In support of freedom of speech in NZ

It's good to be a guy

The feminist revolution has been a success! Once women were expected to be home-makers. Now, in the interests of equality they need to be home-makers, hold a job and hot (see also here). Surprisingly, this has not led to corresponding increases in happiness.

Coming Soon: International Talk Like A Pirate Day

Ahoy, me hearties. Don't you be missing out of this here opportunity to err, well, talk like a pirate. One week from today, September 19, is international talk like a pirate day. Don't miss it.

Dawkins interviews McGrath

This interview was filmed for the TV documentary "Root of All Evil?" but was left out of the final version. Time restrictions dictated that not all interviews filmed could be used. This was especially regrettable in the case of the McGrath interview, which is therefore offered here now, unedited.

I think Dawkins actually poses some good questions in this interview, and in many cases it seems McGrath paints himself into a corner at points by accepting Dawkin's terms of debate at many points. McGrath is at his best about 20 minutes through when his brings up the historicity of Jesus.

A debate rather than an interview would have been more interesting as it would have meant McGrath wasn't always on the defensive the whole time (to start with, Dawkin's inconsistency in admitting that McGrath is intelligent during the interview, yet happy to categorize him as ignorant or worse in writing.).

You do see Dawkin's tendency to make general claims about class without dealing with blatant exceptions. For instance, Dawkins makes the blanket claim that faith is anti-thetical to rational discussion "like we've be doing this morning" without even a nod that McGrath's participation rather defeats his point.

Quote: Aldous Huxley on advertising

The task of the commercial propagandist in a democracy is in some ways easier and in some ways more difficult than that of a political propagandist employed by the established dictator or dictator in the making. It is easier inasmuch as almost everyone starts out with a prejudice in favor of beer, cigarettes and iceboxes, whereas almost nobody starts out with a prejudice in favor of tyrants. It is more difficult inasmuch as the commercial propagandist is not permitted, by the rules of his particular game, to appeal to the more savage instincts of his public. The advertiser of dairy products would dearly love to tell his readers and listeners that all their troubles are caused by the machinations of a gang of godless international margarine manufacturers, and that it is their patriotic duty to march out and burn the oppressors' factories. This sort of thing, however, is ruled out, and he must be content with a milder approach.

in Brave New World Revisited

Small touch

One of my favorite pictures taken in Toowong, Brisbane. To whoever bothered to paint the telephone box, thanks. I like it.

Australia?

I like Australia and Australians. I really do! But, sometimes I think, "I just don't understand what's going on."

Kayaking at Wivenhoe damn

The UQ Canoe club is great! Here are some photos of a training day.


I think I came tied-first for most times bailing out a kayak. This is also possibly the only time you'll ever find me wearing a skirt.
(Thanks to SB for the photos).

If the Good Samaritan had a blackberry.

I've been slowly reading a psychology textbook (thanks to CM for the use of the book), mainly so that next time Phil profoundly quotes something from his infamous "AP Psych" class I can trip him up. But actually it's been pretty interesting. Below is one find.



Darley, J. M., and Batson, C.D., From Jerusalem to Jericho: A study of Situational and Dispositional Variables in Helping Behavior. JPSP, 1973, 27, 100-108. (summarized here.)

This is one of those studies that makes you laugh and then cry. Darley and Batson setup a study where Princeton seminarians were asked to participate in a study in which they completed a questionnaire in one building, then given a paragraph to read about a particular topic and told they would be asked to give a talk on the paragraph, and then sent to another building purportedly to give the talk. On the way between buildings the subjects encountered an actor who was lying on the ground groaning. The actual purpose of the study (unknown to the seminarians) was to determine which factors were important in determining if they offered help to the victim. They varied the urgency of the subjects (by telling some they were late for the 2nd part of the study) and the topic of paragraph prior to the encounter was either the parable of the Good Samaritan or an unrelated topic.

The results? Those in the high hurry situation were unlikely to stop and the topic given was completely irrelevant in determining the likelihood of the subjects offering help ("Indeed, on several occasions, a seminary student going to give his talk on the parable of the Good Samaritan literally stepped over the victim as he hurried on his way!"). (The paper also contains some further subtleties about the "religious orthodoxy" of the subjects correlating with the type of help offered and personality tests did not act a predictor of likelihood to offer help).

As the authors point out, many in the high-hurry situation reported internal conflict in post-study questioning, wanting to help but also wanting to please the experimenters so "conflict rather than callousness" can explain their lack of help. We like to think of the priest and Levite as evil deviants who maliciously ignored a dying man. But maybe they just had a busy calendar, an important meeting (maybe even on how the temple could be better at reaching out to the community) to be at, and really wished they could help but it just wasn't a good day and they didn't want to hold up the other important people at the meeting. Hmmmm. You learn something old about human nature every day.

Every now and then I think I should have studied social "science" instead of maths, even if all their paper titles sound like a parody.