Pinker defends/answers questions on The Better Angels of Our Nature

First, H/T Jery Coyne.

Pinker's FAQ on The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined is very well worth reading in itself - whether you've broached his huge book or not. He deals very well with furphies, such as the idea that violence is caused by godlessness or that the overall decline of violence across the centuries should be credited to Christianity.

But do the read the book itself (I've now finished it). It is so complex and information-packed that it defies any brief review, and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to find the time to write a review that does it justice. Just go and read it for yourself - really! The scholarly breadth and depth are extraordinarily impressive, the analysis is refreshingly level-headed, and the style is so clear, vivid, and lively that the book is simply a joy to read.

The Better Angels of Our Nature is definitely my number 1 book for 2011. Nothing else I've read this year even rivals it, and I can't see anything surpassing it at this late stage (though I do have a list of books that I'm eager to get to over Christmas and in early 2012 ... a few of them are sitting beside me even now, crying out loudly for my attention!).

10 (alleged) myths about introverts

Not sure whether all of this article is correct, but it's interesting to me as someone who is decidedly introverted.

As with all exercises that involve compiling lists of myths, there are two main questions. First, are these myths really Out There, i.e. do a lot of people really think these things? Second, are these things actually false? If they turn out to be largely true, after all, we can't call them myths.

What do you think? Some of the points made certainly match up with my experience (e.g. the point about having a rather small number of very treasured friends). Others do not so much, but they are obviously (I dare say) meant to be generalisations rather than descriptions of me in particular! As a matter of fact, the author says it's based on his own experience, so if anything it's a description of him. How well does it generalise?

Sunday supervillainy - re: "just sayin'"

See a stoush about sales numbers on Amazing Spider-Man over here. Also (which is more elevating than a clash of proud people being uncharitable to each other) some insight into the Spidey/MJ/ break-up-their-marriage business. J. Michael Straczynski was clearly not happy about the editorial mandate for this.

H/T Scans Daily, which also has a thread on this little train wreck.

That list again ... some funny things were said

Leaving aside the choice of people for the "50 Top Atheists in the World" list, discussed in the previous post, some things said about them are very odd. Take this on Jerry Coyne:

Coyne is Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. Educated at Harvard University, where he studied under Richard Lewontin, he is a specialist in the problem of speciation. He runs a web site called Why Evolution Is True, and has published a bestselling book by the same name. He is a frequent contributor to The New Republic, The Times Literary Supplement, and other prominent publications. He confesses to impatience with the New Atheists, remarking: “[H]ow much is there to say about a movement whose members are united, after all, by only one thing: disbelief in divine beings and a respect for reason and evidence. What more is there to say?”

Jerry can speak for himself, but I doubt that very much that he has expressed impatience with the New Atheists - he'd often be categorised as one himself. In the quote (and elsewhere no doubt) he expresses impatience with the labels "New Atheist" and "New Atheism", as we all have from time to time. That is something totally different.

After all, these labels were not self-chosen, and they are often used as tools of denigration ... something that happens in the list itself, which frequently makes uncritical references to such things as "the dogmatism of the New Atheists".

Moreover, it tends to diminish the contributions of individuals if they are all thought to be saying the same thing - Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and so on, are not merely clones of each other. They are allies in many ways, no doubt, but there would be very little in their thought that can be reduced to a lowest common denominator. These people deserve to be engaged with individually, and the "New Atheist" label tends to elide what is distinctive about them.

Edit: I see that Jerry has had a bit to say himself, including that the site seems like it might be some kind of creationist front.

"50 Top Atheists in the World Today"

This seems to be a rather eccentric list of leading contemporary atheists: supposedly "50 Top Atheists in the World Today". Some of the people there are rather questionable for such a list - but that's almost a matter of taste when you're looking at folks from so many backgrounds and it's largely comparing apples with oranges.

Conversely, and perhaps more importantly, some major contributors to the philosophical defence of atheism are not there at all. Given that Michael Martin and Quentin Smith are ranked so high, why are Graham Oppy and Michael Tooley (for example) not there, and in positions almost as high?

However, there are some pleasing inclusions that I wouldn't have expected, such as Sumitra Padmanabhan. (Then again, if you're going to include her, which I totally support, why not also include Prabir Ghosh, who actually has a higher profile ... or so I would have imagined?)

All in all it's a bit weird.

For what it's worth, about 8 or 9 of the 50 people on the list contributed to 50 Voices of Disbelief. (I suppose I should count again to check the exact number, but laziness overcomes me...) The person who comes highest on the list, Peter Singer, is one of our contributors.

I'm not saying that that's a high figure, or that it proves anything one way or another. I was just interested to have a look at the list and do a rough comparison.

A review of 50 Voices of Disbelief in the International Journal for Psychology of Religion

This review of 50 Voices of Disbelief is largely an attempt to categorise the arguments from a psychological perspective. It's still a positive review overall, and I found it quite interesting the way the author goes about pigeonholing the contributors. It concludes:

It is clear from reading this book that there are plenty of reasons for not believing in a god. Some that are offered in this book are clearly more compelling and more widely cited than others. And, at least as far as this book is concerned, people’s reasons for not believing appear to be related to how they feel religion has oppressed them. Scholars interested in a nonrandom
sample of generally well-written reasons for disbelief may find this book of interest.

H/T Udo (again)

Review of 50 Voices of Disbelief in Theology, Ethics and Philosophy

This is a rather critical review of 50 Voices of Disbelief, by a Catholic theologian, but one that might help sell the book for all that.

It concludes:

Many well-known atheists teaching at major universities all over the world are included here: Nicholas Everitt, J.L. Schellenberg, J.J.C. Smart, Graham Oppy, Sean Carroll, Victor Stenger, Austin Dacey, Susan Blackmore, Peter Singer, and Michael Tooley all finally get to tell their stories to a much wider readership.

H/T Udo.

Still reading - The Better Angels of Our Nature

I'm just checking in here to say that this is a very rich and rewarding book - it's full of fascinating discussions, and I've gotta marvel at the enormous amount of material that Steven Pinker has pulled together to advance his (complicated) thesis.

I've just been reading his take on the Flynn Effect: the increasingly high IQs of each cohort over the years, since intelligence tests were invented. Or, rather, the increasing difficulty in performing well on IQ tests: IQ testing is continually updated to keep the average IQ at 100. An "average" person today, measured by her score in an intelligence test, would obtain a score markedly above 100 if sent back in a time machine to be tested, say, 70 years ago. An average person from 70 years ago (whisked forward in the same time machine) would achieve a very low score if measured by a modern intelligence test.

Why might that be so? Average people in the World War II era were not incompetent at managing their daily lives. They were not lacking in the ability to express themselves and get along. They did not falter when confronted by simple arithmetic. Someone from that era who might score, say, 80 on a modern intelligence test would probably seem very different from a contemporary person who gets that score on a modern intelligence test - someone who probably struggles in a lot of ways.

Pinker doesn't put it like this, but it may look as if intelligence tests measure the relative "intelligence" of people within a cohort - i.e. they compare something, or a cluster of "somethings", among these people. However, so it may appear, they only work to compare people of more or less the same generation. You can't straightforwardly compare the results of people from different generations on the same test. (This may also apply to people from different geographic localities, and perhaps different cultures, sub-cultures, etc.)

Is that right? Is it the whole story? Or is there some sense in which people really are getting smarter? If so, what are the implications?

I won't go into Pinker's answers today, except to say that his take on it is eye-opening if he's correct and that, to me, a lay person in this area, it seems plausible. Perhaps he's wrong, and this may come out as reviews of the book accumulate (some will be written by people with expertise in the area), but perhaps not.

His discussion of the issue, as he lays out the conundrum, zeroes in on an explanation ... and draws some conclusions with dramatic implications if they are correct ... is not merely adroit, although it certainly is that. It is positively exciting.

Again, this is how a non-fiction book should be written if it aims to entertain and involve - as well as instruct - a broad educated audience. Pinker provides a model for us all, not necessarily one we can match, or one that will suit every topic without modification, but definitely one we can aspire to. I'm loving it.

An article on religious belief in Australia

H/T Brian for pointing this out on the other thread.

Extract:

Correspondingly, there has been a large increase in those claiming to have ‘no religion’: up from 27 per cent of the population in 1993 to 43 per cent in 2009. This figure is much higher than the figure of 19 per cent who said they had no religion in the 2006 Census as well as previous ISSP surveys. The difference is partly due to the fact that the 2009 ISSP asked people first if they had a religion before asking what was their religion. In other surveys and the Census, people have simply chosen their religion from a list in which 'no religion' was an option. Further, the Census question is marked as optional and a lot of people choose not to respond to the Census question about religion (11.2 per cent compared with around 3 per cent in the ISSP surveys). The other difference is that the surveys tend to reflect better where people feel themselves to be because they ask a distinct question about what religion they were raised in. Many people respond to the Census in terms of the heritage of the family or their personal background rather than their present sense of identification. The survey provides a more accurate picture of how many Australians currently regard themselves as having ‘no religion’.

It's an interesting and detailed study, which delves more deeply into the nature of religious belief, non-belief, etc., in Australia, and doubtless captures more of the reality than the census figures. If anything, though, it shows even more strongly than the census figures that serious religious belief is in decline in Australia. Worryingly for the churches, people from the first generation where non-belief became very common do not seem to be turning back to the churches as they approach old age. This is my generation, of course, the so-called baby boomers. We're getting on in years by now - even the youngest of us are about 50 - but we're not heading back to religion yet.

Do have a look: it's all fascinating stuff.

And speaking of prices on Amazon

The Amazon prices for the hardback, paperback, and kindle editions of The Priestess and the Slave look pretty good to me.

Just sayin'. ;)