Skeptopia

For someone who believes in absolute, objective morality, calling someone a “Moral Relativist” is akin to calling them a “Raper of Babies”

However, as a moral relativist myself, I find this ridiculous. For me, morality isn’t something universal. Let’s discuss:

Where does morality come from?

From Wikipedia:

In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or belief which is held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong. Morals are arbitrarily created and subjectively defined by society, philosophy, religion, and/or individual conscience.

Ta-da. Therefore, since not everyone grows up with the same contributing factors to their morality, we can deduce that not everyone is going to share the same morals.

Take for example a this statement: “killing is wrong.” I doubt that very many people would disagree with that. But, is killing simply ending a life or is it more merciful sometimes to kill to end suffering? Is it considered killing if you do nothing to save a life? And what about war? Execution? Abortion? Is killing ever justified to save another life? The situation is almost never as cut and dry as “killing is wrong.” Even though most people would agree with the first statement, the rest of the questions are what internet flame wars are made of. If I were to make any definitive statement regarding any of the more ambiguous questions, I’d be getting hatemail out the wazoo.

Who decides what’s right and wrong?

For some people, it’s their god. There will be a final judgment and some of us will go to Hell and others will get Sky Cake. For the rest of us, it’s up to our individual conscience or philosophy. Yet still, people feel the need to pass judgment on each other.

To the first group I say, who are you to judge? If your god is the god of the righteous, who will rain fire from above and punish the wicked. If we choose to ignore your god and we are going to hell and your god, the all powerful judge is providing the sentence, then what is it to you? Are you trying to save us? Or are you doing your god’s work by screaming at us whose beliefs and values are different from your own. What do you gain and what good is it supposed to do us? If I’m a sinner and your god is going to punish me, when did it become your job to judge me in the meantime?

To the second I say, I’ll leave you to your beliefs and values, you leave me to mine. I think some things are immoral. I try to practice and live by the moral code dictated to me by my conscience and my philosophy. I intend to raise my children with my values and I often choose friends with similar values. If I make a choice that you find immoral, but it doesn’t affect you, what harm does it do to you? Whose choice is it?

Right now, there’s been a heated discussion on The Skeptical OB regarding two posts about Downs Syndrome. Mostly, Dr. Tuteur is being lambasted by parents of Downs Syndrome children who found her posts callous and inflammatory. She’s been accused of presenting her opinion as fact (which they seem to fail to see the irony of) and of using her MD to promote an unethical point of view. These people missed the entire point of the posts, which is one of choice. A rosy picture is often painted by a self selecting group of parents for whom raising a child with DS has been a blessing rather than a burden. These people, because of their experience, fail to see how anyone could terminate a pregnancy because of a diagnosis of Trisomy 21. It would not be fair to parents for them to only see this side of things just as it would not be fair to parents for them to only see the other side, the parents for whom the burden was too much or the sad stories of DS children abused as adults, depressed because they can never have a normal life, the lives cut short from medical problems. People with positive stories don’t see it this way. In their view, if people knew how positive it could be, they would never terminate and so people should only be told the positive side. That goes entirely against the entire point, which is the freedom to make a choice based on the best information available. That means BOTH sides of the story.

Dr. Tuteur is caught in one of those moral gray areas. Unfortunately, the people who see it in black and white have decided to pass judgment on her and are writing hateful things. I applaud Dr. Tuteur in sticking to her point of view and not backing down in the face of this moral bullying.

A couple of weeks ago, I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about the death rates of homebirths vs. hospital births. Now, my friend has a scientific background and her job has to do with analysing health risks and death rates and such. I was surprised that she did not share my view (that homebirth advocates are irresponsible because they promote a practice which puts mothers and babies at risk of death) and argued that sometimes, being emotionally secure is worth the risk to the baby and mother.

In the end, I realised there was no point arguing with my friend, because when it comes down to it, we have fundamentally different values. I strongly disagree with the value that puts the comfort and emotional needs of the mother before the health and safety of the child (I realise this is slightly ironic, since my views on abortion would suggest otherwise).

It’s something I’ve come to notice more and more. I get into arguments with people, then realise why it isn’t going anywhere: we approach the situation with completely different values.

Another example is a chat conversation I had with someone I met randomly on the internet. After arguing with him about his views on conspiracy theories, I came to the conclusion that he was not someone who valued logic and evidence. Hell, he had told me earlier that he believed dragons were real because it “felt right” to him.

I do believe in objective reality. I do NOT believe in objective morality or objective values. I believe that society functions better when people can find a common ground in their values, but sometimes we just have to accept that you and I don’t value the same things. And sometimes even that doesn’t work because you may not value tolerance. Ah well…

This has probably been seen before, but my friend just sent me the link to it. Oh, my sides are sore from laughing. Warning: NSFW language and plenty of CAM bashing.

On a serious note, this is a great exploration of the public understanding of science and the general fear of medicine that makes me so frustrated sometimes. When this kind of sentiment is expressed with this much humor and sympathy, it makes me happy because THIS is how to communicate these ideas.

I found two blogs today which I have added to my blogroll.

Rational Moms is one. I’m really liking it. A lot.

The Skeptical OB is another that I found through Rational Moms.

These skeptical blogs written by women about women are the antidote I have been desperately needing lately to balance out the dubious advice, sanctimonious  suggestions and pseudoscientific claims I keep getting from every which direction.

(also posted in mcraeintheoven.wordpress.com)
Last night Mike and I attended the first of four educational workshops provided by the Birth Centre for first time parents. I was encouraged to attend these workshops by my midwife and I saw it as an opportunity to meet some other mothers and learn a few things that I might not get from books. The topic of the workshop was breast-feeding.
First of all, I agree with the premise that “breast is best.” It is the safest, simplest way to feed a baby. It is what our bodies are built to do and it is a perfectly adapted function to get the best nutrition into that growing baby. Breast milk is the perfect food, and breast-feeding helps create an important bond between mother and child.
However, what irritated me (and Mike) was that almost right away, the workshop began to be not just preachy, but almost propaganda. The answer provided by the midwife to every possible problem was “If you do it right, there are no problems,” without really offering any alternative. It reminded me of abstinence-only sex and drug education. “If you do it our way, you won’t have any problems.” “What if I choose another option?” “Our way is the best way. Here’s some reasons why the other option is bad…” When addressing the disadvantages of formula, the explanations often included reasons related to people not mixing it correctly or overfeeding. Why couldn’t these problems be addressed by educating women on how to do it correctly? Sure, formula isn’t as easy or as good for the child as breast milk, but it’s there, it’s an option and if a woman is unable to breast-feed, for whatever reason, or if say, she becomes ill, or if she dies and the father or grandparents have to raise the child on their own. What then? Who is going to educate them to minimise the drawbacks of bottle-feeding? Or are there still wet-nurses around to take up the slack?
I tried at one point to address one problem with this sort of environment, that this approach could create emotional stress if the mother isn’t comfortable with breast-feeding or has problems. My point was glossed over and dismissed.
Mike was also obviously uncomfortable as well. Alarm bells started going off early with him. The first activity we did was break up into two groups, men and women (which I thought was slightly insensitive since one poor girl was there with her mother). The men made a list of breast-feeding benefits, the women, a list of disadvantages (quoth the midwife before we started, “There are none”). Mike came back from his list making and whispered to me “Ignore number three, I tried.” I looked at their list: 3. Natural. *Cringe* Yes, I understood. There are benefits to it being natural (it’s regulated by the body, the mother’s body filters out toxins, it’s easy to prepare, there’s nothing to add to it, it’s perfectly suited to the baby) but being “Natural” in itself is not a benefit.
Over all, the midwife was an awkward teacher. I have spoken to her one on one and she’s pleasant enough. She’s knowledgeable and wise and has been a midwife for a very long time. Unfortunately, she seemed to suffer the deer in the headlights problem when speaking to a larger group. It didn’t help that she seemed to have taken an oath to not say anything bad about breast-feeding, or anything positive about bottle feeding.
The next class is about birthing methods, I think. Hopefully, it will be less pushy (no pun intended).

Ah, it’s so satisfying to speak to a reasonable person about their unreasonable belief and not only make them see that their belief is foolish, but make them laugh as well.
I was really on my game today. Actually, I wasn’t. I was having a crappy morning and was feeling really, to use a fun Australian word, stroppy.

When a customer entered and began looking through the gold and silver charms (I work in a jewellery store, those of you not in the know) for ‘zodiac charms.’ Fortunately, the other sales girl served her and the woman was spared my subtle disdain for her request. We don’t have any zodiac charms, by the way. After the customer left empty handed, I said snidely to my co-worker, “I guess we don’t cater to that particular brand of superstition.” To which she, a reasonable, free-thinking girl, replied, “I don’t know, I kind of believe in that stuff. Everything I’ve ever read tells me that I’m definitely a textbook [insert zodiac sign here]“

I took a deep breath and began my little rant. First, I said I used to believe in it as well, so I understand, but that I’d found reasons that made the whole thing completely ridiculous to me. Then I said that while these had changed how I saw it, there was no reason I thought that they needed to change how she saw it and she could take or leave it. But then I said why I thought it was a bit silly. I said it all with a sense of humour and without preaching.

I stayed away from using any of the usual “oh, those statements are so general they apply to anyone” which is, itself a terrible argument unless you first explain confirmation bias and I remember how specific I thought they were when I believed. I stuck to statistical studies and explained how tests of accuracy always failed. I then explained that the whole thing is based on the idea that the Earth is the centre of the universe and that the stars are all a fixed distance away, which we all know is incorrect. Then I blew it all away by explaining that the one thing that held my belief the longest, I ended up disproving myself.

At the end, she laughed and then said with a smile, “Yeah, when you put it that way, I guess it is a bit silly.” To which I responded, “It can still be fun to read about it, don’t let me take that away from you if you still think it’s fun, but for me, it’s just kind of pointless. I’d rather read about actual psychology and astronomy rather than some doddering old ancestor of the two.” She laughed again at this.

“After all, it’s not like it really harms anyone. It’s not like ear-candling.”

She looked puzzled,”Ear candling? What on Earth is that?”

“Oh boy,” I laughed, “don’t get me started…”

A while back I created a little wedding video and posted it on YouTube.

I had been disappointed at the lack of angry or confused Xians telling me I was immoral or whatever, and now I’ve finally got one! He’s posted twice, even! And he uses bad logic and false facts to support his ridiculous conclusions! He seriously made my morning.

Of course, I didn’t make the video to upset anyone and I’m grateful to the people who have been supportive with their comments, which are lovely. But I’m glad to have stirred someone up enough to say something completely ignorant and narrow-minded. I hope some other commenter (preferrably a fellow Xian) will put him in his place about what a ‘tard he is.

I especially like the bit about it being ‘naturally impossible to produce offspring from such a union.’ Ha, ha! Have I got news for him!

Created by Train Horns

I would like to note that I only realised after the test that the sound was not coming out of the computer speakers, but the earbuds sitting on the desk that I had neglected to unplug. I could hear the noise coming from the tiny earbuds, not the actual computer speakers. My hearing is freakishly acute.

Edit: Test #2, earbuds unplugged: sound clearly audible. Feels like a bug is burrowing into my brain. Afterward, I click on a YouTube clip and realise my computer’s volume is on the lowest setting. I raise the volume and decide to try again.

Test #3, volume at 50%: The sound is like a dentist’s drill. It makes my eyes sting and I have to click away almost instantly to keep from getting a pounding headache.

Conclusion: High frequency noises are a horrible torture for me. You know those high frequency thingies people have to keep mosquitos and other pests away? I can hear those. You know that high pitched noise that televisions and monitors give off? I can hear that too. I am a freak. If I enter a business using one of these torture devices I will noisily complain that they are driving away perfectly good customers such as myself, who happen to have better than average hearing for their age.