Me during finals w... who am i kidding.... DAMN YOU REDDIT!

Summarizes_NSFW · 5 months

Reddit's a symptom, not a disease, man.

There are lots of students on here (me included) who do just fine in our classes because we have some self-control. Temptation doesn't just go away when you're not on reddit.

You're like the guys on WoW who say blame MMO's for their lack of a social life.

PaleBluDot · 5 months

Absolutely, and the American Atheists want us to be proud of her.

Being a terrible person and disowning your kids isn't something exclusive to religion.

PaleBluDot · 5 months

Actually, funny you should mention

thinkahol · 5 months

It doesn't matter whether it's sudden or not.

And renaming it isn't explaining at all. First, the computer analogies are generally really inappropriate and inadequate, and even if they were that still doesn't explain it.

When you explain why water behaves the way it does, you can say "given so and so chemical structure and so and so atmospheric pressure you can clearly see why water is a liquid in these conditions and a solid in these conditions." Those are real explanations. When someone asks "why does red look the way it does," saying "I dunno, it just kind of does. But we know it has to do with your brain being like hardware!" that doesn't explain anything at all.

thinkahol · 5 months

And congrats. You miss the point too.

It's still a puzzle how matter can produce something like the feeling of "what it's like to be something."

Saying "there is no problem" or "it's just philosophers being pedantic" doesn't do anything but show you're being dogmatic and ignorant.

micaldas · 5 months

My point is merely that best case scenario we're distrusted more than every other group excluding rapists.

I literally have no idea at all why you would think this is the case. There is actually no data to support this.

micaldas · 5 months

Yup, thanks for taking better care in explaining it than I could have!

micaldas · 5 months

Nice! High five man. Thanks for the kind words!

The Moral Landscape is actually on my reading list for Christmas break, and I think it's mostly in the right place though I have some disagreements here and there, but largely it's pretty spot on. In terms of secular ethics, I'd really recommend Derek Parfit's "Reasons and Persons" if that's the type of thing you're interested in.

I haven't read the Thompson book, but I'll be sure to check it out!

"The Belief Instinct" by Jesse Bering is a great pop psychology book that deals with the psychology of religious belief particularly. "The Moral Animal" is a good sort of intro into evo psych, but it's a bit dated. I've read excerpts of Steven Pinker's new book, and he engages with a lot of the same material specifically with regards to morality. It's huge but I'm planning to read it and his work is generally pretty decent. I'd be happy to recommend more if you'd like! Juts PM me!

micaldas · 5 months

Thanks for posting it to Reddit!

It was kind of a shock to wake up to thousands of hits on my post and attention on Reddit!

micaldas · 5 months

It's not a matter of plausibility.

The claim "we are trusted as much as rapists" is not justified based on the available data.

More research isn't necessary, and we know enough about the methodology to know this. If you want to know for sure who's trusted more, then that's a matter of interest. But as it stands we have absolutely no reason to even entertain the idea that atheists and rapists are comparably distrusted.

micaldas · 5 months

The point is ceiling effect is a known possibility, and the study doesn't show a ceiling effect isn't happening.

Aren't we all about "believing things with only good evidence?" Well believing something (atheists and rapists are similarly distrusted) when a plausible (I say more plausible, but you don't need to take my word on it) explanation that it's simply a ceiling effect isn't believing with good evidence.

Just look at the top post. People are saying "oh we're distrusted just as much as rapists" which the data don't support.

micaldas · 5 months

What is the state of affairs though when we're even in the slightest competition with rapists in terms of trustworthiness.

We have no idea. I have no reason to think rapists are trusted comparably, and this study doesn't give any reasons to think so. But the study wasn't really trying. This is really a minor point in an otherwise good study that people have kind of just latched on to, to make a point the authors weren't trying to make.

micaldas · 5 months

I don't know why humor or irony is relevant here.

My point about the ceiling effect is literally we don't know if the two are even comparable, because we have no information about the sensitivity of the measure of distrust they used.

It could simply have a low ceiling, making relatively low (atheist) and much higher (rapist) levels of distrust look the same. The point is the graph and study don't provide sufficient information to make any meaningful claims about the comparable distrust between rapists and atheists.

micaldas · 5 months

Sorry if my self-depricating humor isn't appreciated!

I hope my soon-to-be bachelors degree in Psychology, as well as my background in statistics and research methods would be the foundation for my credibility, but I guess music taste is important, too!

micaldas · 5 months

That's what I mean when I say it's likely there's a ceiling effect. This is completely independent of whether the difference between atheists and rapists is significant or not on the measure.

What I think is happening is that the task they use to measure distrust (likelihood of making the conjunction fallacy) just isn't that sensitive. That is, people just aren't that likely to make the error, so an increase in distrust wouldn't necessarily result in an increase in the response for the measure.

So rapists are very distrusted. That still means they could show the same effect on the measure as atheists, who I think are much less distrusted, simply because the measure only shows an effect up to a certain threshold that both atheists and rapists reach. That's all this study shows.

micaldas · 5 months

My pleasure. Thanks for being thoughtful about it!

micaldas · 5 months

Sorry, I'm trying to pay attention in class while responding to these posts. Hopefully my edit made it clearer?

micaldas · 5 months

Hey, thanks for talking about the content of the paper and not just how a graph looks.

I think this is one of the coolest finding of the paper, but the effect could simply be explained by Christians preferring Christians take care of their kids, not that they don't trust atheists (the effect could go in either way, trusting christians more or atheists less), and the study doesn't quite show the latter.

But it is the most compelling of the studies in the paper.

micaldas · 5 months

Hi guys, author here! (awesome to see this on Reddit!)

A lot of people are saying it shows atheists and rapists are about as distrusted. The study doesn't show that at all! Because it's likely showing a ceiling effect. Without the measure showing a higher effect for something we know is distrusted more, we can only say that atheists and rapists both show a minimal level of distrust (that is, the measure could just have a low ceiling).

I hope that clarifies it a bit!

micaldas · 5 months

Hi, author here (crazy to see this on Reddit!)!

I was trying to address this with my point about the ceiling effect. Without an upper bounds, all we can say for sure is that both show a minimal level of distrust. We have no idea how sensitive the measure is.

So like I say, we need something unambiguously more distrusted than both rapists and atheists to compare them too. If it shows the same level of distrust (which I suspect it would) then it's a ceiling effect with the measure, and we can't actually say anything at all about whether they're comparable.

hicho · 6 months

You do realize nearly all proscriptions against being uncovered are almost entirely cultural?

structureofmind · 8 months

Why does my point hinge on rocks being able to have concepts? It doesn't at all. The point is infants have no concept of a god. It makes no sense to describe them as atheists.

And your latter point isn;t true either. If you look at deaf mutes who grew up with little to no outside verbal stimulus, they intuitively form creation myths and posit deities. William James writes about it in his forward to an biography of a person like that.

structureofmind · 8 months

A baby has no concept of god. It barely has concepts at all. It may have a concept of "something" but that's irrelevant. Even if god is lifting it it's still only thinking of something and not god.

So no, my point isn't flawed in the least.

structureofmind · 8 months

If a baby is an atheist, then so is a rock.

The point is babies can't entertain prepositions such as "God exists," so there's no reason at all to consider them atheists when a rock isn't.

VladMcRad · 8 months

Being accused of raping someone can ruin a mans career opportunities and social standing in a community.

Sure it can happen. So what? It only seems like it'd be relevant if it happens in any meaningful frequency, and it seems mostly pretty trivial when compared to discussing the actual repercussions of rape.

Just that it happens.

So what if it happens. I fail to see why that's relevant in the least. The "valid point" I responded to implied men are somehow victims in drunken consent laws.

Which was retarded.

Which I think has been pretty thoroughly pointed out.

If your argument is "but a lot less bad things happen to guys in rape allegations, too! Not nearly as bad as what rape victims go through but still totally maybe a little bad because it happens!" then I don't know what to say.

VladMcRad

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