Every year, John Brockman comes up with a question and asks the eclectic group on the Edge forum to answer it…then all the answers get bound up in a book. In the past he has asked, “What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it?”, “What is your dangerous idea?”, and “What are you optimistic about?” This year’s question is now revealed:
When thinking changes your mind, that’s philosophy. When God changes your mind, that’s faith. When facts change your mind, that’s science. What have you changed your mind about? Why?
It was a tough one. There are so many trivial things that we change our minds about — toast with my oatmeal, or a muffin? —but they don’t make for interesting reading. I’m afraid I got rather general in my answer, and argued that there is a commitment in science to look for data that will change your mind about something you are advocating, which creates an interesting paradox: if your goal is to change your mind about something, doesn’t finding evidence to change your mind mean that on a higher philosophical level you haven’t really changed your mind? For a scientist to really change his perspective would require a retreat into dogma.
Anyway, look for the book when it comes out — there are always infuriating and enlightening answers in them.
Politics and the Democratic Party. I think both are completely broken, and not worth one’s time, money or loyalty. This November I’m going to abstain from casting a national-level vote for the first time in 30 years.
Homeschooling. My instinct was to view homeschooling as a bad idea, but I’ve come to recognize that that is because so many creationist and religious wackos do it. But viewing the data, it seems to me that homeschoolers are by and large pretty equal to or better than their publically schooled counter-parts. Of course much depends on who homeschooled them, etc.
if your goal is to change your mind about something, doesn’t finding evidence to change your mind mean that on a higher philosophical level you haven’t really changed your mind? For a scientist to really change his perspective would require a retreat into dogma.
That assumes that one isn’t misinterpreting the evidence one has. I changed my mind about the existence of objective moral norms, I think they don’t exist. This change in mind didn’t come about because I was presented new evidence, but because I was presented new arguments for the same evidence. Someone could, hypothetically speaking, develop a new explanation for some already explained physical phenomenon that would not be based on new evidence, just on reinterpretation of old evidence. This doesn’t happen much in science, that I know of (of course I might be wrong), but it is entirely possible.
Sorry for hijacking the thread, but there is a podcast going on NOW from National Academy of Sciences about the updating of their book Science, Evolution and Creationism — (the 2nd or 3rd edition is being released now.)
http://www.nationalacademies.org/
(for the podcast)
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11876
(for the book — you can order it or read it free online)
The podcast just started (10 a.m. CST) and goes on for an hour. You need RealPlayer.
Reading the responses from the gen-u-wine “super scientists” is kinda interesting.
Here’s Richard Dawkin’s response, BTW:
http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_15.html#dawkins
I’ve changed my mind about “civil unions” as being a cheap euphemism for marriage so that “the gay” won’t taint the “sactity” of marriage. I now think that really, the state should only sanction civil unions for any couple, regardless of their sexuality. Marriage should be the sole province of religion. Marriage should have no real legal status and would have to be performed in conjunction with a civil union. A non-religious wedding would only be a civil union, even for hetero couples.
I’ve changed my mind about Sal Cordova. He’s dumber than we “can” suppose.
Well it was over a decade ago, but I did change my mind about ID. At first I thought it was sort of like theistic evolution, acceptance of science with some religious sap thrown in. Not the ideal, then, yet not so very terrible either.
Of course later one finds out that essentially they’re very little different than YECs regarding biological evolution itself, and intent on accommodating the worst of YECism’s denials of geology as well.
I bring this up because I think that many saw ID the same as I did at first (Saletan at Slate took some time to wake up), and that likely some still see it that way (Stein might be a late sucker, however he has no excuse at this time. His connections with American Spectator, which has been quite friendly to ID, probably has played a part in it). Indeed, quite contrary to the usual charges that we’re simply opposed to the slightest mention of the possibility of God, many of us are fairly willing to make peace with science plus some magical slop, even if we don’t condone it.
Yet somehow we’re not willing to accept into science something that is directly opposed to the methods and rules of science.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
I’m still pro-life, but after a rigorous study that shows that *laws against abortion* fail to have the expected deterrent effect (thus not decreasing the number of unborn killed) but increase maternal mortality, I can no longer support laws criminalizing the procedure, at least until it’s reasonable to expect that views of who deserves the label of a full human have broadened more than they have today.
I used to be libertarian. Now I’m more liberal/social democrat. Still have some libertarian sympathies, and/or think they have some legitimate critiques, unlike my friends who rant more about the insane greediness of libertarians than they rant about conservatives.
At a different level, I thought “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” sounded idiotic. Then I watched it. Instant fan!
A liberal friend changed his mind about gun control (from for to against) from watching Internet gun debates.
I can’t wait for the book to come out! I thoroughly enjoyed “What’s Your Dangerous Idea” and I’m currently loving “What are You Optimistic About?”. PZ, are you part of the Edge community? Will I get to see your response?
Homoeopathy.
My mother is into homoeopathy and a lot of the other alt-med woo. For a while, although I’ve always (well, long) had a scientific mindset, I took it at face value and accepted that it appeared to work. There was always some skepticism, and the scientist in me wanted to see some a) hard evidence that it really, honestly works (partly because I thought – rightly – that this evidence would make the medical establishment accept homoeopathy, if it existed) and b) genuine scientific explanations for why it works. But basically, I believed it worked (largely wishful thinking, I don’t want my mum to be so horribly wrong!) and just thought the rest of the world needed to be shown that it does.
Well, mostly through reading Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science, it became overwhelmingly obvious that the research has been done, the evidence exists – and it pretty much unequivocally proves that homoeopathy is bollocks. Case closed for me. It still hurts a bit to face reality – not because *I* care that much, but as I said, I don’t want to believe that my mother has wasted that much time (er, and money!) on her homoeopathic “training” and is so dreadfully deluded. But she is.
I’ve consciously decided to move from the doubter camp to the nonbeliever…..in the religion category.
I’ve concluded that humanity has reached the point in its social evolution where organized religions serve no net benefit to societies.
I’ve changed my mind about Obama. I didn’t think he had the chops to win the nomination. He just might. I have some optimism about one of the top 3 Dems trouncing a Republican.
I like sushi now.
Sorry I don’t have anything more grand to say, but the silliness in the Dangerous Idea responses was so painful that I can’t take Edge questions seriously anymore.
Marriage should NOT be the sole province of religion. It wasn’t theirs to begin with and they don’t deserve to own it now.
Marriage is the name of an age old contract. What you make of it is up to the people involved.
Now back to the actual thread.
I changed my mind about evolution. I used to be a pretty staunch creationist although a questioning one. I finally realized they have no real answers. Stuff makes sense now.:-)
I now think that really, the state should only sanction civil unions for any couple, regardless of their sexuality. Marriage should be the sole province of religion. Marriage should have no real legal status and would have to be performed in conjunction with a civil union. A non-religious wedding would only be a civil union, even for hetero couples.
I’m of the opposite opinion. Take away the ability of clergy to certify civil contracts. Go to the registry, fill out the paperwork, pay the fee, and you’re married. Then do whatever the fuck ceremony you want.
What have I changed my mind about?
A couple of personal relationships. That’s enough.
I used to think that the teenage chicks who hang out at the mall were sexy. Now they just seem like immature young girls. Sigh…
I changed my mind about hierarchical (modular, multilevel) selection theory. I used to be a fairly orthodox proponent of “unit of selection: gene; level of selection: individual.” (However, DS Wilson’s approach has some problems, and is not the only game in town.)
I changed my mind about transhumanism. I once was more favorable towards it; now I regard transhumanism as the successor to eugenics in the project to create a new, better human.
I’ve changed my mind about when I should speak out: I used to think I should defend evolution at every opportunity to do so. Now I understand that until I am adequately armed with information and arguing points, I can actually do more harm than good…so I’ve taken to reading, researching and lurking around here and only speaking out when I feel confident enough to provide an intelligent case.
…if your goal is to change your mind about something, doesn’t finding evidence to change your mind mean that on a higher philosophical level you haven’t really changed your mind? For a scientist to really change his perspective would require a retreat into dogma.
I’m not sure I agree with that. I would say that on a higher philosophical level you haven’t really changed your goal or quest, but our sense of perspective gets changed all the time.
But this is probably just arguing semantics.
Driving. Cutting consumption is the best solution.
I changed my mind on a great number of things this year, actually. I changed my mind on the whole “existence of God” thing, going from Agnostic to Atheist and feeling great about it. And that brought about many other changes of the same sort.
It’s been a good year!
I used to believe in Santa Claus. It was partly based on the want to believe in a benevolent, magical father figure that rewarded good behavior. But, it was also founded on the incomplete evidence that gifts appeared over-night when I assumed my parents were sleeping.
Then one Christmas eve, my parents’, hasty to get to bed themselves, began putting gifts under the tree before visions of sugar plums had filled my head. In that instant, I came to realize the fallacy of the Claus and that the benevolence came from my parents. More so, I understood that my beliefs needed to be scrutinized if they were to hold any weight. It put me on a road that my eventual divorce from faith and to strive of objectivity (but not absolutism) in all my views.
Driving. Cutting consumption is the best solution.
I’ve been living carless now for almost 5 years. I love it, but it requires a level of infrastructure and public transit that simply don’t exist in a lot of places. I couldn’t have lived this easily in, say, Minneapolis (where I have lived).
Cutting consumption can also be driven by social policy. The new Hiawatha line in the Twin Cities has been popular, Atrios was writing recently about a rial line in, I believe, Charlotte. The point is that making carlessness (or reduced consumption) an attractivel choice requires investment in social infrastructure and changes in policy.
Michael Behe. I used to think he was the best of that lot, essentially well-meaning (though entirely wrong). But after his last book and his tantrum over Abbie’s take-down, I realise he’s as IDiotic as the rest of them.
LOL @ LIVE PODCAST
If it’s live, it’s not a podcast.
#17:I’m of the opposite opinion. Take away the ability of clergy to certify civil contracts. Go to the registry, fill out the paperwork, pay the fee, and you’re married. Then do whatever the fuck ceremony you want.
Actually, I think we are of the same opinion. What you said was what I was trying to say. “Marriage” should be merely symbolic, “Civil Union” would be the (only) legally binding contract.
We disagree. “Marriage” is a civil contract, the label for which has even been adopted in international law. “Civil union” is a different legal entity. It’s semantics, but in law that’s all there is–well, semantics and the force of the state.
I’m for keeping the term marriage with the state more for practical reasons than anything else. Portability, International stuff, etc.
I agree with MAJeff in #29.
I used to be Catholic, but am now an atheist.
I used to be an omnivore, but am now a vegan.
I used to be a homophobe, but am now a homophile.
These changes have all been made within the last ten years or so. For me, it was a matter of removing myself from a sheltered life and realizing that I had a choice to question my beliefs and actions.
MPR’s show, In The Loop, devoted a whole show to the subject of changing your mind, or as they referred to it, flip-flopping. You can listen to it here:
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/in_the_loop/archive/2007/11/30/index.shtml
My change of mind? I used to think I was a skeptical, rational thinker, and I still try to be that way, but I’ve been reading of psychological studies that seem to demonstrate that we’re all biased, that ALL of us tend to see and read and hear what reinforces our prejudices and preconceptions. That has opened my eyes – and also given me an even greater respect for the scientific method. Scientists are just as human as the rest of us (PZ excepted, no doubt), but they’ve developed this incredible process to overcome their natural biases and, eventually, discover their errors. Lately, I’ve been trying hard to remind myself of my own fallibility, but of course it’s never easy for an opinionated person like me. And I don’t suppose it will EVER get any easier.
The death penalty. I used to favor it in certain rare cases. Now I don’t in any case.
Although now that I reread PZ’s post, he wasn’t really asking any of us, was he? :P
I occasionally slip back into Lamarckism – which seems a common occurrence even in those who know better.
But as far as really changing my mind, I would say that I am more accepting – much, much more accepting now – of scientists who are religious believers because I have been exposed to them, and have observed for myself that their facts are correct and their methods sound. I don’t know how they reconcile their beliefs with their work, but as long as they do good work, I accept that they can and they do. I accept that they apparently do, because they don’t pull these creationist tricks on me, or try to use the fine-tuning argument or the argument from design to try to convince me that science proves God in order to make me someone that I’m not.
I am no longer suspicious of them, because they don’t insult my intelligence; nor do they condescend to me by employing cherry-picking and other invalid arguments as if I weren’t an educated woman of dignity who sees right through those stunts. No, these people accepted me as an atheist and did not tell me that I was “confused” or “rebellious” (at age 42?), or than I only “think you’re not a Christian.” They don’t try to maneuver or manipulate me, and this is the first time in my life that ever happened.
What an ever-loving mistake it was for religious people in the 1970s to try and use science to convince me of God! And what a mistake it was for people to try to shove intelligent design down our throats today. I didn’t care so much about what other people believed until the “creation science” Frankenstein monster was jolted again to life as ID. I have more respect for someone who admits that belief in God is outright faith than I do for someone who claims it’s “science.”
I am more apt to believe people when they don’t lie to me, and I am more apt to accept people when they accept me. Makes sense, no?
I used to think that everything was created quite recently and that humans were the acme of creation. Then I turned five.
(Besides that whole wisdom coming with age bit, I got a dinosaur book, and started learning some facts about the past.)
I recently changed my mind about the founding fathers of the USA as a result of thie brilliant lecture at LSE:
· Re-Writing the History of the Constitution: from the miraculous to the political
by Professor Carol Berkin
Available as: mp3 (17 mb; approx 72 minutes)
(can be found here:
http://www.lse.ac.uk/resources/podcasts/publicLecturesAndEvents.htm#generated-subheading1)
I seem to be in the process of changing my mind regarding sociobiology. I used to think it was quite obvious- but I slowly realized however “obvious” the just-so-stories sound, they’re not always backed by genetic evidence. And I like that evidence.
Also, I decided that the Bible, rather than a piece of evil trash, is an infinitely fascinating, multi-layered document.
At the beginning of this year, I thought public school teachers, and certainly school administrators, generally knew their legal responsibilities. I now believe few of them do.
Ric, while a lot of religious nuts do homeschool, there are many, many other reasons to recommend it — from discipline to academics to social reasons. I don’t homeschool, but can definitely sympathize with those who do.
I’m another who changed her mind about homeschool. In fact, I’m now homeschooling. Something I thought I’d never do.
No, it’s not for religious reasons. Unless, of course, having an ignorant child is against your religious beliefs (as it is mine.)
As an aside, I think there’s a larger percentage of homeschoolers within the military. I have nothing but anecdotal “evidence” for this belief, but many folks I’ve spoken with say they do it for the academic continuity.
I hope I’m not rambling. Here in Italy, it’s Friday night already, and we’ve finished off the first Barolo.
Technically (so to speak), just learning something new is “changing your mind.” This is where reasonable people shine as compared to the religious.
This past year, I’ve been learning a LOT of new software, and created a web page and response page for my new business EditorQuick. Regarding which, I’ve changed careers, from employed editor to self-employed editor and writer.
I changed my mind about believing that only “somebody else, somewhere out there” could write books, to the belief that *I* could write books.
Sort of a progressive lifelong change I continue to make is the change from the painful shyness of childhood to a more enlightened and self-confident “I’m capable, and I matter.” There have been some significant milestones in that progression in the past year, and those internal changes have been reflected in external factors – the way other people seem progressively more often willing to react to me.
I’ve changed over the course of my lifetime from thinking of animals as automatons – robots made of meat – to seeing many of them as critters with feelings and a sense of self.
On the flip side of that same realization, I’ve changed from seeing humans as unparalleled geniuses wholly different from every other lifeform on earth to seeing us as sometimes bright doofuses, muddling through with the same beastly baggage as all the other furred critters.
I’ve changed from thinking of political leaders as always-capable, always-well-meaning people to people who are often stupider than I am, and sometimes meaner and more selfish.
I’ve changed from believing that people such as presidents deserve respect merely for the office they hold, understanding now that such people should be given only the respect they earn. If they’re vacuous, voracious morons who commit criminal acts, they should be treated exactly that way.
By contrast, I’ve actually softened in the way I view ordinary people, understanding that even those who make an effort to hurt me are sometimes only doing the best they can with their beastly baggage.
Huh. Link didn’t work.
Well, anyway (shameless self-promotion), it’s http://www.EditorQuick.com .
I’ve changed my mind regarding the convertibility of fundamentalists; it’s a waste of effort and time. Now I just troll them, and focus any meaningful conversation on normal people. Good fun.
It’s a few years back, but I’ve changed my mind on an autism-vaccination (especially thimerosal) link. When I first heard about it from people who were sympathetic to the idea (though still reserving judgment), it seemed plausible. However, when I started to actually look into the science, I could see it was nonsense.
On that subject, as all others, I follow the evidence. If the evidence takes me to a surprising conclusion, that’s just an added bonus.
The American political system. I used to think that it was solidly built, and that our republic would survive, even if a malignant baffoon were left in charge for a term or two.
Now I think that the US as I knew it growing up will not exist and by the time I’m an old man living in Canada, I’ll be like those sad old Russian expats who refuse to talk about Russia during the cold war.
I changed my mind about believing that only “somebody else, somewhere out there” could write books, to the belief that *I* could write books.
I hear ya. I’m attempting to write my first story and am slowly (painfully slowly) putting together something that is interesting.
I grew up reading the works of other people, getting lost in the worlds they created, and now I’m creating a world, a story myself. Whether I get published or not, discovering that I’m able to do it is kind of awesome.
I used to be cool with Big Bang cosmology. But with the addition of first inflation, then dark matter, and now dark energy, my Skept-O-Meter is getting pretty restless. Sure, I realize that Big Bang theory explains the data amazingly well — but then so did Ptolemaic epicycles. I just think we’re way overdue for a paradigm shift.
Regarding #34:
I admit to mixed emotions regarding your post, Kristine. It infuriates me when I learn that people who call themselves believers see nothing wrong in lying for Jesus or treating honest doubt with scorn and dishonesty. At the same time, I feel a twinge of optimism that, in fact, I’m one of the believers you’ve come to see as not trying to ‘maneuver or manipulate’ you. This hope is tinged with disappointment that this experience had to wait for your fourth decade of life: what an indictment of the ‘believers’ you’ve come in contact with!
I reason it like this: if God exists, then this God, if able, is obligated to bridge the gap between perfection and imperfection—since I, an imperfect being, can never bridge that gap. Therefore it follows that God must be willing to meet me ‘where I’m at.’ How, then, could I not be willing to meet others ‘where they’re at’ ? And, if God does not exist, then at least my privately-held beliefs do not prevent from having rewarding interaction with my fellows who most definitely do exist.
So, I guess the emotion I will end with is hope, and thankfulness that there are people who are, as Sagan says, candles in the dark of a demon-haunted world….Scott
I’m very surprised that clergy have this power in the US. It’s among the most blatant mixtures of church and state I can think of.
Over here, the tradition is that people marry in the registrar’s office and then, the next day, marry again in church. The second part is optional, the first isn’t. The churches don’t marry people who haven’t already married bureaucratically.
I’m very surprised that clergy have this power in the US. It’s among the most blatant mixtures of church and state I can think of.
Over here, the tradition is that people marry in the registrar’s office and then, the next day, marry again in church. The second part is optional, the first isn’t. The churches don’t marry people who haven’t already married bureaucratically.
Maybe, but dark matter is the most parsimonious explanation for something completely different, too.
There are two galaxies somewhere out there that have “recently” collided. We’d expect that the normal matter (mostly stars) brakes in that process, while the dark matter, which (the theory goes) does not interact with normal matter except by gravity, goes ahead at unchanged speed (except for slight deceleration by gravity). And that’s what we see. In the expected place, we see a gravitation-lensing effect, but we don’t see the matter whose mass causes this effect. Looks like we’re seeing the effects of dark matter.
This was mentioned in a Pharyngula comment once. Google should find it elsewhere, complete with pictures.
Maybe, but dark matter is the most parsimonious explanation for something completely different, too.
There are two galaxies somewhere out there that have “recently” collided. We’d expect that the normal matter (mostly stars) brakes in that process, while the dark matter, which (the theory goes) does not interact with normal matter except by gravity, goes ahead at unchanged speed (except for slight deceleration by gravity). And that’s what we see. In the expected place, we see a gravitation-lensing effect, but we don’t see the matter whose mass causes this effect. Looks like we’re seeing the effects of dark matter.
This was mentioned in a Pharyngula comment once. Google should find it elsewhere, complete with pictures.
I changed my mind about believing that only “somebody else, somewhere out there” could write books, to the belief that *I* could write books.
Dissertation. I’m writing it, as per my advisor’s suggestion, in “book format.”
I hate it. Every word.
That’s something else I’ve changed my mind about: writing. I used to like it.
I’ve changed my mind regarding the convertibility of fundamentalists; it’s a waste of effort and time. Now I just troll them, and focus any meaningful conversation on normal people. Good fun.
Posted by: Karley
It’s my parallel universe doppelganger! :)
I say that because I was just about to write how I am a prime example of the convertibility of fundamentalists. If you had met me in my early 20s, you would have met a classic fundamentalist, with almost every single stereotyped belief right down the list. I did lean a little Democratic politically, but that was my only point of breakout from the mold and I didn’t think about it much or do anything about it. Fast forward to me in my early 30s, and I’m a rabid progressive liberal atheist. I’ve done a 180 on just about every major philosophical point you can ask about.
Why and how did this happen? Partly it may be that I’m a bit of a zealous personality; if I’m going for something, I’m going whole hog. But I see it more as a row of dominoes. Once the first one was pushed, the others naturally followed, made even more interconnected by the fact that most of those beliefs were instilled from the church; once I decided the church didn’t hold the keys to truth, everything was fair game to question and change my mind about. Saying that evolution class in college was the finger push of the domino would be too easy. It was my first introduction to “church can be wrong”, but the rest of it was really more in terms of broadening my horizons. It’s hard to think of gay people as somehow “other” and wrong when you actually meet some and make friends. It’s hard to think that everyone does have an equal chance to make something of themselves when you meet people who do have insurmountable obstacles. It’s hard to be so discrete and quantitative when you open your eyes to the continuum of the world. It took years, slowly changing little by little, but once it started it was almost inevitable to get to this point.
I have a fairly simple description of what happened: I grew up.
I’ve changed my mind regarding the convertibility of fundamentalists; it’s a waste of effort and time. Now I just troll them, and focus any meaningful conversation on normal people. Good fun.
Time with Mom, a former fundie who’s still moving along slowly. My coming out as gay was an initial faith crisis. My being an atheist is presenting new ones.
Here’s another thread hijack; some evo/creo humor:
If humans evolved from monkeys, why are there NO MONKEYS?
http://www.joplinglobe.com/editorial/local_story_003223740.html
I do realize that fundamentalists aren’t stoned-brained golems; but it seems in my case, nearly every encounter with them is like teaching a pig to sing. But then, the only fundies that usually confront me are Phelps level ones; who merely try to outshout you.
“The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.”
Overlooking the obvious anti-reptilian slant, William Blake had it right.
I try to look at every situation as though the other person could potentially convince me. Every time I hear a new pro-creationism argument (and new ones are rare), I do listen to it without any pre-conceived notion that it’s illogical. Of course, if I do have one of those notions, it’s always confirmed.
But I’m willing to listen. I can’t say the same for most fundies.
Everything?
I used to think there was a pressing need for moral philosophy, and read through endless books on the subject, then I realized the argument that we need philosophy to be moral is no more convincing than the argument that we need God to be moral. I used to be a convinced Chomskyan/Fodorite nativist computationalist. Now I’m a eliminative materialist. I flirt with direct realism every month or so. I tried being a libertarian in my youth. These days I’m an anti-social socialist. I was an agnostic for about a year in my early-20s. I went through a period where I thought Continental philosophy made sense and everything was relative and science was no better than witchcraft. I go back and forth on the worth of philosophy (there are two absolutely excellent recent works of philosophy that I cannot recommend highly enough; Tim Maudlin’s The Metaphysics within Physics, which is great if you want to see physics beat up metaphysics, and Penelope Maddy’s defense of naturalism Second Philosophy, which everyone can benefit from reading). And on and on and on.
Mostly it’s philosophy and political theory though, which matters about as much as what is fashionable to wear, so why not change your mind as often as you please? I’ve changed my mind of some scientific stuff: I used to think anything larger than a cell was the height of tedium; now developmental biology has made whole animals seem ever so slightly more interesting. I think PZ is right about science though; tentative scientific hypotheses just don’t have the argumentative grip on me that philosophy and politics do; I just want somebody to be right and I don’t care if it’s me or the other guy. Mature science is fairly impersonal; it’s really quite easy to entertain multiple hypotheses about, say, a particular molecule; it doesn’t require great feats of impartiality to do so. Established science, on the other hand, is a bludgeon that should be used to hammer every woo-loving dissenter into tearful intellectual submission.
Not so much a change of mind as a solidification of a previous hunch:
I used to think that religion was mainly a harmless dummy to help people cope with their fear of death. I’m now convinced that it’s intellectually dangerous and should be fought tooth and nail at every opportunity.
More of a complete about-face: I used to support artificial insemination for lesbians on the NHS. I now oppose it.
That said, my change of mind comes from the new opinion that having biological spawn is not a human right, and anyone who insists on furthering their own genes can damn well pay for it themselves – hetero- and homosexual alike.
Gregory Kusnick:
But, aha, the Big Bang (or “Horrendous Space Kablooie”, to some) made predictions which could be tested by experiment. We didn’t know what the Cosmic Microwave Background fluctuations look like, but we used inflationary cosmology to figure out what they would be, and then when we were able to measure, the prediction matched the observation.
David Marjanović, OM:
That’d be the Bullet Cluster.
MAJeff:
I’ve heard it said that like sex, writing is only fun for the amateurs.
I’ve changed my mind about string theory. It is an incredibly elegant theory, but it just isn’t producing any hard evidence that supports it that doesn’t also support the standard model. And the standard model just simply has more evidence to support it.
Two major changes over the years:
Blacks. Being raised in the South during the 50s and 60s, inferiority of blacks was just common knowledge. But in learning history and biology, I began to question this assumption. And, along with shedding my Southern Baptist beliefs, I slowly realized that any differences were minor.
Homosexuals. Again, culturally instilled. Not helped by the “official” stance that homosexuality was some kind of mental illness. As I read articles on how sexual orientation of the mind doesn’t necessarily correspond to the genetalia, I rejected the “deviant” label. As for the verbiage of the anti-gay “conservatives,” I asked myself, “What do the gays do that has any effect on my life?” Answer: none. So I dumped my anti-homo feelings.
But I still think that most people are rotten drivers.
— CV
sil-chan:
You mischaracterize the relationship between string theory and the Standard Model. String theorists are not hoping to replace the Standard Model with a new theory which gives different predictions in the familiar regimes we have already explored, but rather to understand why low-energy physics is described by the Standard Model instead of some other theory. Why, for example, does the Universe do everything in threes: three different kinds of electron (the familiar electron, the muon and the tau), three different neutrinos (one associated with each electron-like particle), and three pairs of quarks?
To quote page 337 of Zwiebach’s First Course in String Theory,
LOL
never heard that one before…
:p
I often compared writing long papers for publication to pulling teeth.
much easier to break up the work as much as possible into tiny nuggets, even note-sized ones.
unfortunately, that really doesn’t work well for a dissertation.
look at the bright side: once you manage to get past it, it won’t seem like such a big deal in a year or two.
@#47 At the same time, I feel a twinge of optimism that, in fact, I’m one of the believers you’ve come to see as not trying to ‘maneuver or manipulate’ you.
You are indeed one of those believers, Scott.
But I don’t believe in perfection – any kind of perfection. That’s the “perfection.”
I think a lot of those people were not deliberately lying, unless it is truly impossible to lie to oneself without knowing it. I really don’t know. At any rate, I had a big-ass argument with a relative just this year. Did I say anything to her when she went back to the church years ago? No. Yet she flipped out like I was a child. Now she says that I’m “saved” because she and our mother is, because I’m under some family-salvation-“umbrella” somethingorother. (I’ve never heard of that in all my years in church.)
To me it sounds like the issue is really control (I’m the youngest) and I was disappointed that she uses this “umbrella” idea to deny me responsibility for my own lack of faith. At any rate, if I’m already “saved” I can’t imagine why she got so upset at my atheism, then.
oh..
things I’ve changed my mind about this year…
have to cop out and say:
too many to list, and most too minor to even recall.
oh, wait, Nisbet managed to change my mind on the value of framing science (to NOT supporting it for the most part), for one thing that’s significant.
Blake Stacy, #58:
I don’t dispute the predictive power of Big Bang theory. My problem with it is that it seems inelegant. General relativity is stranger and less intuitive than Newtonian gravitation, but also more beautiful and mind-expanding. With the Big Bang we seem to be moving in the opposite direction: each new wrinkle just adds another layer of klugery motivated solely by the need to make the theory work, and not by any underlying insight about the nature of spacetime. At least that’s how it seems to me as a non-specialist. (My degree in Applied Physics is 30 years old.) I just can’t help thinking that we’re looking at it the wrong way, and there must be some other perspective or renormalization trick or something that will make all the ugly parts fade away and reveal something much larger and grander. Maybe brane theory will do that; I don’t know.
But again, I have no formal training in this area, so maybe I’m just a contrarian crank.
Didn’t exactly happen this year, but there was a time I supported the death penalty and was a member of the NRA. After looking at all the problems with the death penalty (including the fact that it kills innocent people) and also seeing how it isn’t an effective deterrent to crime and doesn’t usually give any solice to the crime victim’s families, I no longer support it. In regards to the NRA, back in the 80’s they changed from being an organization that did pretty good work to one that is currently nothing more than a puppet of the Republican party, a group of fear-mongerers. Oh, and when I was 11 or so I changed my mind about there being a sky-daddy watching me all the time.
Or even Solace…lol
I changed my mind from thinking of our president as an ignorant buffoon to that of considering him a dangerous thug with a speech impediment.
On a more substantive note, I have modified my views on Global Warming. My previous view, dating from approx 1990 was that Global Warming was caused by humans but that the REAL beginning of this phenomenon might be traced back to the end of the Little Ice Age. My current view is that global warming is of much more recent origin as some later studies suggest that the Little Ice Age was a more localized affair- Europe & north Atlantic and may not have been part of the climate of either Asia nor northwestern North America.
Having seen my father reach an epiphany about what the Republicans are doing, I was hoping my mother would. After our Christmas together, I can see I was delusional that she’d ever get off the hard-core right-wing hate-machine.
Well, at least she doesn’t like Huckabee… But Guliani is still pretty bad.
Once I thought I was pithy and humorous, but after reading all the writing of the budding Mark Twains in the making now available in the inter-web tubes, I am humbled. Where were all these folk when I was growing up and forming my lifelong prejudices and peculiarities? Oh, yeah. They couldn’t get published and make a living at the same time.
Politicians, undertakers, prison guards, and other practicers of socially suspect avocations are necessary and deserve our respect for doing jobs we won’t.
I used to think that there was an overriding evil streak in all humans that was the source of social horrors. Now I think that evil individuals use the normal tribal and economic tendencies of society to create great social horrors.
Gregory Kusnick:
I tend to take elegance where I can find it; I have to keep reminding myself that Nature is not obligated to share my aesthetic sense. As Feynman once remarked about what happens when you have multiple equivalent theories for a phenomenon, “philosophically you like them or do not like them, and training is the only way to beat that disease.”
(Don’t tell anybody, but I’m of the private opinion that one could burn all the “philosophy of science” books except for The Character of Physical Law and do just fine afterwards. . . but then again, I’m well known to be an ill-tempered illiterate.)
Har har.
I don’t think my opinion on that subject has changed, per se; a more accurate statement would be that Nisbet (and, to a lesser extent, Mooney and Kirshenbaum) has provided a convenient label and set of examples for an attitude I had already found uncongenial, narrow-minded and fundamentally dishonest.
Leon Lederman’s contribution at Edge had a particularly powerful resonance.
I changed my mind about God and life after death. I used to think I believed in both. I’m not sure about either now. God in particular. I don’t believe in creationism, I don’t believe in God’s involvement in human affairs, and I’m not sure about life after death so what would God do if I believed in him?
I say I’m still not sure if there is anything after death. I never was sure one way or the other but had always hoped. Then I re-read The Amber Spyglass and Lyra’s explanation of what happens after death, and realized how similar it was to what we know for a fact happens to bodies after they die, how they decay and become a part of everything and keep the whole cycle going, and I realized that in that sense, maybe it’s OK if nothing happens to the rest of you after death.
I used to be a hard selectionist; thinking that selection was the explaination for everything biological. We did a study of variation in the caudal skeleton of a darter which lives in slackwater and swims with its pectoral fins. Some 30% of the skeletons were abnormal. After reading the discussion I had written, I realized that I was no longer a hard selectionist.
I used to think there was a pressing need for moral philosophy, and read through endless books on the subject, then I realized the argument that we need philosophy to be moral is no more convincing than the argument that we need God to be moral.
The point of moral philosophy is that we need it to be moral*, the point is to understand what morality is and what is moral. So you have two choices if you don’t want philosophy insofar as morality is concerned, you can reject the entire idea of morality and say that there is merely a system that is built up by society that we are expected to follow; or, you can say that we can be moral with absolutely no guide other than some sort of internal sense of what is right. Given that you obviously accept that there are things that are moral, otherwise you wouldn’t say that we can be moral, I must admit that I’m confused about where that leaves you in the scheme of things.
This is completely different than saying we need a belief in God to act moral. Obviously we need to know what the moral actions are to act moral. So we need some sort of moral code that is supported by some sort of reasoning. I don’t see how we can call that reasoning anything but philosophy.
*Some ethicists will disagree with this.
Ooops. That first line should read:
“The point of moral philosophy is not that we need it to be moral”
The point of moral philosophy is that we need it to be moral*, the point is to understand what morality is and what is moral.
Philosophy is giving way to science in this area, as it has in so many. See, e.g., Marc Hauser’s “The Moral Mind”.
I say I’m still not sure if there is anything after death.
The same thing that is after a fan is turned off … the world going on without the fan’s whirring.
I no longer believe that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy. (For anyone who still thinks so, read Vincent Bugliosi’s Reclaiming History.) This involved both exposure to new evidence and an abandonment of dogma.
Politics and the Democratic Party. I think both are completely broken, and not worth one’s time, money or loyalty.
And 7 years of Bush, after 8 years of Clinton, resulted in this change?
The Democratic Party is broken, but not as badly as a country under control of the Republicans. (And with two branches of the government under control of the Republicans and the Democrats having too slim a margin in the Senate to override the constant threat of filibuster from the Republicans, the Dems have very little control, and their control over the purse is defeated by DINOs who abandon the party at critical moments.)
We did a study of variation in the caudal skeleton of a darter which lives in slackwater and swims with its pectoral fins. Some 30% of the skeletons were abnormal. After reading the discussion I had written, I realized that I was no longer a hard selectionist.
i understand the value in realizing that there are other mechanisms of evolution that pure selection (drift, for example), but I’m not sure I follow how you concluded selection had no variation to act on when 30% of the skeletons were “abnormal”?
wouldn’t you have to measure the fitness of the fish with “abnormal” skeletons before you could conclude selection played no role in the shaping of traits within that given fish population?
why isn’t whatever is causing the abnormal skeletons being considered as a selective agent in and of itself?
just curious.
“I realized that in that sense, maybe it’s OK if nothing happens to the rest of you after death.”
No offense but, what happens afterward is what happens (or doesn’t) whether you’re OK with it or not.
I’ve changed my mind about my favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavor.
I’ve changed my mind about “changing my mind”.
I used to resist it, now I cherish it.
As part of the darter study, we looked at caudal skeletons of a large number of different minnow species, all active tail swimmers. Found no variation. Colleague later commented we had compared apples and oranges. Another colleague did a similar study of a darter which lives in swift water and does use its tail. He found very little variation. We actually did the study to show variation in a skeletal structure. There are a fair number of papers in the literature in which skeletal characteristics in fish were assumed to be invariable. Colleague made the comment, “Important things are conservative, less important things are variable.” Some verisimillitude, I think.
As a young music student I thought that anything with a backbeat or lacking a complex harmonic base was moronic and worthless. I’m pleased to say I grew out of that mindset pretty quickly although I still dislike manipulative pablum. (For the record I did have a period where I made some of this garbage in order to get paid – another example of a change in thinking both before and after said venture.)
Back home in the UK although I was always an atheist I thought of Xians as a harmless group, even vaguely admirable in their seeming gentleness. Since I moved to the States I’ve become absolutely intolerant of any religiosity and see it as the greatest enabler of the most dangerous elements in society.
I used to think that information and facts could change minds I now realise that this was wishful thinking and that simple emotional appeals will always win out over detail and reason. Obama clearly knows this well as I have to hear him actually say anything substantive.
Philosophy is giving way to science in this area, as it has in so many. See, e.g., Marc Hauser’s “The Moral Mind”.
I don’t think I’d agree that philosophy is “giving way” but science is certainly making claims. I haven’t read “The Moral Mind,” but I have read a number of defenses of naturalistic ethics and none of them have very good arguments. The idea of “a universal moral grammar, a toolkit for building specific moral systems” seems as outdated as the idea of a universal linguistic grammar. Despite the desire to find some underlying biological basis for behavior constraints in the form of evolved morals it seems much more realistic to say that we instead had the ability to form moral systems in our head similar to our ability to develop language being a potential and not a necessity.
steveM # 6, “I now think that really, the state should only sanction civil unions for any couple, regardless of their sexuality.
That is more or less how it works in France.
– As to me, I was in California when Reagan was governor. What a catastrophe. He became president and I thought that the country had gone has low as it could go and that Rethuglicans could not get any worse.
Boy, was I wrong. Back at that time I couldn’t imagine anything worse, more disgusting, and more putrid than Reagan. GWB showed me how wrong I had been.
Subjectivist (mis)interpretations of quantum mechanics, though that wasn’t this past year.
I no longer believe that JFK was the victim of a conspiracy.
I had that ole “JFK-was-done-in-by-the-CIA, or at least there was a second gunman” idea myself, and let go of it in light of the evidence and the correction of popular misconceptions.
I was too scared to admit that one, but I may as well now! :-)
Superstrings as the foundation of matter. Anything that can vibrate and bend is not indivisible. besides, string theory has gotten too complicated and could use a healthy dose of simplification. Theoretical physics could make numerous advances by dealing with the question, “What are superstrings made of?”
I haven’t read “The Moral Mind,” but I have read a number of defenses of naturalistic ethics and none of them have very good arguments.
Defenses of naturalistic ethics are normative. I’m talking about science investigating why we make the sorts of moral choices we do.
The idea of “a universal moral grammar, a toolkit for building specific moral systems” seems as outdated as the idea of a universal linguistic grammar.
I’m not aware that the latter is outdated.
Despite the desire to find some underlying biological basis for behavior constraints in the form of evolved morals it seems much more realistic to say that we instead had the ability to form moral systems in our head similar to our ability to develop language being a potential and not a necessity.
I’m having trouble parsing that. I don’t know what “necessity” means here; it’s a fact that we use language and make moral judgments. Saying that we have the ability to do what we do says nothing; I think a lot more detail is possible. As experiments like the trolley tests show, we aren’t arbitrary about the moral systems we form; most people have the same moral judgments in these cases while having difficulty articulating principles on which their differing conclusions in seemingly similar circumstances is based; in fact, most people are baffled as to why they feel differently about these different scenarios.
I’m another one who only became REALLY convinced about human-caused global warming in the past year. I’d thought the denialists (as I now think of them) were sounding more and more like creationists as their arguments got stupider (“Scientists write papers in support of global warming because it’s a path to riches” – sure). But, as usual, a bit of actual reading on the subject makes it all clear. For example, once you know that 1998 was a record El Nino event and pushed temps way up, it’s easy to spot all the cherry picking “average temperatures haven’t increased in the last decade” arguments that keep getting rolled out by the usual suspects.
Defenses of naturalistic ethics are normative. I’m talking about science investigating why we make the sorts of moral choices we do.
I’m not sure I understand the difference. Ethics are normative, by definition. So, we can either say that there are things that are normatively bad, like killing people because of their sex, or we can say that we can know why people kill other people because of their race. The second half of that seems useful, but not a novel concept.
I’m having trouble parsing that. I don’t know what “necessity” means here; it’s a fact that we use language and make moral judgments.
By necessity I mean that we don’t have to make moral judgments and use language.
Saying that we have the ability to do what we do says nothing; I think a lot more detail is possible.
What I’m saying is that the sort of investigation of moral norms about which you are talking tells us that we have the ability to have moral norms and not that we have some sort of biological requirement to have specific moral norms.
As experiments like the trolley tests show, we aren’t arbitrary about the moral systems we form; most people have the same moral judgments in these cases while having difficulty articulating principles on which their differing conclusions in seemingly similar circumstances is based; in fact, most people are baffled as to why they feel differently about these different scenarios.
To say that this has an effect on morality and ethics requires a defense of naturalized ethics. If men are evolved to rape women it doesn’t make rape acceptable.
I surprised myself the other day when my children asked about God — I couldn’t bring myself to try to sell them on the idea at all. My 5 year old put it this way: “I’m pretty sure God doesn’t exist, but I KNOW Santa exists because I’ve seen him.” My 3 1/2 year old decided that God probably does exist, but mostly she was just jazzed about the idea that if he does, he must be invisible.
im the exact opposite; animals and plants fascinate me..cell stuff was “little green dot biology” for a long time ..now it’s starting to fascinate me