Today I got to hear Dan Ariely, author of Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, speak. Professor Ariely performs studies in the area of Behavioral Economics. His speech today was about cheating.
People cheat for all different kinds of reasons. His first example was of dentists who have a conflict of interest that encourages cheating. In fact, the longer a person is with a dentist, the more that dentist is likely to recommend less necessary work. Because of the relationship, the patient trusts the dentist and the dentist creates a story to justify to himself what he does.
In studying cheating, it does not seem to matter what culture or religion the people he studies comes from, cheating is pretty much consistent. He acknowledges that different cultures have different moral values so that different forms of cheating occur at different rates depending on the society looked at. However, the techniques that Ariely uses to measure cheating take people out of their normal environment and place them into an artificial environment.
There are two theories of cheating. The rational or classical theory is that people cheat based of off the expected return for cheating versus the expected cost, meaning it is simply a cost benefit analysis. However, the Behavioral Economic theory is that people tend to act emotionally and that personal characteristics or environment are more likely to determine whether or not someone cheats.
To test the theories, Ariely performed tests were people were offered $1 per correct answer. The tests were simple but the participants were not given enough time to complete the entire test. Once the test was complete, they graded their own work, placed it into a rigged shredder and came to the from to state how many they got right. On average, the participants got 4 right but on average they claimed they got 6 right. This was not due to a few participants cheating and claiming they got them all right, most cheated just a little.
To determine if the classical theory was right, one participant stood up and said he was done after just 30 seconds. This set the expectation that cheating was accepted by the other participants. In one test they had the cheat wearing a sweater of the school performing the test and in a second test he wore a sweater from their biggest rival. Under the classical theory, it should not matter what this obvious cheat was wearing, students should behave the same way. However, if the cheat was wearing the local school sweater, cheating went up but when he wore the rival sweater cheating actually went down. This confirms that it is more then a simple cost/ benefit analysis to cheating.
So much good information was given at this presentation that it is impossible to go over it all. Several of these studies are mentioned in Predictably Irrational. I would highly recommend his book.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Misquoting Jesus
In Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why Bart Ehrman examines the process by which the New Testament and other early Christian writings were copied and passed on. Since he earliest Christians were primarily poor and illiterate, the few literate Christians were expected to perform the scribal functions. Since they were not professional scribes, early copies were rife with copying errors.
Another problem with the process of copying is that there is no way to prevent the scribes from editing, either adding or removing from the document they were copying. So the documents we have contain both scribal copying errors and intentional changes. The task of the textual critic is to attempt determine which wording is the original.
Most errors are minor but there are certainly some known errors that effect important doctrinal views. The major Christian views such as the resurrection of Jesus, that he was sent by God and the he was born of a virgin are not in dispute. However, several changes have been made to support the divinity of Jesus, the notion of a triune God and the role of women were made.
So numerous and pervasive was the errors and changes that a pagan by the name of Celsus wrote a book challenging Christianity's legitimacy on that basis. Though Celsus' work is no longer available we do have a book, Contra Celsum, by the early church father Origen that quotes Celsus extensively.
In the early 18th century, when trying to develop a Greek John Mill made some startling discoveries. Amassing hundreds of manuscripts his discovered over thirty thousand variants, which now is closer to three hundred thousand. Mill's work was the first great work done in the field of textual criticism and, not surprisingly, created quite a stir. If biblical text cannot be trusted, leading apologists feared that this might be used by Catholics to claim superior authority of the church.
A Protestant by the name of Johann Wettstein made a significant discovery. 1 Tim. 3:16 in the King James version states in part "God was manifest in the flesh". However, Wettstein discovered in an old manuscript that the word used for the abbreviation for "God" was actually the word for "who" and this correction is made in the New American Standard Bible, "He who was revealed in the flesh."
A similar verse used to defend the divinity of Jesus is known as the Johannine Comma, 1 John 5:7-8 which reads "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one." However, this wording is completely different from which is present in the best manuscripts. Again the New American Standard Bible has the verses corrected "For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement."
Due to these and other changes made, Wettstein began to question the legitimacy of the concept of the triune god and the divinity of Jesus. Other changes were made to defend the faith including changing wording that might seem to support a "heresy" or adding wording to defend against a "heresy."
It is not impossible to discern what the original authors of the new testament books wrote. However, due to the amount of changes and not having the actual originals or even copies of the original but copies of copies of dozen times copied documents there are still argument among textual critics about what the originals said.
This of course does not mean that the basic story did not occur but it leads to great difficulty if you intend to claim the bible as inspired and that it has authority over what should be believed.
Monday, August 29, 2011
School Choice
The Indiana school voucher program is under fire from a law suit claiming it is a government sponsorship of religion. The Colorado voucher program just lost a suit from the ACLU but the decision is expected to be overturned by a higher court claiming the lower court judge ignored settled law. Neither suit is expected to disrupt the current school year.
This brings up an important distinction, the difference between giving money to religion and money for education. In the Indiana case only 6 of the 242 nonpublic schools enrolled in the voucher programs were nonreligious but this is reflective of the number of ratio of secular and religious schools. The voucher for the Indiana students is less then the per student cost of education and so saves the school district money. But with tightening budgets, these vouchers are being blamed for lost funding.
Not surprisingly the biggest opponents to school choice are the unions and the teachers they represent. Since they only care about maintaining the status quo and not the students, it is not relevant to them that the students who use the vouchers show significant improvements at private schools. An important question to ask though is if the problem is the educational environment or the education itself that is making the difference. Either way, private schools continue to outperform the majority of public institutions.
As a libertarian, I believe that an paying for an education is the responsibility of the parents and the children not the public. While the late economist Milton Friedman agreed that privatizing the school system would produce better returns, he did advocate for a voucher system as a compromise. A voucher system, in theory at least, allows for the benefit of competition that forces schools to change and become more productive.
Former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne disagreed. Browne believed that since government money inevitably comes with strings attached that a voucher system actually threatened the success that private schools have had.
I agree with the late Harry Browne that such a threat is possible. However, there is some evidence that a voucher system does help to improve academic performance. If voucher programs can get past the constitutional hurdle in enough states, we may be able to see if in the end they are a net benefit.
This brings up an important distinction, the difference between giving money to religion and money for education. In the Indiana case only 6 of the 242 nonpublic schools enrolled in the voucher programs were nonreligious but this is reflective of the number of ratio of secular and religious schools. The voucher for the Indiana students is less then the per student cost of education and so saves the school district money. But with tightening budgets, these vouchers are being blamed for lost funding.
Not surprisingly the biggest opponents to school choice are the unions and the teachers they represent. Since they only care about maintaining the status quo and not the students, it is not relevant to them that the students who use the vouchers show significant improvements at private schools. An important question to ask though is if the problem is the educational environment or the education itself that is making the difference. Either way, private schools continue to outperform the majority of public institutions.
As a libertarian, I believe that an paying for an education is the responsibility of the parents and the children not the public. While the late economist Milton Friedman agreed that privatizing the school system would produce better returns, he did advocate for a voucher system as a compromise. A voucher system, in theory at least, allows for the benefit of competition that forces schools to change and become more productive.
Former Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne disagreed. Browne believed that since government money inevitably comes with strings attached that a voucher system actually threatened the success that private schools have had.
I agree with the late Harry Browne that such a threat is possible. However, there is some evidence that a voucher system does help to improve academic performance. If voucher programs can get past the constitutional hurdle in enough states, we may be able to see if in the end they are a net benefit.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Making Senses Out of Scripture
I recently finished the book Making Senses Out of Scripture: Reading the Bible as the First Christians Did. The book was obviously meant for Catholics so I am not sure why my brother recommended it. Based on the subtitle, one might expect to see how the different Christian groups each viewed the Bible. What the author Mark Shea actually discussed is how the modern church views the Bible.
There were multiple Christian groups with different views about Jesus as well different interpretations of the Old Testament writings. Bart D. Ehrman has a great series through the teaching company called Lost Christianities: Christian Scripture and the Battles over Authentication that discuss these other views in detail. Even though the so called heretics where not discussed, Shea does not provide any evidence that the successful "orthodoxy" actually interpreted scripture the way he claims.This does not mean that they didn't, only that he fails to support his assertion.
The book is mostly about how the Catholic church views the Bible and how to deal with the inconsistencies. There are several issues I have with much of what he says but is a disagreement of opinion. However, in one of the last chapters he gets to the mistranslation of Isaiah relating to the virgin birth. First admits the mistranslation then that it probably should not have been translated incorrectly but then suggests that the mistranslation may have been inspired.
His defense of not just the misreading of Isaiah but of all claims to supposed prophecies that really have nothing to do with Jesus opens creates a large problem. Some of the so called prophecies Jesus fulfilled were not actual prophecies. Shea claims that after Jesus, the existence of these prophecies could be seen. However, we cannot be sure what Jesus really did as we have no eye witness accounts and even if he did those things that supposedly were prophesied, it would be wrong to reread into ancient texts meaning that they did not have from the beginning.
To illustrate how useless it is to try to read prophecies with the benefit of hindsight, consider the case of Nostradamus. Nostradamus writings were very cryptic but that has not prevented people from taking the words and claiming that he predicted everything from World War I, World War II to 9/11. Of course he did not actually predict any of this but with the hindsight bias, it is easy to read into previous works meaning that they do not have.
For early first century Christians wanting to share their beliefs, embellishing a story to make it seem like Jesus fulfilled a prophecy that he never did or to illustrate an important teaching may have seemed justified. This does not mean that Jesus was not born of a virgin or that he was not born in Bethlehem, tough neither one seems likely. This just means that if you believe these things, you believe by faith.
There were multiple Christian groups with different views about Jesus as well different interpretations of the Old Testament writings. Bart D. Ehrman has a great series through the teaching company called Lost Christianities: Christian Scripture and the Battles over Authentication that discuss these other views in detail. Even though the so called heretics where not discussed, Shea does not provide any evidence that the successful "orthodoxy" actually interpreted scripture the way he claims.This does not mean that they didn't, only that he fails to support his assertion.
The book is mostly about how the Catholic church views the Bible and how to deal with the inconsistencies. There are several issues I have with much of what he says but is a disagreement of opinion. However, in one of the last chapters he gets to the mistranslation of Isaiah relating to the virgin birth. First admits the mistranslation then that it probably should not have been translated incorrectly but then suggests that the mistranslation may have been inspired.
His defense of not just the misreading of Isaiah but of all claims to supposed prophecies that really have nothing to do with Jesus opens creates a large problem. Some of the so called prophecies Jesus fulfilled were not actual prophecies. Shea claims that after Jesus, the existence of these prophecies could be seen. However, we cannot be sure what Jesus really did as we have no eye witness accounts and even if he did those things that supposedly were prophesied, it would be wrong to reread into ancient texts meaning that they did not have from the beginning.
To illustrate how useless it is to try to read prophecies with the benefit of hindsight, consider the case of Nostradamus. Nostradamus writings were very cryptic but that has not prevented people from taking the words and claiming that he predicted everything from World War I, World War II to 9/11. Of course he did not actually predict any of this but with the hindsight bias, it is easy to read into previous works meaning that they do not have.
For early first century Christians wanting to share their beliefs, embellishing a story to make it seem like Jesus fulfilled a prophecy that he never did or to illustrate an important teaching may have seemed justified. This does not mean that Jesus was not born of a virgin or that he was not born in Bethlehem, tough neither one seems likely. This just means that if you believe these things, you believe by faith.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
The Science of Good and Evil
Michael Shermer in the book The Science of Good and Evil develops a theory of provincial morality. The moral theories that have been developed have tended to one of 2 extremes complete absolute morality or completely relativistic morality. Rather then tending to to either of these 2 extremes and rejecting the Aristotelian dichotomy of A or not-A, Shermer attempts to approach the issue from a middle ground.
Humans have moral sentiments, guilt, shame, pride, etc. that encourage us to act in a moral fashion. In order to be viewed as trust worthy, since humans can detect deceit we must not just fake being moral we have to actually be moral. These moral sentiments or emotions come into play even when there is no possibility of reciprocity.
To determine what is moral and what is not, Shermer has a set of principles. Since an action cannot be determined to be immoral in an absolute sense but only determined to be immoral for most people in most places most of the time, the first principle is to ask other parties involved. Is adultery immoral? Ask you spouse how they would feel about it. Some couples have open relationships because both partners have agreed to allow extramarital affairs.
Of course simply asking is not enough without a means to measure the relevancy of the other person's response. The second principle is to not pursue happiness at the expense of someone else's happiness. If an action would reduce other people's happiness, it would not be moral to do it.
The next principle is to not pursue liberty at the expense of another person's liberty. The last principle is to avoid extremism. When innocent people die, extremism in the defense of anything is no virtue and moderation in the defense of anything is no vice.
Since laying out a system of morality is meaningless if there is applicability, Shermer goes on to apply these principles to adultery, pornography, abortion and animal rights. in doing so he attempts to avoid absolutist claims that any of these are always wrong or always right but that there are shades of grey.
Humans have moral sentiments, guilt, shame, pride, etc. that encourage us to act in a moral fashion. In order to be viewed as trust worthy, since humans can detect deceit we must not just fake being moral we have to actually be moral. These moral sentiments or emotions come into play even when there is no possibility of reciprocity.
To determine what is moral and what is not, Shermer has a set of principles. Since an action cannot be determined to be immoral in an absolute sense but only determined to be immoral for most people in most places most of the time, the first principle is to ask other parties involved. Is adultery immoral? Ask you spouse how they would feel about it. Some couples have open relationships because both partners have agreed to allow extramarital affairs.
Of course simply asking is not enough without a means to measure the relevancy of the other person's response. The second principle is to not pursue happiness at the expense of someone else's happiness. If an action would reduce other people's happiness, it would not be moral to do it.
The next principle is to not pursue liberty at the expense of another person's liberty. The last principle is to avoid extremism. When innocent people die, extremism in the defense of anything is no virtue and moderation in the defense of anything is no vice.
Since laying out a system of morality is meaningless if there is applicability, Shermer goes on to apply these principles to adultery, pornography, abortion and animal rights. in doing so he attempts to avoid absolutist claims that any of these are always wrong or always right but that there are shades of grey.
Friday, August 19, 2011
The Prime Mover
In contemplating the aspects of Aristotle's Prime Mover, I have been trying to determine what we can know. The first is the obvious conclusion that it is not a composite because a composite is made up of something else which is the material cause of that thing. Since the Prime Mover can have no cause, it cannot be a composite. I quickly realized that pondering just the nature of the Prime Mover itself would get me no where. I had to ask if the Primer Mover could have specific attributes.
Can the Primer Mover have emotions? Emotions are responses to stimulus. We become angry because of some external cause. Something external to us causes our joy and our happiness. So that Prime Mover must be emotionless.
Can the Prime Mover be the Christian God? The Christian God is claimed to be a Trinity, a composite of three beings in one. Since the Prime Mover is not a composite, such a thing could not be possible. However, there is the possibility of multiple Prime Movers, each responsible for a different causal chain. If the three beings in God are separate and distinct Prime Movers, this could be possible with the three acting together as a composite called God. However, neither of the three could become or change into a human. A human is a composite and a Prime Mover is not a composite.
Can the Primer Mover have emotions? Emotions are responses to stimulus. We become angry because of some external cause. Something external to us causes our joy and our happiness. So that Prime Mover must be emotionless.
Can the Prime Mover be the Christian God? The Christian God is claimed to be a Trinity, a composite of three beings in one. Since the Prime Mover is not a composite, such a thing could not be possible. However, there is the possibility of multiple Prime Movers, each responsible for a different causal chain. If the three beings in God are separate and distinct Prime Movers, this could be possible with the three acting together as a composite called God. However, neither of the three could become or change into a human. A human is a composite and a Prime Mover is not a composite.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Aristotelian morality
Under Aristotle an action is immoral if is goes against a final cause or purpose of either the action or any of the beings involved in the action. To make the case that any sex outside of the sex act that does not include any artificial means of preventing conception is immoral, Feser relies on the idea that the final cause of sex is conception. He goes on to state that nature of the sex act being conception, it should not be done outside of marriage, which is the institution whose nature is raising kids. Because humans are driven to copulate often, he concludes that married couples should have lots of kids.
Obviously my summary leads out the details of his arguments for his conclusions, but his arguments all rest on the definition of morality. The problem is that this ignores what the consequences might be to humans from these actions. Because advances in technology have over come certain obstacles humans have faced through out our evolution, certain parts of our nature if left unchecked could lead to suffering for humans.
First, let us deal with the idea that going against the nature of an act is immoral. Previously I discussed walking and how a treadmill frustrates the purpose of walking by not allowing us to go from one place to another, as is the purpose of walking. Consider another example, that of walking by putting one foot in front of the other so as to cause you to trip. Is this immoral? If it was done unintentionally, we would say it was silly or foolish but not immoral. What if it was done intentionally? If I trip over my feet as a means of entertaining as for example a comedian or actor, is this action immoral? Certainly not. In the case where it is meant to entertain we would not even say that it is silly or foolish.
Now let us consider what morality actually means. For an action to be immoral it would have to promote the bad, it would have to have a bad or negative consequence towards humans and that consequence would have to be known and probable. Non-procreative sex does not meet that standard. However, the notion of everyone having lots of kids does. If everyone procreated as much as they are biologically compelled to, we would have a population explosion. We would deplete our resources at an enormous rate and soon would not have enough to feed everyone. While technology might be able to help us to delay the mass starvation, we would inevitably consume all available resources.
There are 2 possible solutions to this problem, both of which go against the nature of humans as determined by Feser. The first option is the road we are currently on, using birth control to reduce the number of conceptions and keep population growth down. The second option is voluntary celibacy. It is unreasonable to expect that the population will be able to suppress their sexual urges enough for the second option to work. When under sexual arousal people tend to make poorer decisions then when not aroused. This conclusion is based on a study by Dan Ariely documented in his book Perfectly Irrational. The only option that does not lead us to increased human suffering is to support birth control.
Obviously my summary leads out the details of his arguments for his conclusions, but his arguments all rest on the definition of morality. The problem is that this ignores what the consequences might be to humans from these actions. Because advances in technology have over come certain obstacles humans have faced through out our evolution, certain parts of our nature if left unchecked could lead to suffering for humans.
First, let us deal with the idea that going against the nature of an act is immoral. Previously I discussed walking and how a treadmill frustrates the purpose of walking by not allowing us to go from one place to another, as is the purpose of walking. Consider another example, that of walking by putting one foot in front of the other so as to cause you to trip. Is this immoral? If it was done unintentionally, we would say it was silly or foolish but not immoral. What if it was done intentionally? If I trip over my feet as a means of entertaining as for example a comedian or actor, is this action immoral? Certainly not. In the case where it is meant to entertain we would not even say that it is silly or foolish.
Now let us consider what morality actually means. For an action to be immoral it would have to promote the bad, it would have to have a bad or negative consequence towards humans and that consequence would have to be known and probable. Non-procreative sex does not meet that standard. However, the notion of everyone having lots of kids does. If everyone procreated as much as they are biologically compelled to, we would have a population explosion. We would deplete our resources at an enormous rate and soon would not have enough to feed everyone. While technology might be able to help us to delay the mass starvation, we would inevitably consume all available resources.
There are 2 possible solutions to this problem, both of which go against the nature of humans as determined by Feser. The first option is the road we are currently on, using birth control to reduce the number of conceptions and keep population growth down. The second option is voluntary celibacy. It is unreasonable to expect that the population will be able to suppress their sexual urges enough for the second option to work. When under sexual arousal people tend to make poorer decisions then when not aroused. This conclusion is based on a study by Dan Ariely documented in his book Perfectly Irrational. The only option that does not lead us to increased human suffering is to support birth control.
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