My first sermon

On Sunday morning, I gave a 20-minute talk during the service of the First Unitarian Congregation of Waterloo. My talk was entitled "Beliefs on Trial". My main point was that we cannot trust our own subjective impressions. There are many cognitive traps that we fall into, and they can lead us to believe in things that just aren't true. I gave a number of examples, including optical illusions, confirmation bias, and change blindness. Here is a video I showed, courtesy of Prof. Richard Wiseman.



The people there were very nice, and I really enjoyed myself. If I were a church person, THIS is the congregation I would belong to.

It's kind of a strange thing... many of the members are atheists and agnostics. And yet the service starts out with "Call to Worship". Begging the question, worship who?!

My sense is that this kind of church is meant for those who have rejected the other supernatural forms of religion (ie. ones that explicitly worship a supernatural God). But not going to church left a hole, so the Unitarian church is a way to have the community of a church, but without the guilt, hell and blind faith of most religions.

I thought my talk went well, and many nice folks approached me afterward saying that they enjoyed it. I appreciate that.

I had some interesting discussions after the service. In particular, I ended up talking to a woman who said she was a physician and a therapist. We talked about beliefs and how science does not know everything. True enough. But when the conversation turned to homeopathy, it came out that she is a believer. I said that there is no known mechanism for water memory. She retorted that "water memory" was just a place-holder description for an as-of-yet undiscovered phenomenon. That may be true. But there's still no evidence that it does anything. She seemed convinced that homeopathy works. But I reminded her of the main point of my talk, that it's easy for us to fall into the psychological traps and believe in the untrue. I was happy that someone else in the conversation saw things from my perspective.

The Paradox of Choice: Book Review

Just finished listening to the audiobook version of The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less by Barry Schwartz.

I'd first heard of this book a while back, and it sounded amazing. I reconnected with it in a rebroadcasted episode of the Skeptically Speaking podcast (actually, radio show).

Here's the idea. You walk up to a samples table at the grocery store and are faced with 6 brands of jam. You can try any or all of them. After, you can choose to buy some jam, or mosey on with your other business.

Suppose instead that you are faced with 24 brands of jam instead of 6. Logic dictates that you're likely to find a jam that's superior to any of the 6 in the original scenario. Again, you are free to purchase.

Which scenario do you think garners the most jam sales? The 24-jam case? WRONG! Significantly more people opt to buy jam when there are only 6 brands to compare. ... I know... WTF!

Paradoxically (hence the title), including more options actually makes all options seem less appealing, even though it gives one more of an opportunity to find the BEST option. Why? Dr. Schwartz offers a number of reasons. For example, when faced with more options, you have more pressure to find the best.

Another example: Students taking a photography course were allowed to keep one of their prints. However, half were allowed to reconsider their choice, and had the option to change their mind and select a different one of their prints to keep. Even though very few actually exchanged their prints, a survey revealed that those with no option to trade were happier with their print. Somehow, adding the option to change their minds made the free-to-choose group less satisfied with their choice. Paradox.

While having too much choice can make you unhappy, he's careful to point out that too little choice can also be a problem. He's not condoning slavery and destitution. But most of us are offered more options than we can realistically understand.

One of his central theses is the differences between "maximizers" and "satisficers". A maximizer is someone who wants to consider ALL the options, and is seriously interested in finding the best. A satisficer, on the other hand, is someone who wants to find an option that is simply good enough. I can related to being a maximizer, thinking of each decision as a challenge. But Schwartz supplies ample evidence from the scientific literature that maximizers are less happy than satisficers. Well, that sucks.

Luckily, he offers suggestions on how to limit the impact of choice in your life, to make you happier and regret less. But you'll have to read the book to find out what they are.

My latest SkepticNorth post

Getting a little more mileage out of my SkeptiCamp talk, here is a post on SkepticNorth about it.

SkeptiCamp Toronto

On Oct. 23, 2010, I attended SkeptiCamp in Toronto, hosted by CFI Ontario. It was a great opportunity to meet like-minded people, and hear some enriching talks.

I gave a talk (not to suggest that MY talk was enriching). Well, you can judge for yourself. The projector bulb blew, so I didn't have my slides for my talk. So, I've taken the liberty of recording it and putting it on YouTube.

It's entitled "Being Right is Not Enough", and it's about why we can't trust our experiences, emotions, or the popularity of a belief in our pursuit of truth.

Sidewards - an invented word

Here you see Lauchy sitting in a position that he calls "sidewards". That's not a word (not one that we use, at least), but it demonstrates the ability of a little person to apply learned linguistic rules to new situations.

Sidewards. Makes sense to me.

---

Oops, I just checked the dictionary. It says that "sidewards" is another word for "sideways". Hmm... maybe he's been reading the dictionary.

Birth Order Book: A book review

I listened to the audiobook version of The Birth Order Book: Why You Are The Way You Are, by Dr. Kevin Leman.

Sadly, this book fell well short of my expectations. I was hoping for some real insight into what makes a person tick. Instead, this book was more like a long, drawn-out horoscope.

The observations made by Dr. Leman are only that... observations. Very little effort is made to substantiate those observations with objective evidence. Indeed, lots of qualifiers are thrown in as a safety net. So that if his description of first-borns doesn't fit you, then you should think of it as only a guideline.

It's not that I got NOTHING out of the book. I did get a sense of the three basic personality types.

First born

Conscientious, orderly, organized, driven to please mom and dad

Middle child

Peace maker, independent, chooses a different route to recognition than older siblings

Last born

Disorganized, impulsive, attention-seeking, creative

However, those personality classes are very difficult to apply. Why? Because his definition of who is in those categories is vague. You are a first-born if you are the first girl or first boy in your family, or if your next older sibling is at least 5 years older than you. Similarly, you are a last-born if you are the youngest in your family, or if your next younger sibling is a least 5 years younger than you. A middle child is one who doesn't fit those categories.

I have an older sister (15 months older), and a brother who is about 5 years younger. That makes me a first-born and a last-born. But in many ways, I also fit the definition of a middle child. How uninteresting is THAT?! Without a clear picture of what class you're in, the book descends into an arbitrary list of personality types, and my personality spans across all of them. Bleh.

She has such great spatial perception

This is Addie. She drew a picture for me, and showed it to me. But then she decided to add some more details.


What's interesting is that the extra people she's adding are upside-down for her, but she drew them right-side up for me. Maybe that means she has good spatial awareness. Her mom (Happy Mothers' Day, Trish) is excellent at knowing her way around, intuitively. Or maybe I'm just super-proud. Yah, that's probably it in any case.

Why Women Have Sex: A book review

Listened to the audiobook version of "Why Women Have Sex: Understanding Sexual Motivations - from Adventure to Revenge" by Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss.

The book is about the psychological and evolutionary motives for women to engage in sex. Their evidence comes mostly from a large survey they conducted in which thousands of women of various ages, socio-economic standings, and sexual orientations reflected on their sexual experiences. Their motives ranged from "I was curious to see how good he was in bed", to "I thought if I had sex with him, he'd stop pestering me", to "I wanted to make my ex jealous".

While the subject matter is acutely interesting, unfortunately I found this book a little dull. Much of the book was devoted to simply reading the comments from their survey. It didn't have the same evolutionary depth as David Buss' other book that I thoroughly enjoyed, "The Murderer Next Door" (you can read my review of that one by clicking).

The Deluded Mind: a review of "The Divided Mind"

Here is my next contribution to the Skeptic North blog. It's a book review of "The Divided Mind: The Epidemic of Mindbody Disorders" by John E. Sarno. Do you think I liked it? You'll have to read it to find out.

Brain Awareness Week: March 15-21

I just found out that next week is Brain Awareness Week. I guess that's the week your brain should be aware.

No wait! That's the week that your brain should be aware of brains (insert infinite regress here).

Brain damage can help you detect liars

A study measured how accurately 3 groups of people could determine if someone was telling a lie.

Group R: damage to the right hemisphere

Group L: damage to the left hemisphere

Group N: normal (no brain damage)

Those with damage to the left hemisphere (L) were more accurate than those with damage to their right hemisphere (R). This supports the notion that complex emotional perception and processing happens more in the right hemisphere.

The surprise is that group L did better than group N. That is, those with damage to the left hemisphere were better at detecting lies than those with NO brain damage. In that sense, one's left hemisphere is a handicap when it comes to recognizing complex emotions (that explains a lot about me).

I don't know what study established these results, but it was mentioned in a PSYCH 261 lecture.

Poor Little Albert

Today in psych class, we heard about Little Albert, an 11-month-old baby that was the sole subject of a rather cruel and unethical psychology study done in the 1920s.

Little Albert was shown little furry animals. Like any baby, he wasn't afraid. That is, until the experimenters repeatedly scared the poop out of him every time he saw a furry animal. They'd make a loud clang with a metal bar when he saw a rat, and that would make him cry. After a while, they no longer needed make the noise; Albert had successfully associated the loud noise with little furry animals, and the animals themselves would make him cry. Even a mask of Santa Clause freaked him out. Check out this sad video.


His family moved away before they could undo the conditioning. Such an experiment would not be allowed on a baby today. Poor little guy.

If any man took a Santa mask and got THAT in-your-face with any of my kids, I'd give HIM a dose of conditioning.

According to Wikipedia, Little Albert died of hydrocephalus at the age of 5.

The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker

I listened to an audiobook version of "The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature" by Steven Pinker. It was interesting, though somewhat long-winded at times (almost 23 hours)... making sure to hammer home each claim with strikes from every conceivable angle of evidence.

The idea of the book is refreshing and fun... that different people are born with different brains. I expected some differences. But it goes a lot deeper than I thought.

Some of the more interesting results he discusses include evidence from twin and sibling studies showing that about 50% of the variation in many behaviours can be attributed directly to genetics. Cool.

The book then takes a surprising turn, describing the three laws of behaviour genetics by Eric Turnkeimer.

1. All human behavioural traits are heritable.
2. The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of the genes.
3. A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioural traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.

Hard to believe, but Pinker spends some time unpacking the evidence behind those results. It's quite an eye-opener.

But, you'll have to check the book out yourself to get that story.

On Being Certain: A book review

The book: "On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not" by Robert A. Burton, M.D.

This book shook the foundation of my epistemological world. The crux is that the sense of knowing something is a feeling like anger or pride. Thus, the fact that you "know" something does not mean it's true.

He gives an example. Right after the Challenger exploded on take-off (back in 1986), a psychology researcher collected statements from a number of people about what they were doing when they heard the news. A few years later, he asked them again. They all remembered vividly. Except, their memories didn't necessarily match what they'd written. When shown their statements, some continued to insist that the statement was wrong, but their memory was right. It's a vivid demonstration of how utterly convincing the feeling of certainty is. But, it's just a feeling.

He goes further. We don't even have any way of knowing what unconscious mental processes went into a belief or conclusion. So introspection is of little use for determining which beliefs are true and which are false.

He gives examples involving medical doctors. One proclaims, "I believe in the necessity of research, but I know that personal experience is the 'proof of the pudding.' " Like many doctors, this one leans heavily on his own personal judgement based on experience. But how do we know that the judgement is tied tightly to reality?

Science is the best bet.

... we should know when we are basing our decisions on science and when they are based upon unsubstantiated experience, hunches, and gut feelings. But, as we've seen, we aren't reliable assessors of such arbitrary distinctions.

His suggestion is that we modulate the conviction of our beliefs by attempting to consider the probability that each is correct, and reflect that uncertainty when we express our beliefs to others.

Toward the end of the book, Dr. Burton seems to suggest that our brains are equipped with a sensory system for perceiving a representation of brain state. This is nothing short of a theory of consciousness, and nothing short of fascinating. Just like we have a sensory cortex for processing tactile and visual information, we might also have a sensory cortex for processing mental information. He doesn't say it point-blank, but launches the notion for the reader. It blew my mind. I'm not sure I agree with it, but then again, this book makes it abundantly clear that we should not let the feeling of believing fool us.

59 Seconds: A book review

I just finished listening to an adiobook version of the book 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman. Here is the review I submitted to audible.com.

THE book for self-help seekers

My rating: 5 out of 5

I first heard of Richard Wiseman through the skeptical podcasts and blogs I frequent. And true to the skeptical point of view, this book is based on EVIDENCE. Indeed, evidence is front-and-centre right from the start. Every behavioural suggestion and piece of advice is backed by an experiment (a refreshing change from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle). That's what separates this book from all the other self-help woo that's out there. Lots of books make claims that sound intuitive, but reality can often be very counter-intuitive. And this book has lots of examples. Here's one: praising children for their achievements can actually inhibit their progress by making them anxious about failure, while praising children for their effort encourages them to work hard and challenge themselves. Hmmm!

This audiobook is SO good, I went and bought the hardcover too.

[From intelligent-falling.blogspot.com]

Synesthesia - kind of maybe

In the PSYCH 261 lecture today, the prof. mentioned synesthesia. It's a condition in which your sensory perceptions of objects become mixed. For example, some people see numbers as coloured, or automatically associate months with personalities. I'm not sure if I experience some of that or not; I expect everyone does to some extent.

Here is how I view the months of the year... every time I think about months, I see them arranged in this format.


I also used to associate emotions with letters and numbers (eg. f and 5 are angry, but b and 4 are calm), but that's faded somewhat over the years.

Anyone else?

[From intelligent-falling.blogspot.com]

Potty-mouth Count

This YouTube video was on Richard Wiseman's Blog. I'm tempted to suggest that you make sure there are no kids around when you watch it, but I'm not sure why.

What does it say about our human tendency to fill in missing information?

[From intelligent-falling.blogspot.com]