rational to accept a conspiracy account? Buenting and Taylor defend conspiratorial thinking, arguing that given that we have uncovered actual conspiracies it is not always irrational to believe in a conspiracy theory. How to differentiate? Suspicion is not enough. Buenting and Taylor offer a method for discriminating: We suggest that if there is fortuitous data that supports the official story—that is, if there are highly fortunate incidences within the official story that suggest alternative explanations—then supporters of the official story need to offer good reasons not to accept the conspiratorial account. Without such reasons, we submit that it is irrational to believe the official story instead of the conspiracy theory (because of the ‘fishy’ nature of the evidence for the official story); or, rather, we submit that it is rational to believe the conspiracy theory (Buenting & Taylor, 2010). What counts as fortunate incidences? Isn’t the tendency to see data as fortuitous part of conspiratorial thinking? How convenient that autism appeared out of nowhere. I would think that the idea that we’re being deceived by powers beyond our control must be a very seductive strategy for managing anxiety. Joel Buenting and Jason TaylorConspiracy Theories and Fortuitous DataPhilosophy of the Social Sciences December 2010 40: 567-578, first published on May 24, 2010 doi:10.1177/0048393109350750 Leave a Comment Vahid Bokharaie Talks to Dublin Atheists in the Pub Aug 12, 12 12:24 PM Vahid Samadi Bokharaie, from the National University of Ireland, discusses Islam and atheism in Iran at Dublin Atheists in the Pub (courtesy of Atheist Ireland). Leave a Comment ‹ Older posts Recent Posts January 2, 2013 Victim blaming or risk reduction? Loving Personal Attacks Coyne and Kloor on the Atheist Fundamentalism The Limits of Egalitarianism? Is doing nothing safer than doing something? Twitter @archived-user Looks like I am going to have to embrace producing more hot air than usual as I make this transition to a plant-based diet. #vegan 5 hours ago Meta Register Log in Entries RSS Comments RSS WordPress.com Archives Jan 2013 2 entries Dec 2012 2 entries Nov 2012 1 entry Oct 2012 2 entries Sep 2012 2 entries Aug 2012 2 entries Jul 2012 5 entries Jun 2012 5 entries May 2012 3 entries Apr 2012 12 entries insecular. RSS feed. Blog at WordPress.com. Theme: Customized Basic Maths by Khoi Vinh & Allan Cole. Follow Follow “insecular” Get every new post delivered to your Inbox. Join 273 other followers Enter your email address Powered by WordPress.com