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Unorthodox Logical Fallacies To Avoid

Unorthodox Logical Fallacies To Avoid

Source: http://www.groovymatter.com/2012/05/popular-logical-fallacies-to-avoid.html

AD HOMINEM

An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter anothers claims or conclusions by attacking the person, rather than addressing the argument itself. True believers will often commit this fallacy by countering the arguments of skeptics by stating that skeptics are closed minded. Skeptics, on the other hand, may faill into the trap of dismissing the claims of UFO believers, for example, by stating that people who believe in UFO's are crazy or stupid.

AD IGNORANTIAM

The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don't know that it isn't true. Defenders of extrasensory perception, for example, will often overemphasize how much we do not know about human brain. UFO proponents will often argue that an object sighted in the sky is unknown, and therefore it is an alien spacecraft.

ARGUMENT FROM AUTHORITY

Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. It is reasonable to give more credence to the claims of those with the proper background, education and credentials or to be suspicious of the claims of someone making authoritative statements in an area for which they cannot demonstrate expertise. But the truth of a claim should ultimately rest on logic and evidence, not the authority of the person promoting it.

ARGUMENT FROM FINAL CONSEQUENCES

Such arguments, also called teleological, are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that serves. For example: God must exist, because otherwise life would have no meaning.

ARGUMENT FROM PERSONAL INCREDULITY

I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true. Creationists are fond of arguing that they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind evolution, but that does not mean life did not evolve.

CONFUSING ASSOCIATION WITH CAUSATION

This is similar to the post-hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables simply because they are correlated, although the relationshop here is not strictly that of one variable following the other in time. This fallacy is often used to give a statistical correlation a causal interpretation. For example, during the 1990's both religious attendance and illegal drug use have been on the rise. It would be a fallacy to conclude that therefore, religious attendance causes illegal drug use. It is also possible that drug use leads to an increase in religious attendance, or that both drug use and religious attendance are increased by a third variable, such as an increase in a societal unrest. It is also possible that both variables are independent of one another, and it is a mere coincidence that they are both increasing at the same time. A corollary to this is the invocation of this logical fallacy to argue that an association does not represent causation, rather it is more accurate to say that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but it can. Also, multiple independent correlations can point reliably to a causation, and is a reasonable line of argument.

CONFUSING CURRENTLY UNEXPLAINED WITH UNEXPLAINABLE

Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the "God of the Gaps" strategy of creationists that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god.

FALSE CONTINUUM

The idea that because there is no definitive demarcation line between two extremes, that the distinction between the extremes is not real or meaningful: There is a fuzzy line between cults and religion, therefore they are really the same thing.

FALSE DICHOTOMY

Arbitrarily reducing a set of many possibilities to only two, For example, evolution is not possible, therefore we must have been created (assumes these are the only two possibilities). This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a continuum of variation to two black and white choices. For example, science and pseudoscience are not two discrete entities, but rather the methods and claims of all those who attempt to explain reality to fall along a continuum from one extreme to the other.

INCONSISTENCY

Applying criteria or rules to one belief, claim, argument, or position but not to others. For example, some consumer advocates argue that we need stronger regulation of prescription drugs to ensure their saftey and effectiveness, but at the same time argue that medicinal herbs should be sold with no regulation for either safety or effectiveness.

NON-SEQUITUR

In Latin this term translates to "doesn't follow". This refers to an argument in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow the premises. In other words, a logical connection is implied where none exists.

POST-HOC ERGO PROPTER HOC

This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related(the latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this").

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

In formal logic, the reductio ad absurdum is a legitimate argument. It follows the form that if the premises are assumed to be true it necessarily leads to an absurd (false) conclusion and therefore one or more premises must be false. The term is now often used to refer to the abuse of this style of argument, by stretching the logic in order to force an absurd conclusion. For example a UFO enthusiast once argued that if I am skeptical about the existence of alien visitors, I must also be skeptical of the existence of the Great Wall of China, since I have not personally seen either. This is a false reductio ad absurdum because he is ignoring evidence other than personal eyewitness evidence, and also logical inference. In short, being skeptical of UFO's does not require rejecting the existence of the Great Wall.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

This logical fallacy is the argument that a position is not consistent or tenable because accepting the position means that the extreme of the position must also be accepted. But moderate positions do not necessarily lead down the slippery slope to the extreme.

SPECIAL PLEADING, OR AD-HOC REASONING

This is a subtle fallacy which is often difficult to recognize. In essence, it is the arbitrary introduction of new elements into an argument in order to fix them so that they appear valid. A good example of this is the ad-hoc dismissal of negative test results. For example, one might point out that ESP has never been demonstrated under adequate test conditions, therefore ESP is not genuine phenomenon. Defenders of ESP have attempted to counter this argument by introducing the arbitrary premise the ESP does not work in the presence of skeptics. This fallacy is often taken to ridiculous extremes, and more and more bizarre ad hoc elements are added to explain experimental failures or logical inconsistencies.

STRAW MAN

Arguing against a position which you create specifically to be easy to argue against, rather than position actually held by those who oppose your point of view.

TAUTOLOGY

Tautology is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning, which means that the conclusion is also its own premise. The structure of such arguments is A=B therefore A=B, although the premise and conclusion might be formulated differently so it is not immediately apparent as such. For example, saying that therapeutic touch works because it manipulates the life force is a tautology because the definition of therapeutic touch is the alleged manipulation (without touching) of the life force.

THE MOVING GOALPOST

A method of denial arbitrarily moving the criteria for "proof" or acceptance out of range of whatever evidence currently exists.

TU QUOQUE

Literally, you too. This is an attempt to justify wrong action because someone else also does it. "My evidence maybe invalid, but so is yours."

UNSTATED MAJOR PREMISE

This fallacy occurs when one makes an argument which assumes a premise which is not explicitly stated. For example, arguing that we should label food products with their cholesterol content because Americans have high cholesterol assumes that: 1) cholesterol in food causes high serum cholesterol; 2) labeling will reduce consumption of cholesterol; and 3) that having a high serum cholesterol in unhealthy. This fallacy is also sometimes called begging the question.

The pro-Obama editorial from FT

Why Obama won

For a while in the small hours, even after the arithmetic of the electoral college had already doomed his campaign, it seemed Mitt Romney would not concede defeat. Karl Rove, whose perpetual air of self-satisfaction must for once have been tinged with chagrin, was muttering on air that Ohio would have to be recounted; that his home network of Fox had thrown in the towel prematurely. Hopes of a repeat of Bush-Gore were evidently still glimmering. But this was the last gasp emitted from the echo chamber of delusions within which the Republican elite have sealed themselves for years

Then Mr Romney came on stage in Boston to make his concession speech. It was gracious but less moving than John McCain’s speech four years ago, a concession so generous and imbued with a sense of the historical moment that it alarmed even his own Republican troops. But in his way, too, Mitt Romney for a moment dropped the mask. Behind it was a chastened man, for once slightly unkempt, the weariness visible. But not much else. Graceful good wishes to the victor, a prayer for the President and the country and then true Romney, a homily that teachers, investors, citizens of strong faith might lead us out of dire straits. And that was it.

Suddenly the man who had tried to be everything to everyone was nothing to anyone, except a tired private equity executive and former Governor of a state that had just repudiated him by a huge margin. In the last weeks of the campaign his strategists had imagined they might expand the “battleground map” into the industrial mid-West, concocting a fable – that Barack Obama had sent the auto industry into bankruptcy and was even now outsourcing jobs to China – so at odds with the truth that even MoTown executives were compelled to denounce it. Detroit, Milwaukee and Cleveland were not buying it, and so long before Pennsylvania was known to have turned the tide Mr Obama’s way, the Republicans had lost the presidency in the industrial heartland.

What bit the dust on Tuesday was the world of denial in which Republicans have immured themselves ever since the rise of the Tea Party in 2009. This is a universe in which the financial crash was caused by over-regulation; one in which, despite years of brutal drought and violent weather patterns, climate change is a liberal hoax; a country that can correct a vast structural deficit without ever raising additional revenue, while expanding the military budget beyond anything sought by the Pentagon; a belief system in which Mr Obama was the source of all economic ills rather than the steward of the most intractable crisis since the Depression. The mantra was that a business executive would, simply by virtue of that fact, effect a magical rejuvenation of the staggering American economy.

But the most obstinate fantasy to die in this election was that the greatness of the United States was somehow inseparably bound to the dominion of the white male. The most egregiously offensive candidates for the Senate, Richard Mourdock in Indiana, who proclaimed that post-rape conceptions must be part of God’s plan, and Todd Akin in Missouri, who spoke of “legitimate rape”, threw away Senate seats that were the GOP’s for the taking. Another illusion was that huge sums poured through Super- Pacs would tip the balance in competitive races. Linda McMahon, the professional wrestling tycoon, spent $100m in two elections attempting to become Senator for Connecticut and still head-locked herself into disaster.

Built into these assumptions was the conviction that non-white, non-male voters, especially Latinos, could not be mobilised, especially not with the same intensity or numbers they had shown in 2008. The long lines of people waiting hours to vote in Florida and many other places ended that narrow-minded complacency.

Of course the Republican party does not altogether turn its back on this new America. But the harshness of its policy on immigration is a slow-drip suicide for the Republicans, reducing them to becoming the Party of the confederacy and the mountain states of guns and God.

The mere fact of Mr Obama’s re-election ought, if the Republicans have an eye for their long-term preservation, give them pause before venturing on the usual manic conspiracy theories or denouncing their nominee for being insufficiently conservative. But you might also hope they listened to his victory speech, which was, for a candidate who has at times been startlingly disengaged from the persuading element of the presidency, one of the great moments in his political career. For after generously thanking two generations of Romneys for public service, Mr Obama went on to defend democracy itself on one of its climactic days: not in the airy philosophical terms to which he often resorts, but by painting a picture of ordinary people ennobled by the democratic process. In vivid words he painted a picture of countless people knocking on doors, queueing to vote notwithstanding all the obstacles placed in their way by institutions or Mother Nature; living their American identity through these acts of engagement. Politics, the President said, can sometimes seem, small or “silly” (amen to that) before insisting that in the majesty of the multitudes it was as big as anything can get. Then he sounded a theme that has been too often muted in his first term: that the US is a republic in which mutual obligations matter as much as the assertion of rights. And where did America’s true exceptionalism lie? In its unique diversity, which his own person embodies and which might at last be seen as the sign not of its enervation but of its rejuvenated redemption.

The writer is an FT contributing editor

The anti-Obama editorial from WSJ

Hope Over Experience

A divided country gives Obama a second chance.

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President Obama won one of the narrower re-elections in modern times Tuesday, eking out a second term with a fraction of his 7.3% margin of 2008, in a polarized country with the opposition GOP retaining and still dominating the House. Given that second Presidential terms are rarely better than the first, this is best described as the voters doubling down on hope over experience.

***

Mr. Obama's campaign stitched together a shrunken but still decisive version of his 2008 coalition—single women, the young and culturally liberal, government and other unions workers, and especially minority voters.

He said little during the campaign about his first term and even less about his plans for a second. Instead his strategy was to portray Mitt Romney as a plutocrat and intolerant threat to each of those voting blocs. No contraception for women. No green cards for immigrants. A return to Jim Crow via voter ID laws. No Pell grants for college.

This was all a caricature even by the standards of modern politics. But it worked with brutal efficiency—the definition of winning ugly. Mr. Obama was able to patch together just enough of these voting groups to prevail even as he lost independents and won only 40% of the overall white vote, according to the exit polls. His campaign's turnout machine was as effective as advertised in getting Democratic partisans to the polls.

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President Barack Obama

Mr. Obama also benefitted from his long run of extraordinary good luck. Hurricane Sandy devastated the Northeast a week before Election Day, letting him rise for a few days above the partisanship that has defined his first term. The storm changed the campaign conversation and blunted Mr. Romney's momentum. The exit polls show that late-deciders went for the incumbent this year when they typically break for the challenger.

The President owes a debt as well to a pair of Republican appointees in government—John Roberts and Ben Bernanke. By joining four liberals on the Supreme Court in upholding ObamaCare in June, Chief Justice Roberts provided a salve of legitimacy to the President's deeply unpopular health-care law. It also helped him unify his party around something to protect in an otherwise aimless second term.

As for the Federal Reserve Chairman, Mr. Bernanke's latest round of quantitative easing was an invaluable in-kind contribution to the President in the final election weeks. It helped to lift asset prices, including the stock market, which contributed to rising consumer confidence and helped to counter the damage to investment and hiring from Mr. Obama's policies.

Mr. Romney is one of the least natural politicians of our era, but he is a laudable man who ran a spirited campaign on a reform agenda, especially after the first debate on October 3. He took the risk of putting Paul Ryan on the ticket, and the Congressman proved to be a campaign asset, even if he couldn't overcome the strong Democratic turnout in Wisconsin.

The exit polls show the two campaigns fought Medicare essentially to a draw in Florida, despite the Democratic attempt to demagogue the Romney-Ryan Medicare reform. Many seniors seem to understand that ObamaCare poses a far greater threat to the future of Medicare than does opening the rickety program to private insurance options.

Yet Mr. Romney also made some fateful strategic errors. He took too long to defend his Bain Capital record, letting the Obama campaign pummel him with more than $100 million in unanswered attack ads from May through July. He then devoted too much of the GOP convention to rehabilitating his own image to the detriment of laying out an agenda. Only in the first debate did voters get to see Mr. Romney explain his Medicare and tax reform plans in clear, reasonable terms—and he rose in the polls.

It appears he also failed to distinguish his economic plan enough from the memory of George W. Bush's. Mr. Obama kept telling voters he needed more time to fix the economy, however implausibly, but voters seem to have believed him in the end. More voters in the exit polls blamed Mr. Bush for the economy than they did the current President.

Perhaps most damaging, Mr. Romney failed to appeal more creatively to minority voters, especially Hispanics. His single worst decision may have been to challenge Texas Governor Rick Perry in the primaries by running to his right on immigration. Mr. Romney didn't need to do this given that Mr. Perry was clearly unprepared for a national campaign, and given the weakness of the other GOP candidates. (Tim Pawlenty had dropped out.)

Mr. Romney missed later chances to move to the middle on immigration reform, especially Senator Marco Rubio's compromise on the Dream Act for young immigrants brought here by their parents. This created the opening for Mr. Obama to implement the core of the Dream Act by executive order, however illegally, and boost his image with Hispanic voters.

The exit polls show that Mr. Romney did even worse among Hispanics than John McCain in 2008, and we may learn in coming days that this was the margin in some swing states. The GOP needs to leave its anti-immigration absolutists behind.

***

Mr. Obama will now have to govern the America he so relentlessly sought to divide—and without a mandate beyond the powers of the Presidency. Democrats will hold the Senate, perhaps with an additional seat or two. But Republicans held the House comfortably, so their agenda was hardly repudiated. The two sides will have to reach some compromise on the tax cliff, the spending sequester and the debt limit, but Speaker John Boehner can negotiate knowing he has as much of a mandate as the President.

These columns have viewed this election as more consequential than others for a single reason—ObamaCare. Tax rates do economic damage when they rise, but they can be cut again. Regulations can be adapted to or phased out. Spending can be cut. But the Affordable Care Act will spread like termites in the national economy and public fisc. Mr. Obama will no doubt use his second term to consolidate this liberal entitlement dream, with its ultimate goal of single-payer health care.

Some of our conservative friends will argue that Mr. Obama's victory thus represents a decline in national virtue and a tipping point in favor of the "takers" over the makers. They will say the middle class chose Mr. Obama's government blandishments over Mr. Romney's opportunity society. We don't think such a narrow victory of an incumbent President who continues to be personally admired justifies such a conclusion.

Perhaps this fear will be realized over time, but such a fate continues to be in our hands. There are few permanent victories or defeats in American politics, and Tuesday wasn't one of them. The battle for liberty begins anew this morning.

A version of this article appeared November 7, 2012, on page A24 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Hope Over Experience.

Obama wins re-election!

I'm ecstatic. I have renewed faith in America. Last night was spectacular. Not only did the expected Obama win put a dip in the hip, but Democrats won the Senate. If you are a friend who follows my tweets, last night and this morning my behavior was shameful.

Or was it?

I freely admit that my juvenile gloating was insensitive, boorish, and crude. But I cannot help but feel this is how conservatives in America have been treating President Obama. I felt it was a mirror reflection of conservative behavior.

The conservatives consistently band together on all sorts of ridiculous issues. It's fall in line. Well, conservatives did fall in line, and all fell down. Am I happy about this? Yes.

Democrats have adjusted to the changes in the US. Republicans have not. As I've mentioned before, there is no going back. For all the hopeful Mitt Romney supporters, yesterday was somewhat of a rude awakening. I just made it ruder. In essence, I'm looking out for the conservative platform by pointing out how foolish the mishmash of social and fiscal policies have been. Many well respected publications have endorsed Obama, including the FT and the Economist, but it seems to fall on deaf ears.

Well, even if you were/are deaf, you probably know that Obama has been re-elected. Deal with it. He's a good man. He's not a socialist (far from it), he's not Muslim (he's likely an atheist, honestly), he's not running a corrupt administration (far from it, no scandals, and Benghazi doesn't count). So what's not to like about Obama if you're conservative? Easy. He's not like you.

The problem is, many Americans don't realize how far the country has moved. It really isn't in this old, tired "left/right" paradigm. It's something more. It's trite to say America has moved "forward." It does that everyday regardless of who is President.

The rage amuses me. The end of America. The destruction of Israel. Will this nonsense ever stop? No. It never does. It just morphs and changes into some other unfounded fear. That's the crux of it. Fear. It's a different America. It's been that way since 2008. Wake up. Embrace it. If you care, chip in.

Taxes will go up. This is a fact. I've dealt with it, but think the nation overall will be healthier. Besides, I understand that I've benefited from Bush polices and Obama policies. So I'm okay giving back. Yes, even to the red states. (Not ecstatic about this, but you are part of America, and I work for you.)
There is a plethora of amusing tweets from the conservatives about not paying taxes, moving to Canada, etc. Great. Do it. It's a free country, until you break the rules. Don't break the rules. Calm down. Regroup. And reflect.

GOP of America, you can be great. Ditch the social baggage. America has told you to do this. Under no uncertain circumstances. Focus on fiscal policies. Make fiscal policies for ALL of America, just not your beloved aging, white, Christian, male population. You'll get broader support.

Once again, I'm thrilled at what happened last night. Celebrate with me!

Why the "Science vs Religion" debate is a contemporary phenomenon.

Why the "Science vs Religion" debate is a contemporary phenomenon.
Explained by a Redditor cupnoodlefreak.

Firstly, the roots of the belief that Religion (or, more specifically in most cases, christianity) has opposed science, the conflict thesis, isn't old--it was devised in the 1870s. Part of it was that, during the formation of Cornell University(one of the Ivies, traditionally religious) in 1896 , Ezra Cornell wanted to form a university that wasn't religiously related (a perfectly valid wish), and so the author of the thesis came up with The History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom to set Cornell apart. I'm quoting from Wikipedia here, but

In the introduction, White emphasized he arrived at his position after the difficulties of assisting Ezra Cornell in establishing a university without any official religious affiliation.

Basically the conflict thesis was devised so that Cornell could be different. I agree not associating yourself with religion is a perfectly good cause, but to introduce the notion that the church has been hostile to science...well, it was criticized within 5 years of the book's publishing.
Today, that view is completely rejected by contemporary historians. The main reason it's so common is because we have idiots like the scientific creationists and religious fundamentalists going around under the belief that the world was created in 6,000 years (even Williams Jennings Bryant, who argued against Scopes at the scopes trial, agreed that the earth was not necessarily 6,000 years old. Quoted from a transcript of the Scopes trial:

"No. But I think it would be just as easy for the kind of God we believe in to make the earth in six days as in six years or in 6,000,000 years or in 600,000,000 years. I do not think it important whether we believe one or the other. "

Also guys this is a side point but Inherit the wind is not a historically accurate film. Scopes was a substitute teacher who decided to do it because the school wished to test the limits of the law (the school actually brought in its own students for the prosecution to prove scopes taught evolution). The trial was an irrelevant affair (it was clear that scopes was guilty of breaking the law, but the judge allowed Darrow and Bryant to have at it for hours), and after the trial was done Bryant and the ACLU both offered to pay the $100 fine, the minimum under the law. They all went out to lunch afterwards. It's not the epic battle between science and religion inherit the wind makes it out to be.
Anyway, moving on to the historical aspect...well, firstly the idea that religion rejects science is wrong. There are people within religion who think that, but that can be said of people outside of religion too. For most of the middle ages, learning and science was preserved by monks in monasteries in Europe and further developed by muslim scholars in Baghdad and Umayyad Spain (I should point out that most of it was also wiped out by the Mongols, who weren't exactly religious anyhow with the sacking of Baghdad). Neither has the Roman Catholic Church been an enemy of science either. In fact, most great scientists up into the modern era (including Newton, who wrote more books on theology than he did on calculus) were religious men. Quoting once again from Wikipedia, but

Historian Lawrence M. Principe writes that "it is clear from the historical record that the Catholic church has been probably the largest single and longest-term patron of science in history, that many contributors to the Scientific Revolution were themselves Catholic, and that several Catholic institutions and perspectives were key influences upon the rise of modern science."

A lot of the things we associate with the church's rejection of science (i.e. the church thought the world was flat, Copernicus waited until near death to publish his heliocentric views because he feared the church, Galileo was tortured by the Inquisition, Bruno was burned by his scientific views) are also incorrect.
Firstly, Copernicus never feared the church, he feared his contemporaries. The problem with the heliocentric model copernicus had was that he had circular orbits. The Ptolemaic system was full of stupid things like epicycles, but it worked. It accurately predicted the movement of the stars and planets better than Copernicus' model until Kepler realized they were elliptical orbits. Copernicus was scared not because the church would be annoyed, but because his contemporaries would be, as his model didn't accurately track the stars. In fact, Copernicus decided to publish it at the end because several bishops and theologians begged him to publish it.
Secondly, Giodarno Bruno was a visionary because he went beyond the copernican model and even predicted that the sun itself was a star, but he wasn't killed because of that. He was killed because of his religious views, which were deemed as heresy. Keep in mind this was during the religious wars of the 16th century in Italy, when protestantism and catholicism were busy fighting each other (though there were political concerns too--protestant princes wanted to seize church lands and the like).
Thirdly, as for Galileo, Galileo is an interesting case, because (I'm reposting from an old post I made in the past here) while the church under the Congregation of the Index condemned Galileo's ideas were false, he was in fact supported--and in fact encouraged--by Pope Urban VIII. The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was sanctioned by both the papacy and the Inquisition. The reason Galileo was imprisoned was partly because of papal politics, and because Galileo represented the Pope's position under the name of "Simplicius" - that is, simpleton (the Pope had ordered Galileo to represent his--the geocentric--theory within his book as well, given it was called a "dialogue").

Fourth, the church isn't necessarily anti-evolution, and for most of its history it was not fundamentalist. Early church fathers such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas of Aquinas are clear that they do not expect people to take the creation story literally. Augustine stated that he believed it was blatantly untrue the world was made in 7 days.
The Inquisition wasn't nearly as bad as people say it was--The spanish part is quite literally blown out of proportion because England hated Spain when Phillip V and Elizabeth were monarchs. The actual amount of people killed was very, very small in comparison, and many of the deaths associated were the result of wars that were as much political as they were religious. In a previous post somebody pointed out that thousands died in the Albigensian Crusade, where thousands of people of a variant of christianity (Catharism) deemed heretical were killed. However, that was as much political as it was religious, as the French lords simply wanted the lands of their enemies. The inquisition part was relatively small:,

"Contrary to popular legend, the Inquisition proceeded largely by means of legal investigation, persuasion and reconciliation. Judicial procedures were used and although the accused were not allowed to know the names of their accusers, they were permitted to mount a defence. The vast majority found guilty of heresy were given light penalties. 11 percent of offenders faced prison. Only around 1 percent, the most steadfast and relapsed Cathars were sentenced for treason, and faced burning at the stake."

So the question is, why do a lot of people, both atheist and christian, believe that Religion and Science is at war? The reason is fundamentalism--and fundamentalism isn't very old either. It's only been around for the last 100 years. It first really started because of World War I. There were rumors going around that (quoting from Wikipedia)

German aggression resulted from a Darwinian doctrine of "survival of the fittest"

Before Watson and Crick unveiled the genetic code and proved evolution correct, there was a lot of people that felt that the almost malthusian views of Darwin were dangerous to humanity, so this was not unusual. In the 1950s, even evangelical scientists were gradually turning from the creation by flood to theistic evolution. "Scientific" Creationism is the result of one person, though: Henry M. Morris. In his book The Genesis Flood, he associates Evolution with Satan. This is in 1960. But in the cold war era, where religion was slowly slipping and where we were faced with those Godless Commies in the Warsaw Pact and Red China, this was like a rallying call for many evangelicals. In a way, creationism and religious fundamentalism are measures as reactionary as the addition of the words "under god" in the Pledge of Allegiance. The problem is that, even after the Berlin wall has fell, both "under god" in the pledge and creationism have remained. Many Christians, seeing a decrease in christianity and what they see as a decline in moral values starting with the beatles, see fundamentalism as the best way to hold onto their faith when, in fact, it is polarizing them against the rest of the US. It gives Atheists reason to think that evangelical christians are mindless idiots who believe that the world is 6,000 years old when everything else proves them false. But I am digressing in a kind of preachy direction, so my point is that, up until the 1950s, the church has overall been extremely supportive to science, and the same can be said of the muslims scholars who first helped devise the period table or brought many aspects of architecture into Europe, or the Chinese taoist folk doctors who discovered things such as Gunpowder (keep in mind that the world for Gunpowder in Chinese, 火藥, literally means Fire Medicine). Religion may not always have been supportive of science, but for the most part it has walked hand in hand with scientific progress

Source: Reddit

Facebook Privacy

On the heels of news that people's Facebook privacy is being violated by software, etc., one should be vigilant. Below is a guide from the WSJ.

Five Ways to Boost Your Facebook Privacy

Facebook's privacy settings aren't always simple. From The Wall Street Journal, here are five step-by-step guides to adjusting some of the most important ones.

Limit Who Can Post to Your Timeline

Follow these steps to prevent friends from posting to your timeline, and fine-tune who can view those posts.

• 1. Open Facebook's main privacy page.
• 2. Next to the text that says "Timeline and Tagging," click "edit settings."
• 3. In the box that pops up, the top two options correspond to who (a) can post to your timeline, and (b) who can see those posts.
• 4. In the dropdown for "Who can post on your timeline?" you can choose between "Friends" (the default) and "No One" (e.g., only you).
• 5. The dropdown for "Who can see what others post on your timeline?" provides much more granular options.