Travels in the hyperreal

Normal service* should now be able to resume here at Synapses, following a 20-day sojourn in various parts of that strange place they call America. While it’s great to be back in Cape Town, especially with World Cup fever already starting to mount, there are aspects of life there that I never fail to appreciate – most notably the generally polite (even if often formulaic) ways in which people interact. The ad-hoc manner of much social engagement here in South Africa is certainly interesting, and oftentimes a good tonic against boredom**, but I do hope we one day reach a socio-economic level whereby people’s incentives are no longer so emphatically short-term.

But short-term incentives was exactly the zone in which our trip started, in Las Vegas. The Bellagio's water showWhile I was there for a conference (on responsible gambling), that didn’t stop the Doctor and I from having plenty of fun. It’s not the sort of place I’d want to live, but if you’re there for 4 days, and are able to pretend you’re living in a video game (in which your character has plenty of disposable income), it’s a great place to be.

We wined, we dined (there’s a plethora of celeb-chef eateries in the casinos), we saw a few shows. And then we (the Doctor took another path at this point) went way south to Birmingham, Alabama, home of countless fundamentalist churches and boarded-up abortion clinics (well, I didn’t try to count, but there are a fair number). In this ocean of mental-death, a small island of deep thought presented itself at the University of Alabama, where Ross, Ladyman and Dennett (and others) spoke at a colloquium on scientific naturalism and metaphysics.

In terms of cultural difference, you’d struggle to find two American locations more divergent, but we were fortunately well-insulated from the most unwelcome sorts of Southern hospitality, while still getting to enjoy the welcome sorts (pulled pork and barbecue sauce, of course).

And then, a week of pure vacation in Maryland, which mostly involved eating and drinking, interspersed with an evening of excessive eating, drinking, and incredulity over Thanksgiving, where the Doctor and I were seated at a table including a (self-professed) redneck, a TSA agent and his military bride, and some incredibly loud children. These people were all family, in some indirect way that adds further terror to the idea of “family”.

Now were back home in Cape Town, and I’m mostly caught up with the backlog of stuff that relentlessly piles up. But most importantly, it’s good to be home – nothing reminds you more of what a great place this is to live than being away from it.

* No rash promises here: this means perhaps a post every two weeks, rather than one per month.

** The headline news item on 567 CapeTalk at 2pm today was that Charlize Theron was dining at the Waterfront, right now! The breathless reporter reported (as they do) that he had tried to gain entry to the restaurant in question (not named) to have a few words, but was not permitted entry.

The Frontline Fellowship wants your kids

The most recent newsletter from Dr. Paintball Hammond recycles one of his articles from 2004, which claims that universities are “hijacking our youth“. At the end of another long year of teaching, involving having to confront plenty of mindless prejudice, fundamentalism of various sorts, and deep confusion on how to reach justified conclusions, it’s really quite gratifying to read that we’re apparently doing a fine job. According to Hammond, tertiary education manages to turn three-quarters of believers into sane people (well, to some extent at least):

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Carnival of the Africans #12

Michael Meadon recently hosted the 12th Carnival of the Africans at Ionian Enchantment, and there are a number of pieces worth a look, and blogs worth supporting. Three posts that I’d recommend are Mike’s on the disturbingly common habit humans have of engaging in post-hoc reasoning with regard to medicine and the immune system, Tim at Reason Check reminding us of how “psychics” and their ilk exploit the vulnerable for personal gain, and Dr. Spurt at Effortless Incitement on robophobia in music. But you may want to look at the Carnival post itself, as there’s a lot more there that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet. And if you’d like to host or contribute to a future Carnival, the guidelines are here.

Passing the buck

Part of my routine, accompanying the second cup of coffee, is my morning browse through the 100 or so items that have accumulated in Google Reader overnight. As any of you who use it would know, it’s a very useful way to stay on top of peripheral interest areas, so long as you keep a firm editorial hand.

What I mean is that – as with most sources of information – if you don’t pay attention to filtering, the signals are soon drowned out by noise, and something quite interesting from one source can get drowned out by 10 links from some blogger who should really save his one-liners and links for Twitter (or keep them to himself).

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Which religion should you follow?

(via Pharyngula, via Grrlscientist)

religion_follow

Blasphemy day

September 30 (the anniversary of the original publication of the (in)famous Danish Cartoons) was International Blasphemy Day, whose website unambiguously reminds us exists “because your god is a joke“. While I of course agree that your god doesn’t exist, her non-existence gives rise to a plethora of choice in terms of responses – some of which are critical, some offensive, and most of which are somewhere in between.

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You deserve what you get

While waiting for our dinner guests to  arrive last night, the Doctor remarked on the (apparently) sad state of some of our friends’ lives, where they appear to be involved in relationships that aren’t bringing them much joy. Of one in particular, the Doctor remarked that “he doesn’t deserve that”, and it was clear what she meant – that the friend in question is a lovely man, dedicated to doing as little harm to others as possible, and that we’d therefore prefer a world in which he was as happy as possible.

Hearing “he doesn’t deserve that”, though, immediately brought to mind the thought that – for most of us – you deserve what you get, because of the choices you made.

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Faith kills another child

In what god must clearly imagine to be a lesson of some sort, an American couple in Wisconsin have been given jail terms for allowing their child to die. Instead of seeking medical care for her, they prayed while the child became to ill to speak or walk.

The girl, known as Kara, died on the floor of the family’s rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone finally called the emergency services after she stopped breathing.

The judge ordered the couple to serve one month in jail each year for six years so the parents can “think about Kara and what God wants you to learn from this”. One parent would serve the term in March and the other in September.

One month per year? For six years? That’s 6 months in total, which seems a pitifully weak sentence for killing your daughter through believing in ceiling cats. Of course, they will suffer pain and guilt. But many murderers suffer that too, and have to spend 20 years in jail. If I believed that my wife was having an affair, and killed her “lover”, I’d get more than 6 months, even if I was wrong about the affair, as these parents were wrong about god swooping down (or whatever she’s meant to do) and saving Kara. And if there was never any evidence that I was right about the affair, you’d understand if the judge sent me for psychiatric observation after I fabricated or imagined the relevant evidence. In any sort of context, this is a ridiculous sentence, which (in its relative leniency) serves only to condone the actions of the parents. Judicial systems should be ideology-neutral as far as is possible, and a case like this treated like any other manslaughter case, where you’d expect to see a far more punitive sentence handed down.

The parents say that “they never expected their daughter to die”. What the hell did they expect? Even within their belief system, do they have any sort of regular experience of prayer saving dying people? I thought not. But then, they wouldn’t count those (non)experiences, because they are too busy switching off any thought processes which get in the way of their relationships with their imaginary friend.

Stupidity kills

An Australian couple were yesterday sentenced to 6 (father) and 4 (mother) years in jail after allowing their stupidity to kill their daughter. The particular form that their stupidity took was homoeopathy:

A husband and wife were jailed on Monday for the manslaughter of their baby, who died after they chose to use homeopathic remedies rather than conventional medicine to treat her severe skin disorder.

In sentencing, the judge said that there was a “‘wide chasm’ between her parents’ approach and the action a reasonable parent would have taken”, and I would have to concur. If your child develops severe eczema at four months of age, and this condition fails to improve despite all the homoeopathy you throw at it, perhaps you should swallow your aversion to big pharma, or whatever conspiracy theory you suffer from, and visit a conventional doctor – something this father never considered doing, even as his daughter’s black hair turned white and infections ruptured her skin – not to mention the eye infection that was apparently melting her corneas.

Do what you want to yourself – in fact, you may be doing the gene pool a favour by eliminating yourself through quackery. But if you are going to take on the risk of bringing another human into the world, at least take that risk seriously, and allow your child to benefit from the fruits of modern science. And while you’re at it, try to help keep their brains healthy too, by not feeding them any stories about zombie magicians who can save their souls from eternal damnation.

Religion education in SA schools

The topic of religion education in South African public schools has recently been quite a hot issue – mostly in the Afrikaans papers – following Prof. George Claassen’s article about the topic on his blog and follow-up radio interviews and the like. To put it quite plainly, certain schools are clearly in violation of the policy – and we have to date heard nothing from the Department of Basic Education which indicates that they give a hoot. Despite initially suggesting that legal action may be called for against the offending schools, Prof. Claassen has now decided to withdraw from the debate following numerous abusive and threatening calls and emails – but this issue should not be allowed to quietly go away. If you have a child enrolled at a public school in South Africa, and are concerned about them being taught in an explicitly ideological fashion – or being placed under any sort of pressure to conform to a particular world-view – you should familiarise yourself with the National religion policy, salient details of which are presented below.

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