A reader asks weather anyone knows what book this page comes from or not:
I say, wind, shmind, the whether on the moon was stormy that day or not. Anyway, how do they know weather there is wind on the moon – were they there (or not)? Read and understand....
Submitted by the Whether Underground.
70 Comments
Dave Thomas · 21 December 2013
Where'd you get this, Matt? Is this Poe?
DavidK · 21 December 2013
It has to be from a christian home schooler workbook.
Matt Young · 21 December 2013
Where’d you get this, Matt?
I got it from an alert reader, who had sent it around to his list of contacts asking for its provenance (or should I say it's provenance?). I asked him weather it was OK to post it on PT. He will identify himself if he wants to or not.
Is this Poe?
If it is a fake, it is an awfully good fake.
I agree it must be from some home-schooling book, but our "client" wonders the exact source. I daresay we will find a lot of other denialism if we ever locate the book. Indeed, my comment that creationists are not the only cranks may have been premature – they may well be creationists.
tomh · 21 December 2013
A commenter on this site claims that it was “Found in an English textbook from South Korea.”
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 21 December 2013
I suspect that the scientists who wonder if humans went to the moon or not are the same ones who wonder if the platypus is a hybrid of beavers and ducks, or if Noah's Ark is on Mt. Ararat or off in Iran or somewhere else.
Or, as the History Channel would ask, was it ALIENS?
That's it. Gonna call my next band The Whethermen.
fnxtr · 21 December 2013
sorry, that wasn't worth repeating.
thomasjneal.nz · 21 December 2013
A reader asks weather anyone knows what book this page comes from or not:
sorry, but poor sentence structure is not a good identifier of crankdom.
the first could easily be not looking carefully enough at a spell checker suggestion, the last reads to me like they were thinking it might be a hoax (not have even come from a book), and just compressed it into online speak.
while the question of the source of the book page is interesting, the question as to whether the person who asked is a crank, is not.
DS · 21 December 2013
Please name one real scientist who doesn't believe that the moon missions were real. A real scientist who works in the aerospace industry, or is at least an astronomer. And please be more specific, how many scientists are "some"? Also, please state how many real scientists actually worked on the Apollo missions, including all of the technicians in mission control. How many of them claim that it was all a hoax? How many of the astronauts who actually claimed that they walked on the moon later claimed that it was a hoax? How many scientists named Steve claim it was a hoax? How many moon rocks were brought back? How many scientists worked on them? DId any of them think it was a hoax? How about the scientists who bounce laser beams off of the reflectors left on the moon in order t measure the rate at which the moon is receding from the earth? Do they all claim it was a hoax?
Interestingly enough, I just read a science fiction book that speculated the Neil Armstrong was actually the third person who walked on the moon and NASA covered it up because ... Well I guess you'll just have to read the book.
jsplegge · 21 December 2013
Nits:
That picture is NOT Apollo 11 / Eagle. It's at least Apollo 15.
The text seems to imply that Michael Collins landed with Neil & Buzz.
Sloppy at best.
TomS · 21 December 2013
Nobody knows whether the Apollo 11 really went to the moon or not.
Even the conspiracy theorists would have to admit that some people know. Those who would have to be part of the conspiracy, they know, one way or the other. The outside observers (amateur and professional, around the world), too. The people giving out recent photos know whether those photos are legitimate.
BTW, I can't resist pointing out, however, that the conspiracy theorists actually have theories. So they're better than evolution-deniers.
Dave Luckett · 21 December 2013
The trouble is that the last of the moon landings happened nearly forty years ago. It becomes more and more incredible that it was done at all. Even now, even as we speak, the generation that went to the moon has passed. Now we have iPods and cameras in our mobile phones, not moon landers. People look at the Apollo technology with amused horror, now. So clunky! So primitive!
After all, we cross the Atlantic in a few hours now, so Columbus couldn't have done it in a caravel. So that's a hoax. Must be.
And my son has never seen a moon launch. I'm sad for him. Sad for his entire generation. Damn it all, where's the moon base? Where's the Mars missions?
I see that NASA is tinkering with an FTL drive. Let it be real. I know it probably isn't, but let it be real. And if that's a prayer, then that's what it is.
Ed Darrell · 21 December 2013
I've seen suggestions that the art and layout look like ABEKA texts, and the one that fits would be Observing God's World.
Anybody got an ABEKA set handy to check?
Matt Young · 21 December 2013
A Beka Book. Named after Rebekah Someone. You can get Observing God's World for 99¢ on E-Bay -- looks like a 6th grade book.
SWT · 21 December 2013
Dave Luckett said:
The trouble is that the last of the moon landings happened nearly forty years ago. It becomes more and more incredible that it was done at all. Even now, even as we speak, the generation that went to the moon has passed. Now we have iPods and cameras in our mobile phones, not moon landers. People look at the Apollo technology with amused horror, now. So clunky! So primitive!
Every year or two, I give a lecture to Chemical Engineering seniors about the pace of technological change, and computing technology is one of the examples I use. Some of the images I show them are of the AGC from Apollo 11, one of the first IC-based computers, clocked at 1.024 MHz clock, with 2K RAM, 32K ROM, and 4 16-bit registers and point out that their phones have more computing power than the AGC. Around the same time, Star Trek was using devices that looked amazingly like tablets, bluetooth earpieces, and flip phones.
Then again, I was also telling one of my classes about submitting computer jobs using punch cards and one of the students, from the back of the room, asked "How old are you?"
And my son has never seen a moon launch. I'm sad for him. Sad for his entire generation. Damn it all, where's the moon base? Where's the Mars missions?
I see that NASA is tinkering with an FTL drive. Let it be real. I know it probably isn't, but let it be real. And if that's a prayer, then that's what it is.
I'm right with you on this. I remember watching the Apollo 11 mission on TV and dreaming of moon bases and Mars trips. What do my stepkids have that compares to that?
DavidK · 21 December 2013
Interesting reference about A Beka Books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beka_Book
https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 22 December 2013
Dave Luckett said:
The trouble is that the last of the moon landings happened nearly forty years ago. It becomes more and more incredible that it was done at all. Even now, even as we speak, the generation that went to the moon has passed. Now we have iPods and cameras in our mobile phones, not moon landers. People look at the Apollo technology with amused horror, now. So clunky! So primitive!
Every year or two, I give a lecture to Chemical Engineering seniors about the pace of technological change, and computing technology is one of the examples I use. Some of the images I show them are of the AGC from Apollo 11, one of the first IC-based computers, clocked at 1.024 MHz clock, with 2K RAM, 32K ROM, and 4 16-bit registers and point out that their phones have more computing power than the AGC. Around the same time, Star Trek was using devices that looked amazingly like tablets, bluetooth earpieces, and flip phones.
Then again, I was also telling one of my classes about submitting computer jobs using punch cards and one of the students, from the back of the room, asked "How old are you?"
And my son has never seen a moon launch. I'm sad for him. Sad for his entire generation. Damn it all, where's the moon base? Where's the Mars missions?
I see that NASA is tinkering with an FTL drive. Let it be real. I know it probably isn't, but let it be real. And if that's a prayer, then that's what it is.
I'm right with you on this. I remember watching the Apollo 11 mission on TV and dreaming of moon bases and Mars trips. What do my stepkids have that compares to that?
I am often appalled by how poorly modern software takes advantage of the incredible advances in hardware. It is true that much can be attributed Bill Gates' army of semi-trained monkeys, but I suspect that they are not wholly to blame.
To put things in perspective, I was doing 3D modeling and rendering, using Phong shading,in real time, in 1986.
The computer had 512kB RAM, ran 320 x 200 color graphics, and had a 8 MHz 68000 processor (32 bits/16 bit bus). It used a windowing interface and a mouse. The color depth was 4 bits,selected from a 9 bit palette.
http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv4n8/cad_3d.html
Currently, I am running a quad core 64 bit processor, approximately 3.1 GHz, with 6 GB RAM, triple channel (1066 MHz)memory. To simplify things, I will treat the memory as equal to 64 bits running at processor speed. I will use a very conservative 2x multiplier for efficiency boosts from caches, ALUs, support chips, etc., and ignore the CONSIDERABLE processing performed by the graphics card.
By my conservative estimate, my current hardware is at least 4600x as fast as my 1986 machine was.
For a software comparison, I will use Blender 2.51, running at 1920x1080 and 32 bit depth. Using similar geometry and shading, Blender seems to run be able to update the screen about 400x as fast as my 520ST did, with the lower color depth and resolution. This is a guesstimate, because my monitor is incapable of going anywhere near that fast. So, the software appears to be running 518x as fast. This is a huge discrepancy, especially since much of the graphics processing is actually done by the graphics card, which I did NOT factor in.
So, modern software seems to be only about 11% as efficient as earlier software, at best.
KlausH · 22 December 2013
Sorry, it was 1989 that I used CAD-3D on the ST.
harold · 22 December 2013
BTW, I can’t resist pointing out, however, that the conspiracy theorists actually have theories. So they’re better than evolution-deniers.
They have hypotheses.
But no, in the end, they're not much better. Better than the absolute rock bottom plausible deniability, utter-refusal-to-make-any-comprehensible-statement crap from the DI, sure.
But they show many traits in common with creationists. They create straw man versions of the opposing hypotheses. They quote mine. They present evidence selectively. They re-use arguments that have been shown to be wrong. And likewise, creationists constantly resort to the technique of implying conspiracy to explain why the most informed reject their claims (usually claiming that there is some sort of "atheist agenda" at work).
Ultimately, for the same reason. Because of some underlying biasing agenda, they cannot be convinced by evidence and logic, but rather, attempt to advocate for a presupposition, willingly using deceptive techniques to mislead the ignorant, and, in most cases, to reinforce their own denial.
In short, "the Apollo space program was faked" is a testable hypothesis, but testing it quickly shows it to be a poor hypothesis, not supported by the evidence. Therefore those who cling to it are not much better than creationists.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/GQ2PdCNxj48x_4wgJHDmevkyD3r_p5YA#ff82e · 22 December 2013
The REAL hoax is the claim that we can't afford to maintain a viable space exploration program. That's as annoying or more so than the Apollo hoaxers.
Bill Gascoyne · 22 December 2013
Matt Young said:
Where’d you get this, Matt?
I got it from an alert reader, who had sent it around to his list of contacts asking for its provenance (or should I say it's provenance?). I asked him weather it was OK to post it on PT. He will identify himself if he wants to or not.
Is this Poe?
If it is a fake, it is an awfully good fake.
I agree it must be from some home-schooling book, but our "client" wonders the exact source. I daresay we will find a lot of other denialism if we ever locate the book. Indeed, my comment that creationists are not the only cranks may have been premature – they may well be creationists.
"It's" is the contraction of "it is". "Its" is the possessive of "it". In this case, the possessive is appropriate.
Henry J · 22 December 2013
I am often appalled by how poorly modern software takes advantage of the incredible advances in hardware.
A couple of factors occur to me. One, now that hardware isn't nearly as limiting as it used to be, not as much effort (or budget $) is made to compensate for it when writing the software.
Two, software that is made dependent on particular machinery won't run on other types of machines, which annoys users who want the S/W but have other machine types, and annoys the software company by limiting their sales to users with the right hardware.
Henry
Paul Burnett · 22 December 2013
Several Apollo landings (11, 14, 15) deployed Lunar Laser Ranging Retroreflectors, which were detectable from earth by pulsing a laser toward the moon and observing the return flash. Something increased the reflection of laser light from the moon as soon as the astronauts (purportedly) deployed the reflectors, and the simplest hypothesis is that the landings actually took place.
TomS · 22 December 2013
As usual, you make very good points.
If one has even the least familiarity with the history of thought, one cannot but be struck by just how hard-won our present state has been. So many people struggling with really difficult questions, trying out every possibility, and, far too often, getting in trouble with the powerful. It is frightening to think of how easily this could be lost. It isn't so much a matter of the particular issue, as that the denialists are driven to the extreme, and they gladly embrace it, of overthrowing our ability to come to reasonable conclusions from data, only to replace it with nothing. If this is lost, how much work, how much time, would it be to recover it - if ever?
Matt Young · 22 December 2013
“It’s” is the contraction of “it is”. “Its” is the possessive of “it”. In this case, the possessive is appropriate.
Alas, a joke is not funny if you have to explain it, but that was a joke; the kind of author who might confuse "whether" with "weather" would also make the common mistake of thinking that "it's" is the possessive of "it". Not an unreasonable mistake, actually, and (I'd have to research it) but I vaguely recall that "it's", "your's", and so on were the original possessive forms. A lot of people nowadays drop the apostrophe in possessives altogether.
Flint · 22 December 2013
Henry J said:
I am often appalled by how poorly modern software takes advantage of the incredible advances in hardware.
A couple of factors occur to me. One, now that hardware isn't nearly as limiting as it used to be, not as much effort (or budget $) is made to compensate for it when writing the software.
Two, software that is made dependent on particular machinery won't run on other types of machines, which annoys users who want the S/W but have other machine types, and annoys the software company by limiting their sales to users with the right hardware.
Henry
Back in 1989, the hardware was so limited that any usefully functional software had to squeeze every drop of performance the hardware could produce. And so software was evaluated based on performance alone.
Today, the emphasis has shifted. "Good" software means (1) It's easily portable to new systems; (2) It's clearly organized and documented so it's easy for others to understand; (3) It's easy to maintain, correct, extend, and modify; (4) It's easy to integrate with, or communicate with, or share with, entirely disparate software written by others, because interfaces are abstract and well defined. Notice that extracting every last flop of performance out of a given stovepipe system isn't on this list, or anywhere near it.
It might be fun watching KlausH take his 3D rendering program for the Motorola 68000 and getting it to run as an Excel subroutine, selectable from an Excel menu and using internal Excel data, all executing on the latest RISC processor, transparently available to a Linux process across a socket interface. That is to say, today's software world.
harold · 22 December 2013
Flint said:
Henry J said:
I am often appalled by how poorly modern software takes advantage of the incredible advances in hardware.
A couple of factors occur to me. One, now that hardware isn't nearly as limiting as it used to be, not as much effort (or budget $) is made to compensate for it when writing the software.
Two, software that is made dependent on particular machinery won't run on other types of machines, which annoys users who want the S/W but have other machine types, and annoys the software company by limiting their sales to users with the right hardware.
Henry
Back in 1989, the hardware was so limited that any usefully functional software had to squeeze every drop of performance the hardware could produce. And so software was evaluated based on performance alone.
Today, the emphasis has shifted. "Good" software means (1) It's easily portable to new systems; (2) It's clearly organized and documented so it's easy for others to understand; (3) It's easy to maintain, correct, extend, and modify; (4) It's easy to integrate with, or communicate with, or share with, entirely disparate software written by others, because interfaces are abstract and well defined. Notice that extracting every last flop of performance out of a given stovepipe system isn't on this list, or anywhere near it.
It might be fun watching KlausH take his 3D rendering program for the Motorola 68000 and getting it to run as an Excel subroutine, selectable from an Excel menu and using internal Excel data, all executing on the latest RISC processor, transparently available to a Linux process across a socket interface. That is to say, today's software world.
Although I think KlausH has a partial point - there is massive redundancy in today's systems; it's been years since I bothered to try to clean all the totally useless software off a computer - your point is also quite important.
Software is a tool. Just as a machinist who makes a roofing hammer is not going to work as a roofer, it is best if software programmers can make software that non-programmers can use efficiently.
The bottom line is that electronic "resources" are cheaper than human labor, at least in developed countries. A program that uses more RAM and CPU resources, but is more efficient for a human to use, is usually better than a program that uses few resources, but is counter-intuitive and requires hours of training to use properly.
The mark of a bad, lazy programmer is that he or she always insists that software problems are due to user incompetence.
A machinist who makes 100 pound roofing hammers and then angrily states that they are hard to use because roofers are "weak" is a bad machinist, and that's true even if a few gigantically strong roofers can use the hammers.
Similarly, while we all agree that there will be stupid mistakes no matter what, arguing that problematic software is good but intended users are "too stupid" to use it is silly. That did used to fly in the old glowing green screen days, when preserving mainframe resources was more important than, say, creating software that an intelligent accountant can use without excessive training and experience time. That usually isn't the case any more.
For that matter, even in the 1970's, people used "high level" programming languages, so that they didn't have to write every program in machine code.
So yes, the relatively vast resources of a modern desktop are partly wasted, but they're also partly used to make software use more intuitive and universal, without the need for individual training to use every application. That costs resources, but is worth it.
phhht · 22 December 2013
harold said:
Flint said:
Henry J said:
I am often appalled by how poorly modern software takes advantage of the incredible advances in hardware.
A couple of factors occur to me. One, now that hardware isn't nearly as limiting as it used to be, not as much effort (or budget $) is made to compensate for it when writing the software.
Two, software that is made dependent on particular machinery won't run on other types of machines, which annoys users who want the S/W but have other machine types, and annoys the software company by limiting their sales to users with the right hardware.
Henry
Back in 1989, the hardware was so limited that any usefully functional software had to squeeze every drop of performance the hardware could produce. And so software was evaluated based on performance alone.
Today, the emphasis has shifted. "Good" software means (1) It's easily portable to new systems; (2) It's clearly organized and documented so it's easy for others to understand; (3) It's easy to maintain, correct, extend, and modify; (4) It's easy to integrate with, or communicate with, or share with, entirely disparate software written by others, because interfaces are abstract and well defined. Notice that extracting every last flop of performance out of a given stovepipe system isn't on this list, or anywhere near it.
It might be fun watching KlausH take his 3D rendering program for the Motorola 68000 and getting it to run as an Excel subroutine, selectable from an Excel menu and using internal Excel data, all executing on the latest RISC processor, transparently available to a Linux process across a socket interface. That is to say, today's software world.
Although I think KlausH has a partial point - there is massive redundancy in today's systems; it's been years since I bothered to try to clean all the totally useless software off a computer - your point is also quite important.
Software is a tool. Just as a machinist who makes a roofing hammer is not going to work as a roofer, it is best if software programmers can make software that non-programmers can use efficiently.
The bottom line is that electronic "resources" are cheaper than human labor, at least in developed countries. A program that uses more RAM and CPU resources, but is more efficient for a human to use, is usually better than a program that uses few resources, but is counter-intuitive and requires hours of training to use properly.
The mark of a bad, lazy programmer is that he or she always insists that software problems are due to user incompetence.
A machinist who makes 100 pound roofing hammers and then angrily states that they are hard to use because roofers are "weak" is a bad machinist, and that's true even if a few gigantically strong roofers can use the hammers.
Similarly, while we all agree that there will be stupid mistakes no matter what, arguing that problematic software is good but intended users are "too stupid" to use it is silly. That did used to fly in the old glowing green screen days, when preserving mainframe resources was more important than, say, creating software that an intelligent accountant can use without excessive training and experience time. That usually isn't the case any more.
For that matter, even in the 1970's, people used "high level" programming languages, so that they didn't have to write every program in machine code.
So yes, the relatively vast resources of a modern desktop are partly wasted, but they're also partly used to make software use more intuitive and universal, without the need for individual training to use every application. That costs resources, but is worth it.
Gee, harold, what a polymath you are, with your insight into software usability issues and all.
Could you write a little post on the tradeoffs of learning and using a "difficult" text editor like vi or emacs vs the one we must use here for posts?
Otherwise, someone is sure to mumble "Dunning-Kruger" to himself.
I have never been a professional programer, though as a teen, I learned 6502 assembly language and wrote some pretty nice programs using the Apple version of sprites, shape tables. I even created a drawing program that that let you draw in a low res screen, scanned the drawing, converted it to vectors, then instantly compiled the binary file and poked it into the proper memory addresses. This allowed one to immediately try the drawing out with scaling, rotation, and translation in different graphics modes. This was on an early Apple II+, with 64kB RAM. Nowadays, I just crank out scripts in Python or BASIC to solve specific problems like stress, bending, or displacement calculations in an engineering test lab. I use a pocket computer, laptop, or my trusty Ti-92 Plus.
diogeneslamp0 · 22 December 2013
If phht is done insulting Harold, can I ask if anybody has found out where the picture comes from?
phhht · 22 December 2013
diogeneslamp0 said:
If phht is done insulting Harold...
I'm done if harold is done. He invoked the Dunning-Kruger canard in his opposition to my characterization of religious belief as a delusional illness. Now I have reason to reflect the slur, given his ignorant post about software design.
harold · 23 December 2013
phhht said:
diogeneslamp0 said:
If phht is done insulting Harold...
I'm done if harold is done. He invoked the Dunning-Kruger canard in his opposition to my characterization of religious belief as a delusional illness. Now I have reason to reflect the slur, given his ignorant post about software design.
One reply to this.
The test of whether someone is exhibiting Dunning Kruger characteristics is not their background, but the content of their comments.
Could you write a little post on the tradeoffs of learning and using a “difficult” text editor like vi or emacs vs the one we must use here for posts?
Of course I could, but what if you had posted a serious technical challenge that I obviously couldn't meet - create a novel, useful word processing program, written in machine code for a specific platform, or something like that? It would be very, very easy to come up with something.
But the real point is that there is nothing particularly wrong or ill-informed in my original comment. If there is, you certainly didn't point it out.
Meanwhile, your comments about mental illness are persistently ill-informed, derogatory, grounded in commonplace bigoted stereotypes, and easily corrected by anyone who makes a minimal effort at researching the issue.
So at one level, yes, your comments about mental illness are classic examples of Dunning-Kruger effect, whereas my comment about software isn't.
However, the really really important point is "So what?". Let's pretend that my comment about programming really was in some way factually incorrect. Let's pretend that I did exhibit florid Dunning-Kruger tendencies. Would that make you any less wrong about mental illness?
He invoked the Dunning-Kruger canard in his opposition to my characterization of religious belief as a delusional illness. Now I have reason to reflect the slur, given his ignorant post about software design.
For me, the defining trait of intellectual maturity is the ability to tolerate and work with critique of intellectual positions, even to the point of admitting that you are wrong.
I admit that I am wrong all the time. It isn't always easy, but it's professionally necessary, and also useful in my personal life.
Any competent scientist has to be able to deal with critique. There are two types who don't - those who can't from the beginning, who cannot function competently. And those who achieve a prestigious position, after which they indulge in the luxury of egotism and emotional reaction to intellectual critique. The latter group don't necessarily lose their jobs, but their reputation suffers.
Your issue, as you yourself have stated on many occasions, is that you were emotionally abused at a young age by individual members of what you describe, probably accurately, as a particular narrow and fanatical Evangelical Protestant sect. That is a difficult thing to deal with.
As a response to this, you are obsessed with, in your own words, "characterization of religious belief as a delusional illness".
This would be a very hard row to hoe even if you were armed with hard-won expertise.
But you are not. Your comments display a complete lack of knowledge about either any field associated with mental illness, or about any scholarly study of religion (e.g. the study of religion in anthropology, sociology, or philosophy).
You simply repeat the same slogan over and over again. That, and constant mis-statements about the "definition of delusion", is all you ever offer.
Every thread you ever infest is always the same. Some religious person can't prove their beliefs, therefore you declare all religious belief to be a "delusional illness". That's all you ever do, obsessively, repetitively. You do it for hours on the BW here and undoubtedly spend even more of your time doing it elsewhere on the internet.
And you take any critique of this claim as a personal emotional attack, and respond as you do here.
The only reason I bother to object to it is that it is insulting to people who actually do have a delusional illness, vulnerable people who already suffer from stigmatization and discrimination and don't deserve to have their issues minimized, stigmatized and ridiculed. I do understand that this is NOT your intent. You are doing it by accident. You simply hold certain popular social biases. Nevertheless, the net effect is that you are doing it.
You get away with it because there are precious few people who will stand up for the mentally ill.
I don't have any hostility toward you, but I comment in this venue from time to time, and when I do, one of the features of my comments is ALWAYS going to be opposition to the stereotyping, stigmatizing, and ridiculing of mentally ill people, whenever I see it.
In closing, I'm not trying to convince you, or stop you from repeating the same thing over and over again. I can't. I certainly can't do that with internet comments. However, I do hope to increase third party observers' awareness of the stigmatization of mentally ill people, and perhaps to show some of them that, even in the context of insulting people you don't like, pushing negative stereotypes and judgments of people who deal with mental illness is not a very nice thing to do.
phhht · 23 December 2013
harold said:
One reply to this...
No, harold, your post concerning software usability wasn't wrong in any particular. It was just naive, ignorant, shallow, and presumptuous. You assume that your layman's knowledge of how computers work gives you a basis for pronouncements on technical issues about which you apparently know little or nothing.
I've repeatedly asked you for corrections and criticisms of the hypothesis that
religious delusions are caused by a mental disorder, but you've never addressed the substance of the issue. All you can do, it seems, is to hurl abuse. You don't say how the definition of delusion that I propose is wrong, or how it can be improved. All you do is to claim that the hypothesis itself is harmful because it allegedly hurts the feelings of the deluded. Why not show how the hypothesis is wrong,
instead of asserting that it is, as you see it, "stereotyping, stigmatizing, and
ridiculing"?
Oh, and harold, I'm not sure who you think you are talking to, but this isn't me:
Your issue, as you yourself have stated on many occasions, is that you were emotionally abused at a young age by individual members of what you describe, probably accurately, as a particular narrow and fanatical Evangelical Protestant sect.
harold · 23 December 2013
It was just naive, ignorant, shallow, and presumptuous.
Now that's some heavy projection.
You assume that your layman’s knowledge of how computers work gives you a basis for pronouncements on technical issues about which you apparently know little or nothing.
The point of my very brief comment was that software is written for the use of lay people (typically for the use of lay people who have a lot less interest in technology than I do).
Of course lay people can and should make judgments about the end user experience quality of software written to be used by lay people
Your "logic" is the equivalent of arguing that drivers can't comment on the driving quality of cars, because they aren't engineers.
It takes a powerful lack of self-awareness to make that kind of argument.
There are two possible explanations for the way you're behaving here, which are not mutually exclusive. One is simply that you've been lurking around looking for a chance to start a fight because you don't like having your pronouncements that "religion" is a "delusional illness". The other is that you've written some terrible software, been told that it's terrible, and reacted to that with defensive rage, and this brought up a memory.
Your issue, as you yourself have stated on many occasions, is that you were emotionally abused at a young age by individual members of what you describe, probably accurately, as a particular narrow and fanatical Evangelical Protestant sect.
Well, then, I guess I have no reason to cut you slack for acting like a dick all the time.
phhht · 23 December 2013
harold said:
It was just naive, ignorant, shallow, and presumptuous.
Now that's some heavy projection.
You assume that your layman’s knowledge of how computers work gives you a basis for pronouncements on technical issues about which you apparently know little or nothing.
The point of my very brief comment was that software is written for the use of lay people (typically for the use of lay people who have a lot less interest in technology than I do).
Of course lay people can and should make judgments about the end user experience quality of software written to be used by lay people
Your "logic" is the equivalent of arguing that drivers can't comment on the driving quality of cars, because they aren't engineers.
It takes a powerful lack of self-awareness to make that kind of argument.
There are two possible explanations for the way you're behaving here, which are not mutually exclusive. One is simply that you've been lurking around looking for a chance to start a fight because you don't like having your pronouncements that "religion" is a "delusional illness". The other is that you've written some terrible software, been told that it's terrible, and reacted to that with defensive rage, and this brought up a memory.
Your issue, as you yourself have stated on many occasions, is that you were emotionally abused at a young age by individual members of what you describe, probably accurately, as a particular narrow and fanatical Evangelical Protestant sect.
Well, then, I guess I have no reason to cut you slack for acting like a dick all the time.
Why don't we drop the back-and-forth, harold?
Just tell me how you refute the hypothesis that religious delusion is due to a mental disorder.
I'd particularly appreciate it if you would correct or improve the
definition of delusion that I use.
Marilyn · 23 December 2013
I'm worried phhht about what you're saying that religion is a mental disorder, a person might get disillusioned with religion when it does not fulfill what they think it should because they have misinterpreted what religion can fulfill. Some people find genuine hope in the word of God to them it's not a mental disorder it is a remedy for it in a lot of cases. OK some people don't grasp it but there are people who can see something in what is written in the bible that makes sense. The proof of God is when you put something He say's into practice and it works in the way He intended it to. The problem is some people think if they put into practice what they think God should be saying and things don't go right they blame Him. Being mislead by religeon is not a mental disorder, being delusioned by religion is not a mental disorder, it's being too trusting in a religion and not looking to God but looking to religion.
Flint · 23 December 2013
Sheesh, I was just trying to point out that today's vastly more powerful hardware has permitted a qualitative change in the nature of software. It's no longer sufficient to say "it works". Software is assumed to work (though complex systems will have complex bugs, always). But slower, less efficient software is now considered better sofware if it's well documented, well structured, highly modular, has clearly defined interfaces, etc. Execution time has become a MUCH lower priority than development time, debugging time, extension and modification time, learning curve time for the next guy to have to maintain it, etc.
Admittedly, none of this has anything to do with the crackpot textbook or with religion as a mental defect.
apokryltaros · 23 December 2013
Marilyn said:
I'm worried phhht about what you're saying that religion is a mental disorder, a person might get disillusioned with religion when it does not fulfill what they think it should because they have misinterpreted what religion can fulfill. Some people find genuine hope in the word of God to them it's not a mental disorder it is a remedy for it in a lot of cases. OK some people don't grasp it but there are people who can see something in what is written in the bible that makes sense. The proof of God is when you put something He say's into practice and it works in the way He intended it to. The problem is some people think if they put into practice what they think God should be saying and things don't go right they blame Him. Being mislead by religeon is not a mental disorder, being delusioned by religion is not a mental disorder, it's being too trusting in a religion and not looking to God but looking to religion.
As opposed to religious people becoming disillusioned with religion when they realize that their religious leaders have been lying to them, or when they realize that they're being forced to make a choice between having common sense/being a human being or being faithful to their religious vows, at the risk of being socially ostracized, even to the point of suicide?
Dave Luckett · 23 December 2013
phhht asks:
Just tell me how you refute the hypothesis that religious delusion is due to a mental disorder.
I’d particularly appreciate it if you would correct or improve the definition of delusion that I use.
I refute the first by observing that a mental disorder is by definition disabling, and that it must isolate the sufferer from his/her human society. Barring extremes - and any extreme of human behaviour always disables - religion does not disable, and far from isolating, tends to integrate the individual with others. Thus, it is not a disorder in itself.
I have already offered a definition of "delusion" to phhht: a delusion is a belief in an idea that is demonstrably false to fact (and, I should have added, cannot be dispelled by contrary evidence).
This definition he summarily rejected, apparently on the grounds that delusions do not require actual disproof, and that it is by definition a delusion merely if there is no empirical evidence in its favour. I refrained from pointing out that if this is the definition, then most of the human race is deluded most of the time. Not only that: if we accept the further phhht idea that a delusion, by his definition, is evidence of "mental disorder", then most of the human race suffers from a mental disorder.
Phhht can, of course, define his terms as he wills, but I think his definitions are defective because of their indiscrimination. He has previously characterised religion as "the common cold of mental disorders", which appears to imply that he thinks mental disorder is extremely common. The obvious problem, in that case, is that the term "mental disorder" is thus diluted to the point of meaninglessness. What, then, are we to call genuinely disabling and distressing mental disorders, which are horrible afflictions to their sufferers?
But quibbling about definitions is not to the point, really. Phhht's view founders on his varying attitude to "mental disorder" and to "religion". If we are to accept his definition of "delusion", call religious beliefs delusions, and hence call religion a mental disorder, then how are we to account for phhht's manifest contempt for religion? If it is a mental disorder characterised by delusions, then surely the response of a decent human being is concern, pity and care, not contempt and contumely? What is phhht's attitude to paranoid schizophrenia or clinical depression? Anger? Contempt? Disgust? No, plainly not.
Hence, not only are phhht's definitions are to be rejected as impractical; his attitudes are to be rejected as inconsistent. Treat religion with contempt, if you wish. That's up to you. But lumping religious belief in with, say, schizophrenic delusions - which are often terrifying and always disabling - is unwarranted, and the further extension to calling religion a "mental disorder" is more so.
SWT · 23 December 2013
Humpty Dumpty would be proud.
A bit over a week ago, phhht was defining "delusion" as "an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder." When I pointed out the religious belief is hardly idiosyncratic in American culture, he amended his definition by simply eliminating "idiosyncratic." That didn't surprise me. Since phhht desperately wants religious belief to be considered mental dysfunction, he simply excised the word that might have prevented him from doing so.
I was surprised, however, that Dave Luckett accepted that amendment.
"Idiosyncratic" is in the standard definition for a reason. We don't normally consider people who are in error -- even stubbornly in error! -- to be delusional if there is significant social support for their belief. Some of my right-wing friends believe things that are clearly contradicted by fact or can be refuted with the simplest bit of logic, but should not be characterized as delusional because of the extensive social systems that support them in their (mis)beliefs. In my experience, we reserve "delusional" for (to borrow a couple of examples) the guy who thinks Lady Gaga is secretly in love with him and hiding messages for him in her lyrics, or for someone who believes that the Harry Potter books are journalism rather than fiction; you would be hard pressed to find people who would validate either of these beliefs.
If a reasonable portion of the people in a person's culture share that person's error, that person's erroneous belief is not delusional, it is simply incorrect.
Dave Lovell · 24 December 2013
SWT said:
In my experience, we reserve "delusional" for (to borrow a couple of examples) the guy who thinks Lady Gaga is secretly in love with him and hiding messages for him in her lyrics,
Regardless of the relative merits of the arguments, that seems to me a peculiar choice of example. How does your obviously delusional Lady Gaga fan differ from the guy who thinks Jesus loves him and is hiding messages for him in His Book?
SWT · 24 December 2013
Dave Lovell said:
SWT said:
In my experience, we reserve "delusional" for (to borrow a couple of examples) the guy who thinks Lady Gaga is secretly in love with him and hiding messages for him in her lyrics,
Regardless of the relative merits of the arguments, that seems to me a peculiar choice of example. How does your obviously delusional Lady Gaga fan differ from the guy who thinks Jesus loves him and is hiding messages for him in His Book?
The difference is whether or not there is significant social support for a particular belief. A significant fraction of the American population was raised to believe the Jesus loves them and that they can find guidance for their lives in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures -- such a belief is not idiosyncratic and so is not delusional based on the standard definition of "delusion" that I quoted above. That social validation is absent for the Lady Gaga fan.
SWT · 24 December 2013
On reflection, perhaps my previous post might have missed some nuance in Dave Lovell's question.
It is typical and not idiosyncratic for someone to see an application of Biblical principles in their life. For instance, one might read Matthew 25:31-46 and conclude that they should spend more of their time comforting the afflicted. I would not consider someone's belief the Christ has called them to a ministry of compassion to be delusional.
It would be idiosyncratic and not at all typical for someone to believe that a particular piece of scripture was specifically put in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures for him personally (as opposed to being applicable to him). Such a belief likely would be delusional.
harold · 24 December 2013
Dave Lovell said:
SWT said:
In my experience, we reserve "delusional" for (to borrow a couple of examples) the guy who thinks Lady Gaga is secretly in love with him and hiding messages for him in her lyrics,
Regardless of the relative merits of the arguments, that seems to me a peculiar choice of example. How does your obviously delusional Lady Gaga fan differ from the guy who thinks Jesus loves him and is hiding messages for him in His Book?
You got a good, patient answer to this from SWT.
Here's a slightly less patient one. But keep reading, because there's some good news at the end of this comment.
You cherry-picked and quote-mined.
The comment you replied actually not only contained the answer to your question, but in fact, the answer to your question was the general gist of that comment.
But let's go through it again.
Regardless of the relative merits of the arguments, that seems to me a peculiar choice of example. How does your obviously delusional Lady Gaga fan differ from the guy who thinks Jesus loves him and is hiding messages for him in His Book?
Well, these are the flat-out point-blank stunningly-obvious-upon-a-microsecond-of-actual-thought differences.
1) Lady Gaga is alive and can tell you that she isn't in love with the guy. Confusing "something that can be falsified" with "something that can neither be confirmed nor falsified at this time" is a completely shocking logical error. Of course there are ways of expressing that in formal logic, but a child of seven gets the difference between those two concepts.
2) The Lady Gaga example is actually a realistic example of a type of real delusion that some people suffer from. These types of delusions are severely harmful to those who hold them. And to Lady Gaga, too. They cause the delusional person severe emotional pain and social dysfunction. This particular kind of delusion can lead to arrest, involuntary commitment to mental health facilities, and if treatment fails, constant legal restrictions to protect the object of the delusion.
Socially accepted practice of traditionally sanctioned religious rituals is not the same.
Now here's the good news. You said something and were shown to be wrong. Well, here's the silver lining. Now you can demonstrate character and intellectual maturity by just saying "Well, I guess I was wrong. I do see the difference. Thanks to everyone who clarified it for me a second time, and sorry for being a bit dense in my original comment. We all have biases and it it's never easy for anyone not to be influenced by them. Thanks for the interesting and informative exchange."
You could do that. You probably won't. But you might surprise me.
daoudmbo · 24 December 2013
Hmmm, the arguments between Phhht and Harold remind me of a tangent that may only be of interest to me... It reminds of how annoyed I get in the world of internet comments and forums etc. when atheists and so-called rational humanists proclaim proudly that religion is the source of all evil, especially things like wars, and if religion didn't exist, the world would be a peaceful, rational utopia. I think there is no good reason to think that at all, I believe the violent potential in humanity is far deeper than religion, probably an evolved trait, and the worst of religion is just symptomatic of these deeper evolved traits. Human nature can and does corrupt every human activity, religion included. To me, miraculously remove religion, and the world would continue to be a violent place.
and p.s. Harold is correct on this, the belief that ALL religious belief is delusional and a mental disorder is absurd and a fanatical position.
harold · 24 December 2013
Flint said:
Sheesh, I was just trying to point out that today's vastly more powerful hardware has permitted a qualitative change in the nature of software. It's no longer sufficient to say "it works". Software is assumed to work (though complex systems will have complex bugs, always). But slower, less efficient software is now considered better sofware if it's well documented, well structured, highly modular, has clearly defined interfaces, etc. Execution time has become a MUCH lower priority than development time, debugging time, extension and modification time, learning curve time for the next guy to have to maintain it, etc.
Admittedly, none of this has anything to do with the crackpot textbook or with religion as a mental defect.
That's pretty much what I thought you meant.
I focused on the fact that consuming more RAM and CPU resources can be a useful feature, if it makes the application more efficient for the end user.
Another group of people who benefit from what you describe are other programmers, when more than one programmer has to work on the same application.
Some idiosyncratic, hard to use, hard to modify piece of software is not good software, even if it doesn't consume much in the way of RAM or CPU resources.
There's nothing naive about what you are saying, and there's nothing naive about me agreeing with it.
A former business partner of mine was a PhD in electrical engineering. His knowledge of programming, physical sciences, and even probability, was deeper than mine. However, we could discuss those topics intelligently. I know enough basics, and I know where my knowledge ends
In terms of biomedical knowledge there was a more problematic gap. His training was so deficient, and he tended to fill in so many gaps with oversimplified assumptions, that it was hard to figure out which drawing board to go back to. And this was NOT some arrogant crackpot. This was a sincere and rational person.
I realized something that I had not realized before, even though in retrospect it's obvious. Those of us with a biomedical education are required to learn the basics of computer science, physics, chemistry, statistics/probability, and math at least up to the level of first year calculus. A huge proportion of us go further. I'm pretty darned biomedical oriented, but I took extra courses in chemistry and statistics/probability. Biology majors who can write software in multiple languages are a dime a dozen. Biophysics, biochemistry, bioinformatics, etc, are all huge fields, and they all require extensive training in the subject whose name follows the "bio-".
Meanwhile, anything to do with living organisms is purely elective, and frequently avoided, by those in the engineering, computing, and physical sciences world (with a partial exception of chemists). It's not possible to get a biology degree without actual legitimate exposure to the second law of thermodynamics, at least not in most accredited universities. You may forget later, authorities may dispute the proper presentation, you may even graduate without ever having quite understood it perfectly, but at least at some point, you learn quite a bit about it. Enough for me to instantly see that 2LOT arguments against evolution were nonsense, the instant I first encountered one, for example.
Meanwhile, it is possible to get an engineering, computing, or physical science degree without even the most elementary exposure to basic cell biology, molecular biology, biochemistry, classical genetics, etc.
This is one reason why we see much more pure Dunning-Kruger crackpot crap about biology coming out of the engineering, computing, and physical sciences community, than crap about the physical sciences coming out of the biomedical community. In this case, a little knowledge is a valuable thing, not a dangerous thing. I know a lot less about mathematics than Granville Sewell, but Granville Sewell is totally, haplessly, helplessly ignorant of the fundamental basics of biology. If he ever had high school biology it was either restricted to things like frog anatomy, or he's forgotten it, or both. He'd need the equivalent of a year or two of good faith hard study of advanced high school and freshman/sophomore level material to be able to discuss anything biomedical with minimal insight.
Dunning-Kruger thrives best when ignorance is near total.
Dave Lovell · 24 December 2013
Well Harold, I'm rushing this over my last cup of tea before heading off for Christmas, so it may read ruder than it is meant to.
harold said:
You said something and were shown to be wrong.
What I actually did was ask for elaboration from SWT about what seemed to me a curious choice of example. He politely responded with his opinion. Both of these points you acknowledged. Why would "seeing the difference" from his answer make me "wrong"? I had not even commented on whether (in my option) this difference matters. But from the tone of your penultimate paragraph, it seems I am (or might be) "wrong" for no better reason than that I potentially disagree with Harold, and that somehow demonstrates my lack of intellectual maturity.
harold said:
This particular kind of delusion can lead to arrest, involuntary commitment to mental health facilities, and if treatment fails, constant legal restrictions to protect the object of the delusion.
And the other kind delusion leads to flying loaded passenger jets into crowded sky-scrapers. Nothing like as serious then?
From where I'm sitting you and phhht seem to be arguing over nothing more than where along a spectrum of behaviour the line between "deluded" and "not deluded" should be drawn. He thinks many religious people are deluded, you think he should restrict the use of the term to only those amongst them who are deluded.
SWT · 24 December 2013
harold said:
I know a lot less about mathematics than Granville Sewell, but Granville Sewell is totally, haplessly, helplessly ignorant of the fundamental basics of biology.
Sewell's understanding of basic chemical thermodynamics appears to be no better than his understanding of basic biology. When he tries to go from there into nonequilibrium thermodynamics, the result is astonishingly bad.
Matt Young · 24 December 2013
Just tell me how you refute the hypothesis that religious delusion is due to a mental disorder.
May I add to the other interesting comments: You have stated a hypothesis, that religious delusion is a mental disorder. You should really have said "religious belief," because the delusional nature of the belief has not been established. The difference between delusional and merely deluded has already been discussed.
At any rate, it is not up to us to disprove your claim; as the person making the claim, you have the obligation to prove it. It is hard to disprove unfounded claims; as Russell said, you cannot disprove his belief that a teapot orbits the sun somewhere. Nor, come to think of it, that the moon landings were faked.
So please form your hypothesis correctly and test it against reality: If religious belief is delusional in the sense that psychiatrists use the term, then something must follow. Make your hypothesis testable. Until you can do that, please do not ask us to refute your claim, which barely rises to the level of a speculation.
Duncan Buell · 24 December 2013
This thread is moving into some of my territory, so I will comment. My father went to Huntspatch in about 1951 in the first group of civilian engineers to study rockets from von Braun (quite literally). We were there on the beach when the first Chrysler Redstone launched, and then when the first Vanguard blew up on the pad. When the science teacher at my sister's high school insisted that the moon landing was a fake, my father and a couple of his colleagues showed up to demand either a retraction or a firing; what they had been working toward since the early 1950s (Kennedy's speech co-opted work that had been ongoing for years) was not something they were going to allow to be repudiated by an unqualified teacher.
At a NASA conference about ten years ago, a group of old-timers talked about software. The lunar lander, they said, had 36 thousand bytes of storage. They argued that software sucked now because it was no longer necessary to code carefully due to resource constraints. As a computer science professor, I tend to agree. One can be sloppy and not notice it most of the time.
phhht · 24 December 2013
Matt Young said:
Just tell me how you refute the hypothesis that religious delusion is due to a mental disorder.
May I add to the other interesting comments: You have stated a hypothesis, that religious delusion is a mental disorder. You should really have said "religious belief," because the delusional nature of the belief has not been established. The difference between delusional and merely deluded has already been discussed.
At any rate, it is not up to us to disprove your claim; as the person making the claim, you have the obligation to prove it. It is hard to disprove unfounded claims; as Russell said, you cannot disprove his belief that a teapot orbits the sun somewhere. Nor, come to think of it, that the moon landings were faked.
So please form your hypothesis correctly and test it against reality: If religious belief is delusional in the sense that psychiatrists use the term, then something must follow. Make your hypothesis testable. Until you can do that, please do not ask us to refute your claim, which barely rises to the level of a speculation.
I'm going to withdraw from this conversation, since it seems to generate a good deal more heat than light. I'll make a couple of
comments and go.
I say "delusion" rather that "belief" because not all beliefs are delusions.
I don't know how to test the hypothesis. How does one test the assertion that the belief that Lady Gaga is secretly in love with you is delusional?
From what I have read, sufferers from delusional disorders sometimes
function well and fully in their lives. Their is no apparent disability.
Just Bob · 24 December 2013
Duncan Buell said:
When the science teacher at my sister's high school insisted that the moon landing was a fake, my father and a couple of his colleagues showed up to demand either a retraction or a firing
I love it! So how did it turn out?
Just Bob · 24 December 2013
It seems that the problem is: what constitutes a delusion?
Is it a debilitating mental illness? (voices in the head)
Is it an idiosyncratic weird belief that nevertheless allows the person to function well in society? (the CIA/mob/Castro/KGB assassinated JFK)
Or is it merely a belief that is simply wrong, perhaps widely held, perhaps rare? Was Linnaeus deluded in thinking that giraffes got longer necks because their parents reached up with theirs? Was most of the world deluded when most people thought the Earth was flat, or were they just wrong? How about people who think that today?
I had not even commented on whether (in my option) this difference matters. But from the tone of your penultimate paragraph, it seems I am (or might be) “wrong” for no better reason than that I potentially disagree with Harold, and that somehow demonstrates my lack of intellectual maturity.
Let me preface my comments by saying that my intent here is not to hurt your feelings.
I was actually accused of not wanting to "butt hurt" people earlier, and that's true.
Unfortunately, many people insist on engaging in intellectual discourse, and then react with angry emotion to critique of their ideas.
There is no possible way to be polite to such people. One is left with the choice of either ignoring them, or responding logically. In either case they will react with an inappropriate negative burst of emotion.
My comment here IS polite - I'm not threatening you, using foul language, making obnoxious speculations about your personal life, using epithets, nor anything of the sort. You'll perceive it as a personal attack. You'll respond by making ever angrier, less polite, and less well-thought-out comments. I can safely predict that. But that isn't me. That's you.
There are many people who disagree with me on many things, whose intellectual maturity I nevertheless respect. You aren't one of them. You could change that at any time, but experience leads to predict that you won't.
And the other kind delusion leads to flying loaded passenger jets into crowded sky-scrapers. Nothing like as serious then?
One thing I've learned - when someone makes a comment that is this unbelievably stupid, far stupider than they are in general as an individual, some other type of psychological process is at play.
I'm not calling Dave Lovell stupid, I'm calling this comment stupid. Mind-bogglingly stupid. The logical errors are so many and so obvious that it is painful to list them all.
Let's see - in the history of the world, once, for complex reasons, a group of ostensibly religious young terrorists committed a horrific atrocity by flying airplanes into buildings full of innocent people.
Dave Lovell claims that this supports the contention that all people who engage in socially sanctioned traditional religious behavior suffer from a delusional mental illness.
Let me reiterate a critical point here - it isn't the stupidly unfair attack on religious people that bothers me, at least not much. Religious people as a group are dong very well and can take care of themselves. This comment is a stupid, unfair attack on religious people who aren't terrorists, but I'm bothered more when vulnerable groups are picked on. What annoys me is the implied stigmatization and denigration of people with mental illness, and the implied minimization of their problems. Would you criticize a group of people you don't like by saying that "they act like such and such an ethnic group"? Hopefully you wouldn't. Doing the same thing to people who have or have had mental illness is just as bad. It is not nice to analogize everything you don't like to mental illness, while using insulting-sounding terms to describe the mentally ill.
Now let's actually bother to logically address the claim.
1) Committing inhumane atrocities is neither specific nor sensitive for a diagnosis of a mental illness with delusions. The unspeakably overwhelming majority of mentally ill people don't commit atrocities. Many people who are not mentally ill, by expert consensus standards, commit atrocities.
2) Committing inhumane atrocities is not specific to religious people either. Some people who commit atrocities are overt atheists. Pol Pot. Stalin. I believe several serial killers have been professed atheists. Religious people commit atrocities too. And historically, there have always been more religious people than overt atheists, so probably if we tried to make a big list of all atrocities, we'd find more religious people involved. But there is no lack of atheists.
Conclusion - the fact that the inhumane terrorists behind the World Trade Center atrocity were ostensibly religious does not in any way, shape, or form support the argument that "all religious people have a delusional illness".
It is a sad state of affairs that I have to spell this out.
Flint · 25 December 2013
Duncan Buell said:
At a NASA conference about ten years ago, a group of old-timers talked about software. The lunar lander, they said, had 36 thousand bytes of storage. They argued that software sucked now because it was no longer necessary to code carefully due to resource constraints. As a computer science professor, I tend to agree. One can be sloppy and not notice it most of the time.
As a programmer, I think you are facing in the wrong direction. In the early days, hardware resource constraints forced software to do strange things. Things like self-modifying code, and taking advantage of data coincidences to impose overlapping definitions. Even bugs in the CPU were fair game to cut corners. All necessary at the time.
Today there are of course STILL resource constraints, but those constraints are not imposed by the hardware any more, but rather by what boils down to money considerations. Programmer training times, learning curves, modification time, extension time, etc. Well-written code in the early days made maximum use of even accidental side-effects, and was often brutal to modify without introducing errors elsewhere in unexpected ways. Today, this is not only no longer necessary, it's considered Very Bad Form, a firing offense!
One example: Recently a programmer I know (writing firmware) used what amounted to a repeat-until loop rather than a while-condition-do loop, because it saved several bytes of space and quite a few clocks, and he KNEW there would always be at least one data structure for the loop to process. And meanwhile, another programmer working on the code rewrote the entire user interface which generated the data structures, with the result that the default was no structures at all. Result: repeat-until loop snags garbage from undefined memory location, and either crashes immediately or corrupts something causing trouble downstream (typical). Took half a dozen programmers armed with ICE boxes two weeks to track this down, because there were no mistakes anywhere in the code. Simply an ill-defined interface.
Needless to say, the argument that the repeat-until loop "saved" time and space wasn't very persuasive. The hardware limitations in the old days required bad code.
Flint · 25 December 2013
Incidentally, here is a wonderful wonderful free-verse account of how Real Programmers did it in the early days. This is a joy for any programmer to read:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
phhht · 25 December 2013
harold said:
I had not even commented on whether (in my option) this difference matters. But from the tone of your penultimate paragraph, it seems I am (or might be) “wrong” for no better reason than that I potentially disagree with Harold, and that somehow demonstrates my lack of intellectual maturity.
Let me preface my comments by saying that my intent here is not to hurt your feelings.
I was actually accused of not wanting to "butt hurt" people earlier, and that's true.
Unfortunately, many people insist on engaging in intellectual discourse, and then react with angry emotion to critique of their ideas.
There is no possible way to be polite to such people. One is left with the choice of either ignoring them, or responding logically. In either case they will react with an inappropriate negative burst of emotion.
My comment here IS polite - I'm not threatening you, using foul language, making obnoxious speculations about your personal life, using epithets, nor anything of the sort. You'll perceive it as a personal attack. You'll respond by making ever angrier, less polite, and less well-thought-out comments. I can safely predict that. But that isn't me. That's you.
There are many people who disagree with me on many things, whose intellectual maturity I nevertheless respect. You aren't one of them. You could change that at any time, but experience leads to predict that you won't.
And the other kind delusion leads to flying loaded passenger jets into crowded sky-scrapers. Nothing like as serious then?
One thing I've learned - when someone makes a comment that is this unbelievably stupid, far stupider than they are in general as an individual, some other type of psychological process is at play.
I'm not calling Dave Lovell stupid, I'm calling this comment stupid. Mind-bogglingly stupid. The logical errors are so many and so obvious that it is painful to list them all.
Let's see - in the history of the world, once, for complex reasons, a group of ostensibly religious young terrorists committed a horrific atrocity by flying airplanes into buildings full of innocent people.
Dave Lovell claims that this supports the contention that all people who engage in socially sanctioned traditional religious behavior suffer from a delusional mental illness.
Let me reiterate a critical point here - it isn't the stupidly unfair attack on religious people that bothers me, at least not much. Religious people as a group are dong very well and can take care of themselves. This comment is a stupid, unfair attack on religious people who aren't terrorists, but I'm bothered more when vulnerable groups are picked on. What annoys me is the implied stigmatization and denigration of people with mental illness, and the implied minimization of their problems. Would you criticize a group of people you don't like by saying that "they act like such and such an ethnic group"? Hopefully you wouldn't. Doing the same thing to people who have or have had mental illness is just as bad. It is not nice to analogize everything you don't like to mental illness, while using insulting-sounding terms to describe the mentally ill.
Now let's actually bother to logically address the claim.
1) Committing inhumane atrocities is neither specific nor sensitive for a diagnosis of a mental illness with delusions. The unspeakably overwhelming majority of mentally ill people don't commit atrocities. Many people who are not mentally ill, by expert consensus standards, commit atrocities.
2) Committing inhumane atrocities is not specific to religious people either. Some people who commit atrocities are overt atheists. Pol Pot. Stalin. I believe several serial killers have been professed atheists. Religious people commit atrocities too. And historically, there have always been more religious people than overt atheists, so probably if we tried to make a big list of all atrocities, we'd find more religious people involved. But there is no lack of atheists.
Conclusion - the fact that the inhumane terrorists behind the World Trade Center atrocity were ostensibly religious does not in any way, shape, or form support the argument that "all religious people have a delusional illness".
It is a sad state of affairs that I have to spell this out.
Hey harold, a day after leaving the conversation, and I find I've still got your goat. Here, take it back. It's far too self-righteous for me to keep.
Dave Luckett · 25 December 2013
You seem to be collecting them, phhht. You've got mine, too.
phhht · 26 December 2013
Dave Luckett said:
You seem to be collecting them, phhht. You've got mine, too.
Why is that, Dave?
Tell me why I've got your goat.
Dave Luckett · 26 December 2013
Did you ever hear Winston Churchill's definition of "fanatic"?
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
Prove you're not a fanatic, phhht. Then I'll take my goat back.
phhht · 26 December 2013
Dave Luckett said:
Did you ever hear Winston Churchill's definition of "fanatic"?
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
Prove you're not a fanatic, phhht. Then I'll take my goat back.
That's beneath you, Dave.
Just Bob · 26 December 2013
phhht said:
That's beneath you, Dave.
Dave is beneath most of us, living Down Under.
But he still stands tall.
Or maybe he hangs far off the bottom of the world.
Henry J · 26 December 2013
And his internet hookup is on the LAN down under?
JoeBuddha · 29 December 2013
In re: Incidentally, here is a wonderful wonderful free-verse account of how Real Programmers did it in the early days.
As a former assembler programmer, I heard about drum systems, but never dealt with them. I have done the "optimize the hell out of the code because you don't have any room" thing. Now, however, we have the luxury of coding in a way that the next poor sod has a snowball's chance of figuring out what you did so he can fix your screw-ups. Modern code may not be as efficient, but it's a lot more maintainable.
Jedidiah · 14 February 2014
Maybe it's a demonstration of how it's possible to have silly debates, and the next page talks about how people want to debate about literal creationism.
70 Comments
Dave Thomas · 21 December 2013
Where'd you get this, Matt? Is this Poe?
DavidK · 21 December 2013
It has to be from a christian home schooler workbook.
Matt Young · 21 December 2013
tomh · 21 December 2013
A commenter on this site claims that it was “Found in an English textbook from South Korea.”
https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad · 21 December 2013
I suspect that the scientists who wonder if humans went to the moon or not are the same ones who wonder if the platypus is a hybrid of beavers and ducks, or if Noah's Ark is on Mt. Ararat or off in Iran or somewhere else.
Or, as the History Channel would ask, was it ALIENS?
Glen Davidson
fnxtr · 21 December 2013
Next band name: The Whethermen.
fnxtr · 21 December 2013
That's it. Gonna call my next band The Whethermen.
fnxtr · 21 December 2013
sorry, that wasn't worth repeating.
thomasjneal.nz · 21 December 2013
DS · 21 December 2013
Please name one real scientist who doesn't believe that the moon missions were real. A real scientist who works in the aerospace industry, or is at least an astronomer. And please be more specific, how many scientists are "some"? Also, please state how many real scientists actually worked on the Apollo missions, including all of the technicians in mission control. How many of them claim that it was all a hoax? How many of the astronauts who actually claimed that they walked on the moon later claimed that it was a hoax? How many scientists named Steve claim it was a hoax? How many moon rocks were brought back? How many scientists worked on them? DId any of them think it was a hoax? How about the scientists who bounce laser beams off of the reflectors left on the moon in order t measure the rate at which the moon is receding from the earth? Do they all claim it was a hoax?
Interestingly enough, I just read a science fiction book that speculated the Neil Armstrong was actually the third person who walked on the moon and NASA covered it up because ... Well I guess you'll just have to read the book.
jsplegge · 21 December 2013
Nits:
That picture is NOT Apollo 11 / Eagle. It's at least Apollo 15.
The text seems to imply that Michael Collins landed with Neil & Buzz.
Sloppy at best.
TomS · 21 December 2013
Dave Luckett · 21 December 2013
The trouble is that the last of the moon landings happened nearly forty years ago. It becomes more and more incredible that it was done at all. Even now, even as we speak, the generation that went to the moon has passed. Now we have iPods and cameras in our mobile phones, not moon landers. People look at the Apollo technology with amused horror, now. So clunky! So primitive!
After all, we cross the Atlantic in a few hours now, so Columbus couldn't have done it in a caravel. So that's a hoax. Must be.
And my son has never seen a moon launch. I'm sad for him. Sad for his entire generation. Damn it all, where's the moon base? Where's the Mars missions?
I see that NASA is tinkering with an FTL drive. Let it be real. I know it probably isn't, but let it be real. And if that's a prayer, then that's what it is.
Ed Darrell · 21 December 2013
I've seen suggestions that the art and layout look like ABEKA texts, and the one that fits would be Observing God's World.
Anybody got an ABEKA set handy to check?
Matt Young · 21 December 2013
A Beka Book. Named after Rebekah Someone. You can get Observing God's World for 99¢ on E-Bay -- looks like a 6th grade book.
SWT · 21 December 2013
DavidK · 21 December 2013
Interesting reference about A Beka Books:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Beka_Book
https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawm-WhebH0itIDDTj06EQo2vtiF0BBqF10Q · 22 December 2013
The only appropriate answer regarding Apollo 11.
KlausH · 22 December 2013
KlausH · 22 December 2013
Sorry, it was 1989 that I used CAD-3D on the ST.
harold · 22 December 2013
garystar1 · 22 December 2013
Here's a different slant on the moon landings. He says that he's not certain that we landed on the moon, but he knows for certain that they could not have been faked.
https://me.yahoo.com/a/GQ2PdCNxj48x_4wgJHDmevkyD3r_p5YA#ff82e · 22 December 2013
The REAL hoax is the claim that we can't afford to maintain a viable space exploration program. That's as annoying or more so than the Apollo hoaxers.
Bill Gascoyne · 22 December 2013
Henry J · 22 December 2013
Paul Burnett · 22 December 2013
Several Apollo landings (11, 14, 15) deployed Lunar Laser Ranging Retroreflectors, which were detectable from earth by pulsing a laser toward the moon and observing the return flash. Something increased the reflection of laser light from the moon as soon as the astronauts (purportedly) deployed the reflectors, and the simplest hypothesis is that the landings actually took place.
TomS · 22 December 2013
As usual, you make very good points.
If one has even the least familiarity with the history of thought, one cannot but be struck by just how hard-won our present state has been. So many people struggling with really difficult questions, trying out every possibility, and, far too often, getting in trouble with the powerful. It is frightening to think of how easily this could be lost. It isn't so much a matter of the particular issue, as that the denialists are driven to the extreme, and they gladly embrace it, of overthrowing our ability to come to reasonable conclusions from data, only to replace it with nothing. If this is lost, how much work, how much time, would it be to recover it - if ever?
Matt Young · 22 December 2013
Flint · 22 December 2013
harold · 22 December 2013
phhht · 22 December 2013
Robert Byers · 22 December 2013
This comment has been moved to The Bathroom Wall.
KlausH · 22 December 2013
I have never been a professional programer, though as a teen, I learned 6502 assembly language and wrote some pretty nice programs using the Apple version of sprites, shape tables. I even created a drawing program that that let you draw in a low res screen, scanned the drawing, converted it to vectors, then instantly compiled the binary file and poked it into the proper memory addresses. This allowed one to immediately try the drawing out with scaling, rotation, and translation in different graphics modes. This was on an early Apple II+, with 64kB RAM.
Nowadays, I just crank out scripts in Python or BASIC to solve specific problems like stress, bending, or displacement calculations in an engineering test lab. I use a pocket computer, laptop, or my trusty Ti-92 Plus.
diogeneslamp0 · 22 December 2013
If phht is done insulting Harold, can I ask if anybody has found out where the picture comes from?
phhht · 22 December 2013
harold · 23 December 2013
phhht · 23 December 2013
harold · 23 December 2013
phhht · 23 December 2013
Marilyn · 23 December 2013
I'm worried phhht about what you're saying that religion is a mental disorder, a person might get disillusioned with religion when it does not fulfill what they think it should because they have misinterpreted what religion can fulfill. Some people find genuine hope in the word of God to them it's not a mental disorder it is a remedy for it in a lot of cases. OK some people don't grasp it but there are people who can see something in what is written in the bible that makes sense. The proof of God is when you put something He say's into practice and it works in the way He intended it to. The problem is some people think if they put into practice what they think God should be saying and things don't go right they blame Him. Being mislead by religeon is not a mental disorder, being delusioned by religion is not a mental disorder, it's being too trusting in a religion and not looking to God but looking to religion.
Flint · 23 December 2013
Sheesh, I was just trying to point out that today's vastly more powerful hardware has permitted a qualitative change in the nature of software. It's no longer sufficient to say "it works". Software is assumed to work (though complex systems will have complex bugs, always). But slower, less efficient software is now considered better sofware if it's well documented, well structured, highly modular, has clearly defined interfaces, etc. Execution time has become a MUCH lower priority than development time, debugging time, extension and modification time, learning curve time for the next guy to have to maintain it, etc.
Admittedly, none of this has anything to do with the crackpot textbook or with religion as a mental defect.
apokryltaros · 23 December 2013
Dave Luckett · 23 December 2013
SWT · 23 December 2013
Humpty Dumpty would be proud.
A bit over a week ago, phhht was defining "delusion" as "an idiosyncratic belief or impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality or rational argument, typically a symptom of mental disorder." When I pointed out the religious belief is hardly idiosyncratic in American culture, he amended his definition by simply eliminating "idiosyncratic." That didn't surprise me. Since phhht desperately wants religious belief to be considered mental dysfunction, he simply excised the word that might have prevented him from doing so.
I was surprised, however, that Dave Luckett accepted that amendment.
"Idiosyncratic" is in the standard definition for a reason. We don't normally consider people who are in error -- even stubbornly in error! -- to be delusional if there is significant social support for their belief. Some of my right-wing friends believe things that are clearly contradicted by fact or can be refuted with the simplest bit of logic, but should not be characterized as delusional because of the extensive social systems that support them in their (mis)beliefs. In my experience, we reserve "delusional" for (to borrow a couple of examples) the guy who thinks Lady Gaga is secretly in love with him and hiding messages for him in her lyrics, or for someone who believes that the Harry Potter books are journalism rather than fiction; you would be hard pressed to find people who would validate either of these beliefs.
If a reasonable portion of the people in a person's culture share that person's error, that person's erroneous belief is not delusional, it is simply incorrect.
Dave Lovell · 24 December 2013
SWT · 24 December 2013
SWT · 24 December 2013
On reflection, perhaps my previous post might have missed some nuance in Dave Lovell's question.
It is typical and not idiosyncratic for someone to see an application of Biblical principles in their life. For instance, one might read Matthew 25:31-46 and conclude that they should spend more of their time comforting the afflicted. I would not consider someone's belief the Christ has called them to a ministry of compassion to be delusional.
It would be idiosyncratic and not at all typical for someone to believe that a particular piece of scripture was specifically put in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures for him personally (as opposed to being applicable to him). Such a belief likely would be delusional.
harold · 24 December 2013
daoudmbo · 24 December 2013
Hmmm, the arguments between Phhht and Harold remind me of a tangent that may only be of interest to me... It reminds of how annoyed I get in the world of internet comments and forums etc. when atheists and so-called rational humanists proclaim proudly that religion is the source of all evil, especially things like wars, and if religion didn't exist, the world would be a peaceful, rational utopia. I think there is no good reason to think that at all, I believe the violent potential in humanity is far deeper than religion, probably an evolved trait, and the worst of religion is just symptomatic of these deeper evolved traits. Human nature can and does corrupt every human activity, religion included. To me, miraculously remove religion, and the world would continue to be a violent place.
and p.s. Harold is correct on this, the belief that ALL religious belief is delusional and a mental disorder is absurd and a fanatical position.
harold · 24 December 2013
Dave Lovell · 24 December 2013
SWT · 24 December 2013
Matt Young · 24 December 2013
Duncan Buell · 24 December 2013
This thread is moving into some of my territory, so I will comment. My father went to Huntspatch in about 1951 in the first group of civilian engineers to study rockets from von Braun (quite literally). We were there on the beach when the first Chrysler Redstone launched, and then when the first Vanguard blew up on the pad. When the science teacher at my sister's high school insisted that the moon landing was a fake, my father and a couple of his colleagues showed up to demand either a retraction or a firing; what they had been working toward since the early 1950s (Kennedy's speech co-opted work that had been ongoing for years) was not something they were going to allow to be repudiated by an unqualified teacher.
At a NASA conference about ten years ago, a group of old-timers talked about software. The lunar lander, they said, had 36 thousand bytes of storage. They argued that software sucked now because it was no longer necessary to code carefully due to resource constraints. As a computer science professor, I tend to agree. One can be sloppy and not notice it most of the time.
phhht · 24 December 2013
Just Bob · 24 December 2013
Just Bob · 24 December 2013
It seems that the problem is: what constitutes a delusion?
Is it a debilitating mental illness? (voices in the head)
Is it an idiosyncratic weird belief that nevertheless allows the person to function well in society? (the CIA/mob/Castro/KGB assassinated JFK)
Or is it merely a belief that is simply wrong, perhaps widely held, perhaps rare? Was Linnaeus deluded in thinking that giraffes got longer necks because their parents reached up with theirs? Was most of the world deluded when most people thought the Earth was flat, or were they just wrong? How about people who think that today?
Matt Young · 24 December 2013
Flint (on another thread) has just recommended 7 Reasons Why It's Easier for Humans to Believe in God Than Evolution by Chris Mooney. Well worth reading and relevant to this thread.
harold · 25 December 2013
Flint · 25 December 2013
Flint · 25 December 2013
Incidentally, here is a wonderful wonderful free-verse account of how Real Programmers did it in the early days. This is a joy for any programmer to read:
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
phhht · 25 December 2013
Dave Luckett · 25 December 2013
You seem to be collecting them, phhht. You've got mine, too.
phhht · 26 December 2013
Dave Luckett · 26 December 2013
Did you ever hear Winston Churchill's definition of "fanatic"?
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
Prove you're not a fanatic, phhht. Then I'll take my goat back.
phhht · 26 December 2013
Just Bob · 26 December 2013
Henry J · 26 December 2013
And his internet hookup is on the LAN down under?
JoeBuddha · 29 December 2013
In re: Incidentally, here is a wonderful wonderful free-verse account of how Real Programmers did it in the early days.
As a former assembler programmer, I heard about drum systems, but never dealt with them. I have done the "optimize the hell out of the code because you don't have any room" thing. Now, however, we have the luxury of coding in a way that the next poor sod has a snowball's chance of figuring out what you did so he can fix your screw-ups. Modern code may not be as efficient, but it's a lot more maintainable.
Jedidiah · 14 February 2014
Maybe it's a demonstration of how it's possible to have silly debates, and the next page talks about how people want to debate about literal creationism.