Continue reading »]]> At INR3 in Kamloops I spoke on applying Bayesian logic to the study of Jesus along with the same principles we apply to dead religions (so as to avoid the “don’t offend the Christians” reaction to controversial claims…claims that would not be controversial if Jesus was not the object of worship of billions of loud, influential people). In Q&A philosopher Louise Anthony challenged my application of Bayes’ Theorem to historical reasoning with a series of technical complaints, especially two fallacies commonly voiced by opponents of Bayesianism. I was running out of time (and there was one more questioner to get to) so I explained that I answered all her stated objections in my book Proving History (and I do, at considerable length).

But I thought it might be worth talking about those two fallacies specifically here, in case others run into the same arguments and need to know what’s fishy about them. The first was the claim that prior probabilities (the first pair of premises in Bayesian logic) are wholly arbitrary and therefore Bayesian arguments are useless because you can just put any number in that you want for the priors and therefore get any conclusion you want. The second was the claim that the probabilities of the evidence (the second pair of premises in Bayesian logic) are always 1 (i.e. 100%) and therefore Bayes’ Theorem cannot determine anything at all as to which competing hypothesis is true.

Never mind that if Anthony was right about these points, then all Bayesian arguments and all Bayesian conclusions in scientific and industrial and public policy research would be bogus, not just the theorem’s application to history, and thousands of scientists and mathematicians would have to be engaged in a conspiracy to conceal this from the public, like some cabal of astrologers. Put that obvious objection aside. Because, though also true, it doesn’t educate. It’s important to understand why thousands of scientists and mathematicians reject claims like hers. Because such claims are mathematically illiterate. And philosophers should not want to be mathematically illiterate…especially if they want to issue critiques of mathematics.

And here, neither of the two claims just summarized is true.

1. The Fallacy of Arbitrary Priors

As to the first claim, no, you can’t put just any prior in. You have to justify your priors. You might only be able to justify priors with uncomfortably wide errors of margin, or you might not be able to justify any prior better than 50/50, for example, but these are not always the case, and in any event are still not arbitrary. They are compelled by the state of the background evidence, or b. Because all the premises in Bayes’ Theorem (all the terms in the equation) are conditional on b. This should be evident from the mathematical notation:

See how the letter “b” is in every single term in the equation? The up-bar separating the two halves of each term’s element within parentheses is a mathematical symbol for conditional probability. Thus P(h|b), which is the prior probability of the hypothesis being true (as opposed to P(~h|b), which is the prior probability of the hypothesis being false) means the probability (P) of the hypothesis (h) conditional on our background knowledge (b). To insert just any number here would be to simply disregard all the information in b. Which is cheating, not honest Bayesian reasoning. The mathematical notation requires your input to reflect b. That is why b is there. Your use of the equation is invalid if you ignore it.

I discuss how b constrains your input at the stage of assigning priors in Proving History, pp. 70-71, 79-85, 110-14, 229-80. But there is an even more fundamental point here, which is that b is simply always a previous e (hence often b is called old evidence and e is called new evidence), and therefore every prior probability is in fact the posterior probability of a previous run of the equation (whether actually or hypothetically). This is why e and b can be demarcated any way you want (as long as they don’t overlap), and the equation will always come out the same (if it doesn’t, you’ve done something wrong).

So you could hypothetically start at a state of zero empirical knowledge, where b contains only a priori knowledge (e.g. logic and mathematics) and your priors are therefore 50/50 (when there is literally no evidence yet to favor h over ~h, or vice versa, then that logically entails P(h|b) = P(~h|b) = 0.5), and then start adding evidence into e one bit at a time: first you add one item, run the equation, and see how the prior (starting at 0.5) gets adjusted by that item of evidence (if at all), and the posterior probability that results becomes the prior probability in the next run of the equation when you add one more item of evidence into e (the previous item of evidence having now been folded into b by the run of the equation you just completed, so what was e is now part of b, and in the new run of the equation e contains instead the new item of evidence you are adding). And so on, until you’ve entered all known evidence (all relevant human knowledge). It’s just tedious to do it this way and thus very unnecessary. But you could do it this way. And your result will be no different (and again, if it is, you’ve done something wrong).

This is called the method of iteration in Proving History (check the index, “iteration, method of”). But the point is that priors are not mysterious values pulled out of thin air, they are simply the posterior probabilities that result from prior ratios of likelihoods. And that means they are constrained. They are constrained by those ratios of likelihoods (the likelihood ratios of all prior evidence). You thus can’t just input any number you want. Your input must reflect what this iteration from zero empirical knowledge would produce (if you had the inordinate time to sit down and complete it). It therefore must reflect background evidence. Starting with a ballpark prior (ideally from some reference class that gives you a defensible ratio), is just an easier way to do it. But in no way should this conceal the fact that this ballpark estimate must be derivable from an iterated run of all prior evidence from an initial neutral prior of 50%. Thus, b constrains P(h|b).

Priors are therefore not arbitrary–at least in the hands of any honest Bayesian. Abuses of logic by the unscrupulous or the incompetent do not serve to challenge the validity of logic, and neither do abuses of Bayes’ Theorem challenge its validity. Priors may still be subjective, but that’s not the same thing as arbitrary–and perhaps the fallacy here derives from confusing the two. On why they should not be confused, check the index of Proving History, “subjective priors, problem of.”

2. The Fallacy of Foregone Probability

I can only assume what Anthony meant when she said the probability of the evidence is always 1 is this weird notion I’ve heard from several anti-Bayesians who don’t understand Bayes’ Theorem or even the concept of epistemic probability altogether: that the probability of an event after it has occurred is 100% (as otherwise it wouldn’t have happened), therefore the probability of all events is ultimately 100%, and therefore always 1. This is easier to understand on an assumption of causal determinism, where there was always only ever one outcome, and our assigning it a probability is just a consequence of our inevitable ignorance of all the conditions. But often it’s framed as “since you are observing e, the existence of e is well nigh 100% certain, regardless of what caused it,” therefore P(e|h) and P(e|~h) are always 1, because e is observed and therefore certainly exists, whether h is true or not.

(I have heard and read these arguments several times before, but cannot at present locate an example online; if anyone knows of one, do please post its URL in comments.)

Anthony might have meant, instead, that hypotheses can always be gerrymandered so that the probability of the evidence is 1, but that would not mean P(e|h) is always 1, but only that it can always be forced to equal 1 with some elaboration (thus, only with the elaboration can it do so). And even then, such a tactic cannot ignore the mathematical consequences of such gerrymandering to the prior probability. The more you gerrymander a theory to raise its consequent probability, the more you lower that theory’s prior probability, often to no net gain. This is the basic logic of Ockham’s Razor, and I discuss the principle of gerrymandering underlying it in Proving History, pp. 80-81 (see also in the index, “gerrymandering (a theory)”). In essence, you can’t gerrymander P(e|h) to equal 1 without “paying for it” with a reduction in P(h|b). So you would just be moving probabilities around in the equation and not actually getting any better result. Hopefully Anthony was aware of that and thus not making this argument.

But if Anthony meant the first argument (or some variant of it), then that would mean she does not understand the conditional nature of Bayesian probabilities. She would also be confusing a physical with an epistemic probability. Bayes’ Theorem can operate with physical probabilities without running afoul of the “foregone probability” conundrum, since even though (e.g.) on causal determinism the outcome of a die roll is foregone, it still produces frequencies of outcome, and that is what physical probability measures (so even then the alleged problem does not arise, except for omniscient beings perhaps, but they would have no need of Bayes’ Theorem because they already know everything: Proving History, p. 332, n. 43).

But Bayes’ Theorem is usually employed with epistemic probabilities, i.e. the probability that some belief about the world is true (which can always be any value less than 1, even when the physical probability is 1). See Stephen Law’s remarks on the distinction between epistemic and “objective” probability, or what I call physical probability in Proving History, pp. 23-26 (I have concluded that calling the latter an “objective” probability is confusing and should be abandoned: ibid., p. 297, n. 4; I also argue all epistemic probabilities are estimates of physical probabilities, but only through the logic of Bayesian reasoning itself: ibid., pp. 265-80; BTW, a better term for those uncomfortable with presuming physicalism is “existential” probability: see David Hawkins, “Existential and Epistemic Probability,” Philosophy of Science 10.4 [Oct. 1943]: 255-61).

But the key element to understand here is that the probabilities in a Bayesian equation are all conditional probabilities. That is why the term for evidential likelihood reads P(e|h.b) and not P(e). Even in short forms of the equation, where you find P(e) in the denominator (which is really P(e|b); often mathematicians drop elements that appear in every term, like b, since they already know those elements are there and don’t need to be reminded of it, although laymen often won’t know that so I tend to avoid that kind of abbreviated notation myself), in that case P(e) is only standing-in for the long-form denominator of [P(h) x P(e|h)] + [P(~h) x P(e|~h)] in accordance with the principle of total probability. So it’s still a conditional probability: what is being measured is the probability of the evidence (e) conditional on the hypothesis being true (h) in one case and conditional on the hypothesis being false (~h) in the other case. The notation for the one is P(e|h); for the other, P(e|~h); for both combined, P(e).

Thus, the probabilities being asked for at this stage (the probabilities you must enter as premises) are the probability of the evidence if the hypothesis is true and the probability of the evidence if the hypothesis is false. As conditional probabilities, these are probabilities conditional on h being true or false. The difference between those two probabilities is precisely the extent to which the evidence e supports one hypothesis over another (if such it does). The actual existential probability of the evidence is completely irrelevant to this–except insofar as what we know about the existential probabilities informs our epistemic probabilities (see Proving History, pp. 265-80), but even then it cannot be the case that the existential probability is always 1 (it certainly can be 1, but not always), because if h is true and ~h is false (existentially, i.e. unknown to us), then the existential probability of the observed evidence on ~h is not at all likely to be the same as the existential probability on h, as if every possible past would have resulted in exactly the same future–a notion that would make a mockery of the whole of physics. Imagine mixing any two chemicals in a glass and no matter what two chemicals you mix you always only ever end up with a glass of water; now imagine everything worked that way, such that causation was wholly irrelevant to the course of history. That’s what it would mean if the probability of the evidence was always 1.

Hence we are not asking what the probability is of history having turned out as it did (which on causal determinism is always 1, i.e. 100%) or what the probability is of e existing when we observe e (which is typically quite close to 100%). We are asking what the probability is of history having turned out as it did if certain causes were in place (the causes we are hypothesizing), and what that probability would be if those causes were not in place (and some other set of causes were in place instead). One of these is necessarily a contrafactual. Since either h or ~h must be true, not both, the probability of the evidence on one of those two possibilities cannot be the probability of history having turned out as it actually did, because one of them didn’t even happen, and thus was not even involved in history having turned out as it actually did (which, incidentally, is what we are trying to find out with Bayes’ Theorem: whether h or ~h is what actually happened).

What goes into Bayes’ Theorem, therefore, is not the probability that an event e occurred given that we observe e, which would be P(e|o) where o = an observation of e, a probability that is usually close to 100% (barring hallucination and such). Rather, what goes into Bayes’ Theorem is the probability of e occurring given the occurrence of h, hence P(e|h) where h = a hypothesized system of events prior to e, a probability that is often not even close to 100%. And we must also put into the equation P(e|~h) where ~h = any other possible system of events prior to e except h, a probability that will only be the same as P(e|h) when e is equally expected regardless of whether h is true or ~h is true instead. In that case, e is not evidence for either h or ~h, because it’s just as likely to have appeared on either possibility. But if, say, e rarely results from a system of causes like h (say, only 1 in 100 times), yet often results from some other system of causes (say, on any other system of causes, e will result 80 in 100 times), then P(e|~h) = 0.01 and P(e|h) = 0.80, neither of which is 1.

There are other occasions where a consequent probability can fall out as 1 that don’t relate to this fallacy. For example, a consequent probability can become 1 after factoring out coefficients of contingency, mathematically reducing the remaining consequent to 1 (Proving History, pp. 215-19, with pp. 77-79; and check the index for “coefficient of contingency”), and often a value of simply 1 will be substituted for approximations to 1 merely out of convenience, since the difference between a precise number and an approximate number are so small they won’t even show up in the math at the resolution you are working with (e.g., Proving History, pp. 85-88, 221-22, etc.), especially in history, where the margins of error are often so wide that they wash out any such small differences in estimates, rendering those differences moot to the outcome.

Concluding with an Example

Medical diagnosis affords many examples of how conditional probability works here, and likewise the background-evidence dependency of prior probability. Suppose we have a test for cancer that detects cancer 95% of the time (meaning 5% of the time, when there is cancer, it misses it, producing a negative result) and that gives a false positive 1% of the time (meaning that 1 out of every 100 times that the test is taken by someone without cancer, the test falsely reports they have cancer anyway). And suppose we know from abundant data that 2% of the population has cancer. We take the test, and it reports a positive result. What is the probability that we have cancer?

Here “positive result” (POS) is the evidence (e) and “we have cancer” is the hypothesis (h). The frequency data (those 95% and 1% and 2% figures just cited) derive from our background knowledge (b), e.g. millions of prior tests, and prior data on cancer rates in the population we belong to. Bayes’ Theorem then tells us (I will here leave b out of the notation, but remember it is in every term):

P(h|POS) =

[P(h) x P(POS|h)] / ( [P(h) x P(POS|h)] + [P(~h) x P(POS|~h)] ) =

[0.02 x 0.95] / ( [0.02 x 0.95] + [0.98 x 0.01] ) =

0.019 / (0.019 + 0.0098) =

0.019 / 0.0288 =

0.66 (rounded) =

66%

A positive result from this test thus gives us a mere 2 in 3 chance of actually having cancer (despite this test being “95% accurate” or even “99% accurate,” depending on whether you are referring to its false-negative rate or its false-positive rate). Note that it would make no sense to say that the probability of the evidence (observing a positive result from the test) is always 100% no matter what. That would amount to saying that the test always gives a positive result whether there is cancer or not. Which would mean the test was completely useless. You may as well test for cancer using tea leaves or astrology.

So obviously it makes no sense to say that the probability of the evidence is always 100% in Bayesian reasoning. Certainly it is not. What we want to know in this case, for example, is the probability that a positive result is caused by something other than cancer (and is thus a false-positive), and a test that does that 1 in 100 times gives us that probability: it’s 0.01 (or 1%). That is not 1. Even if causal determinism is true, it’s still not 1. Because this is not the probability that the test came out positive if we observe the test having come out positive; it’s the probability that the test came out positive if we have cancer or not. So, too, for the other consequent probability, P(e|h), which is the probability of observing e (a positive result) if we do indeed have cancer…which from prior observations we know is 0.95 (or 95%). That is also not 1.

Likewise, notice that we can’t just insert any prior probability we want here, either. What we insert has to derive from prior evidence, namely prior observations of the test giving false negatives and false positives and prior observations of how many people tend to have cancer at any given time. All those prior observations constitute background knowledge (b) that constrains the prior probability, in this case to a very narrow range (if we have a lot of data, that will be a tiny margin of error around a value of 2%).

It is here that one can question whether we can use this tool on much scarcer data, as in the case of history. In Proving History I prove that we can, as long as we accept correspondingly large margins of error and degrees of uncertainty.

In the case of priors, we might not have thousands of data points to work with–maybe only ten, let’s say–but there are ways to mathematically work with that. Likewise if we have millions of data points and could never systematically enumerate them (e.g. general knowledge of human behavior) and thus have to make a best guess from what we can observe: there is a way to do this, mathematically, that accounts for the degree of error it introduces. And it might be less clear what reference class we should start from, and how we estimate data frequencies in that class might often be subjective, but the latter only introduces uncertainties that we can again define mathematically, and the former ultimately won’t matter as long as we leave no evidence out of the sum of b and e. Since by iteration, no matter what we start with in b (no matter what reference class we draw a ratio from for our initial priors), we will always end up with the same final result once we’ve put everything else in e (as we are obligated to do).

In the case of consequents, too little or too much data can be dealt with mathematically in the same way as for priors. Likewise, the expectation of outcomes given our hypothesis, and then given other alternative explanations of the same evidence, might be subjective, but that again only introduces uncertainties that we can again define mathematically. Historians can then debate the basis for whatever value you assign to either of the two consequent probabilities (also known as the likelihoods). If it has no basis, then the assignment is unwarranted. Otherwise, it has whatever warrant its basis affords. And when we argue a fortiori, using a fortiori premises (Proving History, pp. 85-88), we can easily reach agreement among all honest and competent observers on an a fortiori result (Proving History, pp. 88-93, 208-14).

And that is actually what historians already do anyway. They just aren’t aware of the mathematical formalism that justifies what they are doing, or that exposes when they are doing it wrong (i.e. illogically or fallaciously).

Thus, it’s time to retire the fallacies of arbitrary priors and foregone likelihoods. They do not constitute a valid critique of Bayesianism in general or of Bayesianism in history.

Continue reading »]]> Besides raging over the same weekend? Both are ignorantly destructive blowhards, apparently. At least Lindsay didn’t kill anything (except his own common sense, and maybe his career in secular leadership).

Lots happened while I was away at the fantastic Imagine No Religion conference in Kamloops, BC. I recommend it for next year, it has been by all accounts great every year, and this year was no exception. But while I was nestled safely up there enjoying good scotch and martinis, a tornado ripped apart a community in Oklahoma (I guess by Pat Robertson’s logic, it must have been full of feminists), and charity aid is much needed (atheists can help: please donate to Humanist Crisis Response through the Foundation Beyond Belief, an umbrella charity organization specifically geared for nonreligious donors).

And over the same weekend at the Women in Secularism conference in Washington, DC (where a zillion feminists actually were…evidently your god’s aim sucks, Pat), the president and CEO of the Center for Inquiry, Ron Lindsay (the sole male speaker), opened the conference by complaining about a campaign to ask men to listen to women before complaining about women, by telling women to stop telling men to listen to women before complaining about women…at a conference for women, funded by hundreds of women (since attendees forked over the registration fees, they actually paid for the conference). And then he acted like a stock sexist man and hysterically defamed the woman who criticized him for this rather than responding to her actual (calmly presented) arguments. Thus becoming the poster boy for a man who doesn’t listen.

I couldn’t make this stuff up. It’s stranger than fiction. Anyway, I needn’t blog about the Lindsay Faceplant because that has already been excellently done. If you want to get caught up on this debacle, I highly recommend, first, Jason Thibault’s brief live description of what Lindsay said at the conference and how obviously wrongheaded it was, and then Amanda Marcotte’s Open Letter to the Center for Inquiry, and then An Alternative Universe by Stephanie Zvan, Taking It Personally: Privilege and Women in Secularism by Ashley Miller, and The Silencing of Men by Rebecca Watson (the tone and quality of which has to be compared to the garbage Lindsay wrote in response: Watson’s World and Two Models of Communication…a title whose irony was completely lost on Lindsay, considering that he decided to respond to a reasonable and ultimately correct argument by hysterically accusing its author of “the most intellectually dishonest piece of writing since the last communique issued by North Korea” and then proceeded to pick at irrelevancies in her case and straw man what she said and ignore her every substantive point…nice).

Lindsay on Atheism+

One thing I’d like to add to these critiques is his equally-ignorant treatment of Atheism+… Apparently he has never read (or at least paid much attention to) anything by Atheism+ advocates or listened to any of their podcasts or videos. Just as he evidently doesn’t talk to feminists or bother to learn anything about feminism before lecturing to an audience of feminists about feminism…for example, he doesn’t understand the difference between defining feminism, on which there is no disagreement among feminists, and deciding how to implement the goals of feminism, on which there is abundant disagreement and everyone knows it, whereas conflating the two is common among anti-feminists, a fact Lindsay seems quite unaware of, and thus he remains clueless as to why he’s getting his head bitten off over repeating an anti-feminist trope.

But back to his ignorant snarking over Atheism+…

First, Lindsay describes “the Atheism+ movement” as “atheism plus activism on social justice issues,” which is not quite correct; a better formulation is as I put it in my American Atheists convention speech, Atheism…Plus What?, where I explain to nearly 30,000 viewers so far (none of them Ron Lindsay, apparently) that Atheism+ means Atheism+Humanism+Skepticism (and that wasn’t my idea: it is how Jen McCreight described it almost from the very beginning: see Why Atheism+ and Not Humanism, yet another article Lindsay didn’t read, since he also asks why not humanism, a question we’ve all answered repeatedly, yet evidently he doesn’t know that).

Being an atheist, a humanist, and a skeptic entails not necessarily activism on social justice issues (only as much as you feel motivated to), but at minimum talking about the intersection of atheism and skepticism and social justice issues (as was perfectly clear in my first posts on the subject: The New Atheism+ and Being with or against Atheism+ and then updated to cover recent events in Atheism+: The Name for What’s Happening). Note the crucial distinctions here, and how clueless Lindsay is in his speech about this. He isn’t listening.

Then he says “because CFI was already involved in social justice issues, including women’s rights issues, I was frankly lukewarm toward the Atheism+ proposal,” which is a bizarre non sequitur (“I believe in doing x and do it avidly, so I’m lukewarm toward efforts to ask others to do x, too”…huh?).

Then he says “based on the rhetoric of some of its proponents, and I underscore some not all, it seemed to me to have the potential to be divisive,” yet he gives no examples. If he had, he would know that the only rhetoric he has objected to was directed at vile sexists and misogynists joking publicly about anally raping a teenager, sending rape threats to prominent feminist bloggers, and engaging in campaigns of disgusting and relentless harassment (and occasionally at trolls and people openly attacking humanist values). He then confuses those quite legitimate voices of outrage with all defenses of Atheism+ whatever (“I’m not sure about this Atheism+ movement, you’re being too mean to rape apologists and sexual harassers for my taste”…huh?), which is a mistake (or lie) that many haters of Atheism+ make.

So it seems he listens to them, but doesn’t actually listen to actual advocates of Atheism+. For a corrective, read Greta Christina’s Atheism Plus and Some Thoughts on Divisiveness, which I’m sure Lindsay has also not read–even though he seems to be aware of it when he backhandedly says “according to at least one proponent it was intended to be divisive,” a remark that suggests he wants to be inclusive of men who issue rape threats to women in secularism (among much else in the vile column), which is so appalling a conclusion I can only assume he doesn’t know what that “one proponent” actually said, because he didn’t actually read it.

Then he argues that “nomenclature is…not supremely important,” for example, “at the end of the day, you cannot force someone to call themselves a humanist, so if people prefer to call themselves an Atheist-plusser, or whatever the term is, that’s fine,” evidently unaware of the fact that this is what advocates of Atheism+ have been saying since day one (see, again, my painstaking explanation of this fact in Being with or against Atheism+ as well as my summary again in Atheism…Plus What?). So Lindsay again doesn’t listen.

Then he says “some questions remain, for example, how should secular organizations, including any organization that styles itself as an Atheist+ group, set their priorities? You can’t do everything at once,” as if he has not read or heard a single word we’ve said on this subject. We’ve been very clear about this as well, from the very beginning (see all my links above), making all the same points he does, yet he seems to think he is introducing them anew, as if he’s being clever. So yet again, Lindsay doesn’t listen.

Then he backhandedly suggests Atheism+ might be a secret commie plot. No, really. That’s kind of the evident subtext when he asks, “Is the destruction of capitalism considered part of a social justice program? If so, that position certainly has very significant implications.” Really, Ron? Try actually listening to proponents of Atheism+ before purporting to know enough about it to lecture people on it. Act like a proper skeptic and actually learn something about what you are responding to before reaching conclusions about it and asking ignorant questions of faux concern (especially if you’re going to try the Red Scare tactic).

I happen to know that another major organizational leader in the secularist movement, Dave Silverman, president of American Atheists, has his staff keep up on the exchanges online over feminism and Atheism+, reading what is written and giving him reports on it (staff that includes women). It seems Lindsay is too clueless to have anyone do that for him. And he must not be doing it himself. Silverman clearly understands how to do his job. Lindsay apparently doesn’t. Someone so stubbornly out of touch with atheism in the 21st century probably shouldn’t be leading an organization that serves that community.

Lindsay could fix this. He could start listening instead of ignorantly preaching about what he knows little about and offending and outraging half his constituency. He could also take criticism seriously, as an opportunity to improve his organizational message, instead of dismissing that criticism as North Korean propaganda. He could do all that. But he does not appear to be trending that way. And I cannot see that as a sustainable behavior if he hopes to keep his job.

Continue reading »]]> This June I’ll be speaking at the SSA conference in Las Vegas and for CFI in Washington D.C.

First stop is CFI DC (June 9): I’ll be the guest speaker for the Voices of Reason lecture series for the regional CFI affiliate in D.C. from 5-7pm on Sunday, June 9 (2013). Price of admission is reasonable but varies, and can include a purchase of my book Proving History, which I’ll sign afterward. Full details at the CFI DC Website. Event is at Busboys and Poets on 14th & V, in the Langston Room (2021 14th St NW, Washington, DC).

Topic: Why Would We Think Jesus Didn’t Exist? I’ll explain the best case made so far that Jesus might not have been a historical person, and why that might be correct, examining the sources we have and the context of original Christianity, as drawn from my latest book Proving History and its forthcoming sequel On the Historicity of Jesus Christ.

Next stop is SSA Las Vegas (June 21-23): I’ll be one of many great speakers on all manner of awesome topics at the Secular Student Alliance regional leadership conference in Las Vegas, Nevada at the University of Nevada (Las Vegas). The conference is being held in the campus student union. I’ll be speaking in the Philip J. Cohen Theatre at 8pm on Saturday, June 22 (2013). Registration and accommodations vary in price. Full details at the SSA Conference Site. Some of my books will be sold at the venue and I’ll certainly sign anything you bring me. There are going to be three concurrent sessions. But I’m one of the keynote speakers so mine will be in a plenary session (along with Greta Christina, Nate Phelps, and Brian Keith Dalton, aka Mr. Deity; the previous night, there will be plenary session keynotes by David Fitzgerald, Sikivu Hutchinson, and Dan Barker, too).

Topic: Logic and Critical Thought in the 21st Century: What’s New and Why It Matters. I’ll be briefly summarizing new developments in our understanding of critical thinking (including cognitive science and Bayesian reasoning) as important additions to the old standards (logic and fallacies and the axioms of a skeptical stance).

Continue reading »]]> Chris Hallquist has hosted a guest post on his blog by Luke Muehlhauser, whom some of you might remember as the brilliant and balanced author of Common Sense Atheism and Worldview Naturalism, and who is now executive director of MIRI. As Hallquist describes the post, “Luke does not intend to persuade skeptics that they should believe everything he does about the technological singularity. Rather, he aims to lay out the issues clearly so that skeptics can apply the tools of skepticism to a variety of claims associated with ‘the singularity’ and come to their own conclusions.”

The description is apt. Luke’s article is a bookmarkable cornucopia of references and links and brief discussion of each, for anyone who wants to know what all this “singularity” business is about–or who know at least what it used to be about, but want to know what it has evolved into. Basically, if you were to read only one thing on the subject, it should be this. Luke’s article is “What Should Skeptics Believe about the Singularity?” Go give it a look. It’s fascinating, not only on it’s intended subject, but as a model example of how to approach speculative claims like this generally.

Continue reading »]]> FreethoughtBlogs has added two new fascinating bloggers, both from the UK: Ally Fogg and Yemisi Ilesanmi. These will really get the hackles up of the anti-feminist crowd, since one is a card carrying feminist (And black. And a woman. Chicken littles, begin your rant…) while the other is a voice of reason in the same debate, taking no label but soundly and prolifically defending gender equity and exposing and combating sexism of all stripes (from the innocent to the malicious). They both blog well on a variety of interesting topics from an atheist perspective; I’ve often found their articles a good read. And their values are largely on par with mine. For example, Yemisi is a major advocate for sex workers and legalization of sex work, and Ally is a firm believer in applying compassion, skepticism and critical thought to both feminism and the “Men’s Rights Movement,” and he actually practices what he preaches.

Ally’s blog is Heteronormative Patriarchy for Men (tagline: “splashes of mud from the trenches of the online gender wars”). His introductory post is Hello, Hello, Is This Thing On? And he explains what his blog is all about here, which is a brief but crucial read. His profile description is great:

Ally Fogg is a UK-based freelance writer and journalist, whose day job includes a weekly column on Comment is Free at www.guardian.co.uk and miscellaneous scribbles elsewhere, mostly on issues of UK politics and social justice. This blog is dedicated to exploring gender issues from a male perspective, unshackled from any dogmatic ideology. Ally is often accused of being a feminist lapdog and an anti-feminist quisling; a misogynist and a misandrist; a mangina and a closet MRA, and concludes that the only thing found in pigeonholes is pigeon shit. He can be contacted most easily through www.allyfogg.co.uk or @allyfogg on Twitter.

Yemisi’s blog is YEMMYnisting (tagline: “proudly feminist, proudly bisexual, proudly atheist”). She is a Nigerian lawyer and human rights activist and author of Freedom to Love for All: Homosexuality Is Not Un-African. She has a Masters of Law in Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights and is presently based in the UK. Yemisi is also a trade unionist, a poet, a plus size model, and “a passionate campaigner for equal rights, social justice and poverty alleviation.” Not only her blogging but her background exemplifies that: she holds or has held positions in several Nigerian political organizations and international trade unions. To learn more about her you can check out her introductory post, Welcome To My World! (and more on the about-page of her website).

Yemmy also has a YouTube channel and has done some great videos on Atheism+ (e.g. Is the Atheist+ Label Really Confusing? and What Are Anti-Atheists+ Afraid of? — don’t worry, that groovy Nigerian accent might bewilder some at first, but not for long!).

So welcome Ally and Yemmy and check out their blogs from time to time!

Continue reading »]]> This is an opportunity to do something cool. I was contacted recently by a library in a predominately Hindu region of Pakistan, asking if I’d be so kind as to send them some free copies of my books (which they even knew and requested by name). My books. Books with titles like Sense and Goodness without God and Why I Am Not a Christian. They had no problem with receiving atheist literature, and even wanted some. I asked them about their safety in receiving it, and they reported that they are in a more liberal district, largely Hindu, and were quite happy to receive literature from all points of view.

I researched them and found several others had obliged and were glad of the results, including Naomi Wolf and Tony Buzan (follow both links to learn more about the library and its aims and goals and tribulations). They are driving a literacy program in the region and undertaking other educational initiatives. Though they are Hindu, they are clearly ecumenical in the kind of literature they are willing to make available. So I sent them some of my books. And asked if they’d like me to ask my readers for more. They said yes.

This is their original letter to me, similar to what they sent a lot of other authors and organizations, seeking what they can (I’m sure they expected a lot of these requests to be a long shot):

With profound regards we humbly request you that we are a voluntary organization which sets up work in Indus Valley Sindh, the southern part of Pakistan our project is to help and facilitate a libraries program in Sindh, with the name of “Mother of Civilization Library” … [And need books] due to lack of resources and fundamental facilities of libraries, and … [a] big catastrophe of supper flood which hit the large part of population of this province in which all educational institutions and libraries infrastructure has been destroyed.

Your donations of books can do much to stimulate and encourage the growth of learning, especially among the young generation of Sindh about it. Therefore we appeal your great institution to make a little contribution of … books on compassionate and humanitarian ground; the result would be the placement of new books (or equivalent educational materials) into the library for needy and destitute students.

Hope you will consider our humble supplication with the glance of appreciation and make small numbers of books donation for this libraries program. In case, you wish to know more about our libraries program and various facets associated with it, please free to contact our office on all the days.

Thanking you.

Yours Sincerely

Rashid Anees Magsi

Project Manager

This is the letter of response I included with my shipment:

Mother of Civilization Library

Sobho Khan Magsi

Radhan Station, Dadu

Sindh Province, 76310

Pakistan

Phone: 009-2300-360-9982

 

Greetings! I Enclosed are one or more copies of my books Why I Am Not a Christian, Not the Impossible Faith, Proving History, and Sense and Goodness without God, plus one copy of The End of Christianity, which has many valuable chapters, some by me. I no longer have any copies of its prequel, The Christian Delusion, but hopefully someday you can acquire a copy to add to your collection.

I think you are doing a brave and valuable thing, and I am happy to help you promote knowledge and learning, religious freedom, and the exchange of information and ideas.

I wish all good fortune to your library project and for your own safety and success as well as that of everyone involved.

Be well and enlighten many!

 

Richard Carrier

California

United States of America

If you are able and interested in sending them some books, use their address above in my letter of reply.

I asked what they were looking for in general, and it’s the same as you can imagine any library wants: stuff on science, philosophy, history, how-to books. Presumably some educational children’s books. They didn’t mention fiction, and I imagine fiction might be problematic, for various reasons. But if you stick to good educational materials you can’t go wrong. Obviously used books in good condition will be fine.

Just think, you can get rid of some books in your home library that you like but don’t need anymore, or ship things to them direct from Amazon (presumably; I haven’t checked if Amazon can do that). Just don’t send them stuff you think sucks. You’ll want to send them the best, most readable, informative works on various subjects, or any good book or textbook on a subject. It costs a significant bit of money to ship to Pakistan, and it takes time out of your day to pack books and go to the post office to have them sent. But it was doable. There are places in the world I often assume just aren’t getting things like this, and I could afford the money and time to remedy that in at least this one case. Maybe you can, too. If so, go for it!

P.S. If anyone has a spare copy of The Christian Delusion to send them, I’d appreciate that. Then they’d have the complete set.

Continue reading »]]> The Secular Student Alliance is one of the most important organizations atheists have in their corner. It’s doing some of the most important work there is, answering Campus Crusade for Christ (and its various incarnations and emanations) by establishing and supporting (in many brilliant and valuable ways) secular student clubs on college campuses and American high schools.

They provide money, resources, training, how-to kits, legal and organizational advice, and more, to existing clubs, and actively work to create new clubs, and (most of all) keep them going (since continuity is a major difficulty as student club leaders graduate and leave). They are creating opportunities and maintaining a visible presence for atheists, actual and potential, to plug themselves into a valuable information and social support network, which increases the amount of atheist activists and supporters not only in schools, but then beyond.

Being an annual supporting member of the SSA does give you some voting power, but it mostly just keeps their coffer filled. It’s very affordable to sign up for an automatically-renewing annual membership ($10 for cash-strapped students, $35 for anyone else, or more if you want) and I can’t think of any reason an atheist in the U.S. shouldn’t sign up for this, and give SSA more numbers and more dollars, at very little cost to yourself. They are doing great work. And valuable work.

I blogged about this last year, and you can read that for more backstory if you want (The SSA Is Our Future). But you can also just go to the SSA Supporters Page and sign up for an annual membership. Now is also a good time to send them a special bonus donation: as they have a matching offer in play once again this year, until May 6: all donations (and memberships) clocked before then will be doubled! For details (and how to give a special one-time donation to grab more of those matching funds) see SSA Week 2013.

Continue reading »]]> Frank Zindler and Bob Price have edited their own anthology of “responses” to Bart Ehrman’s book Did Jesus Exist? For this project Zindler bought the rights from me to include a special summary edition of my blogging on the same subject (see Ehrman on Historicity Recap). This anthology is now available through American Atheist Press as Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth: An Evaluation of Ehrman’s Did Jesus Exist? (also available on kindle).

The rights to my contribution were procured through a single-payment contract, so I won’t be getting any royalties from the sale of this book (if you want to buy it and still want me to get a cut, then you can buy it through the above link, which is to the respective sales page in my Amazon store, where I get a kickback on any sale). I also had (and have) no editorial control over this book or its publication. My contribution does contain some new material not included in my blogging, but the most important addition (quotations from the Egyptian Pyramid Texts) will be included in my next book, On the Historicity of Jesus Christ, and the rest is pretty much already what’s available online (either in or linked from Recap), although I made various improvements in wording throughout.

I required a disclaimer to be included (in the Foreword generally and in the first paragraph of my chapter specifically), since I do not endorse much of what gets said elsewhere in this book. I was sure of this even before I read it, but having at last read it I can now confirm my expectation was correct. In fact, I consider much of it terrible. But it is fair enough to say that each chapter represents the best of what you can expect from each contributor of late. So if you want to see what each mythicist author is most often like in their manner of argumentation and quality of research, this is the anthology for you, although at 567 pages from disparate authors, it can be a challenge to get through.

That’s the sum of it. But those who want to know more can read on…

Thomas Verenna has already provided a rather scathing review (although praising my contribution as worthwhile). His complaints are warranted but I think maybe a little excessive [and maybe more than a little; see comment]. Ehrman’s unscrupulous and shoddy work in DJE? does deserve some of the polemical treatment it gets in the Zindler-Price anthology–it is basically how he treated these mythicist authors, on exactly the same grounds, so it’s not as if Ehrman himself has any right to complain unless he couples his complaint with an apology for doing the same. On the other hand, Verenna raises some valid concerns worth mulling, such as about Zindler’s use and publication of his correspondence with Ehrman [It should be made clear, however, that Zindler had Ehrman's permission; the lack of which was not Verenna's complaint].

My own take on this book’s content has more to do with its utility: it has almost none in my view. The authors represented in its pages are Richard Carrier (myself), D.M. Murdock, Frank Zindler, Robert Price, Earl Doherty, David Fitzgerald and Rene Salm. Most of what they argue is not very well argued or is too introductory or tangential or needlessly verbose to maintain the average reader’s interest. And what you won’t find here is anyone actually summarizing their theory of Christian origins and the evidence they think supports it. Granted, that was not the overall purpose of the anthology (I was only paid for my critical material on Ehrman, for example), but at nearly 600 pages it does seem odd not to have included anything along those lines.

Example: The Nazareth Obsession

One of the worst contributions is by Salm, yet this is representative of the kind of problem frequently encountered in this book. Here he burns over 40 pages attempting to argue there is no evidence for Nazareth in the early first century and yet never once even mentions, much less addresses, the priestly inscription (of around 300 A.D., in Hebrew) proving it existed in 70 AD–when it was recorded as one of the towns that took in priests after the destruction of the temple and the outlawing of its rituals. There was no temple to house priests nor any temple cult for priests to attend after the first Jewish War, so obviously they were more likely relocated in 70 AD, not 132 AD (much less later)–although some scholars have attempted “arguments from incredulity” for the latter conclusion, I find those arguments quite dubious myself.

• [Bibliographic Note: For the original publication of this inscription see Michael Avi-Yonah, "A List of Priestly Courses from Caesarea," Israel Exploration Journal 12.2 (1962): 137-39. And for a good summary of the best case made for the later date of this priestly resettlement, by someone who then goes on to argue that the inscription's content actually in fact predates Jesus (!): Uzi Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee (2009), pp. 404-20.]

In fact, numerous chapters by several authors in this anthology attack the historicity of Nazareth, and none of them mention this inscription (Murdock, on page 390, is even explicitly unaware of its existence). This is the kind of thing I’m talking about: what use is any of this lengthy and disorganized argumentation against Nazareth if it can’t even be bothered to address the best evidence we have for it? There are many other faults in Salm’s chapter (many errors of logic), but that one is problem enough [but not necessarily fatal as I originally said]. Which is a shame, because buried under his fallacies and hyperbole and omissions of key evidence are some valid points about the shoddiness of the archaeology of Nazareth and its demonstrably suspect motives. (Although the latter still cannot sustain the certainty Salm exhibits.)

Note to future mythicists: if you are going to write a chapter or article on a subject, make it comprehensive enough to be required reading on that subject. That means: don’t leave key evidence out of it, and be a better Devil’s Advocate of your own arguments as you write them, to ensure they aren’t easily shown faulty or hyperbolic, and that they exhibit the caution and self-awareness of their weaknesses any good scholar should rightly expect.

• [Editorial Note: Salm certainly knows the inscription exists, BTW: he discusses it in The Myth of Nazareth, pp. 275-78, though he argues tendentiously there, simply assuming the late dates are correct for the priestly resettlement and giving no good reason why we should agree. But at least he mentions this crucial piece of evidence and tries to deal with it there. Salm's overall position is that Nazareth was founded (and named) by Jews in the late first or early second century (Salm agrees no Christians could ever have been settled there until much later: p. 278). Notice the potentially poor logic of this: what are the odds that Christians would invent the name of a fake town in Galilee and the Jews would then go on to independently found a town in Galilee with exactly that same name? I think probability is against Salm here. Quite heavily (unless we grant certain assumptions: see comment). But that's a needless digression here, since Salm doesn't make this argument in the anthology.]

This obsession with Nazareth is one I am familiar with from many of these authors, but it still baffles me. There are six chapters arguing Nazareth didn’t exist in this anthology–more even than the four listed in the actual section of the book wholly dedicated to Nazareth! I actually agree that Jesus, even if he existed, didn’t really come from Nazareth, that that was a mythical attribution to him based on creative exegesis of scripture and a clever (or ignorant) eponymous play on the original name of the Christian cult, the Nazorians (whose real meaning is obscure but it definitely does not mean people from Nazareth). But this means the non-existence of Nazareth is irrelevant to the historicity of Jesus. A “historical Jesus” in Paul, and even the Gospel of Mark sans one suspect verse, would have and require no connection with Nazareth.

Some of the chapters devoted to this subject do correctly address the one pertinent (though, I agree, feeble) argument that Jesus “must be” historical because no one would invent a town named Nazareth to place him in (that that argument is in fact unsustainable I document myself in Proving History, pp. 142-45, w. notes on p. 315: note I needed just a few pages to dispatch this argument, not a hundred), and they raise other valid questions (such as about the weaknesses in the archaeology, or the valid reasons to suspect Mark 1:9 of being an interpolation, and so on). But I don’t see us having anywhere near the evidence we would need to prove Nazareth definitely didn’t exist (we might be able to warrant a very weak agnosticism at best). Nor do I see any evidential value in proving it didn’t exist. So this obsession with disproving the existence of Nazareth, and with the fallacious argument “~Nazareth = ~Jesus,” is beyond all sense of proportion and for most readers will just be tedious.

There are a lot of other dogs-with-irrelevant-bone threads like this that crowd and weave through the whole anthology. To riff on the title of my own contribution: this is not how to write defenses of mythicism.

Summary of Chapters

My chapter (pp. 15-62) I’ve already described. Likewise Salm’s.

Price produces two elegantly written chapters that are a charm to read as always, although a bit rosy in their treatment of the contributing mythicists and a bit harsh on Ehrman, but they are still more just summaries of the anthology and its function. Murdock ably surveys the “phallic savior” fiasco (Ehrman stuck his foot so far down his throat on this one she could hardly go wrong at this point), but her chapter on Nazareth is hopelessly flawed (even when it contains some worthy insights, readers won’t know how to tell which). Fitzgerald’s piece is mostly a 101 survey of mythicist questions (not all of which are equally apt), but includes examples of Ehrman’s previous statements that seem to have been swept under the rug when Ehrman wrote DJE? and it is interesting to see them collected here, demonstrating how starkly Ehrman’s past caution and skepticism was abandoned.

That leaves Zindler and Doherty.

Zindler has ten chapters in this book, on scattered subjects, each of which makes some interesting points but also other points many will take issue with (including myself). I’m still not sure his use of Bayes’ theorem in textual criticism is correctly modeled, for example, but it’s a complicated affair that I haven’t devoted the time to tackle myself. Likewise many other complex arguments on minute issues Zindler attempts. Although his chapters are mostly erudite, readers might just end up confused.

Doherty contributes five chapters, which appear to have been plucked straight from the web with little editing (right down to including cross references to sections now no longer present) [note: I have been informed these defects were a result of the technical catastrophe in post-production: see comment]. In these he is too frequently off target and not adequately judicious in selecting which concise case to make, and he just doesn’t make the best arguments for his conclusion even when he’s right. It’s frustrating. (Just compare his whole chapter on mystery cults and dying-and-rising gods, pp. 167-82, with my section on the same subject, pp. 36-45, to get an idea of what’s missing from his treatment that should be there.)

For all the reasons I’ve voiced, I can’t honestly say I like this book very much. I can stand by my chapter in it, since I took special care to ensure that was soundly referenced and argued. But my readers might already be content with my blogging on DJE? and thus won’t necessarily need this update to it in print or kindle (unless you want its improved wording and organization on hand).

Continue reading »]]> I will be speaking at the Imagine No Religion 3 conference in Kamloops, British Columbia (Canada) this May 17th through 19th (2013). For details (including registration, on-site daycare, entertainments, venue, speaker lineup, etc.) click the previous link (or to just look at registration options right away, click here). The event will be held at the Kamloops Coast Hotel and Convention Centre (where there may still be rooms available at the special convention rate). I am presently scheduled to speak in the 1:30pm slot on Saturday the 18th (but that can often change).

My talk will be “Imagining the Study of Jesus without Religion: Bayes’ Theorem and the Quest for a Historical Jesus.” This will summarize key elements of my book Proving History: Bayes’s Theorem and the Quest for the Historical Jesus but with added emphasis and details on what it might mean to study Jesus if there were no religious assumptions built up even in secular scholarship–if Jesus were treated the same way as Hercules, for instance. Copies of my book will be sold at the event. I’ll be happy to sign any you buy or bring. I’ll be at the whole conference.

There is also a special free banquet and meet & greet for CFI members Sunday night, which I will likely attend.

Continue reading »]]> I will be teaching an online course on the science and philosophy of free will for the Center for Inquiry Institute this May. Anyone can register. Fee varies (from $30 to $70 depending on your status). Details on the course and registration options are provided at the CFI Website. It is one month only, four modules, with readings and discussions. Learn at your own pace. My co-instructor will be the philosopher John Shook, but I will be fielding most of the work. This is one of many courses offered by the CFI Institute throughout the year. I have taught several myself (on the philosophy of naturalism and the origins of Christianity and the historicity of Jesus).

As CFI explains:

There is no specific time that you must be online. There is no “live” part to these courses, and you cannot miss anything even if you can only get online at 6am or 11pm — you can log in and participate anytime, day or night, 24/7. A certificate of course completion is available to students who do participate online (as opposed to only lurking and reading, which is also an unobjectionable option for some students). Completion of eight courses at the Expertise 200-level is rewarded with the Institute’s Certificate of Expertise.

As to the content of this new course specifically:

This four-module short course discusses the intersection between science and philosophy in defining and understanding free will, with the aim of learning the latest science on the nature and existence of free will and how to critically approach philosophical uses of it. Students will not only learn about the relevant elements of brain science, but also how to identify common philosophical fallacies in reasoning about free will.

To that end, course topics will include:

The varieties of free will and the differences among them; identifying causes and the role of personal identity in making decisions (and what the latest brain science has to say about both); the nature and purpose of assigning responsibility to personal agents (in law and daily life); the difference between determinism and fatalism, and the importance of addressing both personal and genetic-environmental causes of decisions when thinking about social, political, and moral systems.

So if you are interested, check out the details at CFII and consider taking the course (even if only to lurk, and just read what gets discussed and not participate, which is fine). The course begins on May 1 (which is next Wednesday).