Friday BLOG
https://jonathonharper.weebly.com/blog
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INDEX is below the latest blog.
I can adapt any of these blogs for publication elsewhere.
These blogs are updated when useful feedback and new information is received.
WORLD DANCE and Peace (Blog #60)
December 2023
[Updates Jan 2024
1 Netanyahu
"For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces"
- The Times of Israel last October - I hadn't known this.
2 IRELAND Jan 2024 at UN very critical of US and Israel
3 Paul Hunt's contract at Human Rights was not renewed. Sad]
The recent events in Israel and Gaza are upsetting for those of us who hope the world is overall becoming more peaceful. Steven Pinker in his chapter on peace (Enlightenment Now 2018) he presents evidence and graphs on the percentages of people who die in battles, in genocides, and world wars over the last 75 - 500 years. The trend in all the graphs is downward. However, some such as John Grey have said he is a Pollyanna. So I don’t know. I hope Pinker is right.
WORLD DANCE The Song
My song composed in Ngaio, Wellington in 2005 was taken to half the schools in Aotearoa. It was performed in many of my subsequent public concerts, and with my Wellington Bands, LATINO PACIFIC, then ART GHETTO. They have featured: Carole Hempton, Richard Prouse, David Parsons, Bryan James, and Glen Keith. WORLD DANCE was recorded on my VOICE of NEW ZEALAND (2006) album. I’ve attached an mp3 file from the album. The lyrics are below.
The backing vocals on the album are some students from Onslow College, I am still trying to work out if I used my imovies program on my Mac to make some other Youtube videos…I can’t get it to record the music track…If anyone knows….
Verse1 Dm Am Gm A7
Dance, take the dance to Israel Where an Arab and a Jew they are lovers
Dm Am Gm A7
Dance, take a chance in Israel With an Arab and a Jew on the floor
And what’s more, we can
CHORUS Em A7 Em A7 Dance all around the world Dance right around the world
Verse 2 Dance take the dance to the state of Kashmir
Where an Islamic mother, Hindu father
Want peace for their child whoever is in charge
So stop the foolish games and let’s dance Together we can
CHORUS Em A7 Em A7 Dance all around the world Dance right around the world
Verse 3
Dance, take the dance wherever there is strife
Let love be a lyric in your song
We can dance, dance together, share the same space
Let your difference be a strength to share
Oh yeah, we can
Dance all around the world Dance right around the world
I can’t get imovies to record the music track…If anyone knows….I have pictures of groups of Jews and Palestinian youths climbing a mountain and dancing together. Daniel Barenboim’s East West orchestra is another source of inspiration…
Davka, having protested against the invasion of Ukraine, then persecution of women in Iran, I decided to protest against the war crimes on both sides in Israel. Cathy decided to join it too
We turned up at the bridge of Remembrance in Christchurch over the Otākaro (Avon) river on a sunny weekend. John Minto took the mic first before we set off. He told us the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” does not mean Israel must be attacked. He claimed the objections to Palestinian supporters saying it was just Israeli government propaganda. I figured the words taken literally are not inciting hatred. But on reflection, Hamas seem determined to try to eliminate the state of Israel, while Israel…well, we all know what Netanyahu is saying…So, probably not a wise chant if you are a peace activist like me.
Then we had a young Palestinian woman recite her poem about the difficulties she had in expressing her identity here in personal conversations with some Kiwis. One of the Green MPs spoke, and then another anti war protester who reminded us the memorial we stood under had the word Palestine inscribed into it. He reminded us of our colonial past, and claimed credibly that a military base in the middle of Australia could be being used to guide Israeli drone attacks within Gaza. Before we set off, a woman who looked possibly Palestinian somehow gained my empathy and sympathy without uttering a single word. She attached a black armband to my arm, which I wore with reverence.
Not so long before the protest, I was looking on our bookshelf for a book to read. I came across Roald Dahl’s autobiographical Going Solo. It had been given to me for my birthday by son Zeph a few years ago, and I'd put it aside meaning to read it later (not years later). During WWII Dahl came across a Zionist Jewish man in Palestine. The man seemed to have little interest in Dahl and his English compatriots efforts in the war.
The zionist said a Palestinian farmer “has given us permission to live here”. The man went on…saying it was time for Jews to have a country. Dahl pointed out that they are already occupied…”Norway belings to the Norwegians…” The man said they did not want Germany and would live in Palestine. “Then you will become Palestinians,” Dahl replied. “No, I don’t think we will become Palestinians….you are a young man who is flying aeroplanes, I do not expect you to understand out ptoblems.” Was the zionist’s response.
Back to our protest, I had planned to make a placard with a picture of Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar emblazoned with the words WAR CRIMINAL. Perhaps smaller or inset a photo of their chief enablers Biden and Iranian leader Ali Khamenei.
But I prioritised other things. Maybe next time.
Here re a few things I learned from watching varipus videos, and a survey of many news sources I think are reliable. Please add to this or correct me…
Yahya Sinwar the Hamas military leader who masterminded the Hamas atrocities had been imprisoned by the Israelis for 20 years. Whilst in prison he learnt to speak Hebrew. According to one non-Israeli source quoted in the New York Times, he was considered by some to be a sociopath. Sinwar was realeased in a prisoner swap of some 1,000 Palestinians for one Israeli soldier, Private Gilad Shalet.
Netanyahu like Trump faces unresolved corruption charges. Meanwhile in Indonesia (our neck of the woods), a recent charge of corruption against government minister Limpo led to his arrest and resignation.
Paul Hunt is our Human Rights Commissioner. He recently commented for The Press (Stuff) noting the conflict coincided with an increase in complaints of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia (I don’t use that term because it is not usually what I think a psychologist would call a phobia but we know what he means). But he thinks this abuse means, “New Zealand’s social cohesion is in jeopardy.”
Naomi Klein - I have her book, No Logo I find her to be informative. I always think of her when I see buskers being evicted from shopping malls, and when I heard of Uighurs making solar panels in Chinese slave camps (The Shape of Dialogue NZ podcast 2023)
Her article title (oft quoted) is
“In Gaza and Israel, side with the child over the gun”
Jewish Palestinian cooperation
Besides the mountain climbing, dance competitions and Palestinian Jewish marriages, we also have famous Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim’s Said East West Divan Orchestra.
He says it,
“May not solve world’s problems but; we can create space a place to be accepted?”
Is it possible to negotiate with Hamas (or Israel for that matter)
One commentator, Margalit Toledano an associate professor in the school of management and marketing operations at Waikato University) is not too sure…
“Much like ISIS, Hamas is driven by religious fanatism and a holy mission to destroy non-Muslims. They are neither freedom fighters nor a resistance movement.”
Some War Crimes of Israel
Dropping white phosphorus on farms
Targeting hospitals, apartment blocks,
Mosques, and schools
Some War Crimes of Hamas
Kidnapping Murder and torture of civilians
That’s quite enough from me for December. In the words of Pink Floyd
“The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I’d something more to say…”
+++++++++++++++++
Voices
QUOTE for Dec
“As a journalist, you do have influence.
Excusing yourself that you are
‘just’ an ‘unimportant occasional writer’
is bullshit, frankly.”
- Brian Robinson 23 Feb 2006
(talking to me. Bugger! But he was astute, and I am grateful to him for his wisdom. So sad he died young)
I HAVE JUST READ Going Solo by Roald Dahl. I found it riveting. His experiences are vividly recalled - living as a colonist in Africa (where he had to learn Swahili because it was considered insolent I think he said for the Africans to speak to the English in English), and his wartime experiences as a fighter pilot in North Africa, the Middle East and Greece…
MY JOURNALISM I am looking at small updates on hospital chaplains the story is still scheduled for publication in January. Next? Still going back to religion in schools.
WORD for December
Tenterhooks During the interregnum after the elections, I heard someone on National Radio saying we are all on ‘tenderhooks’. The hooks need to be strong to provide the tension referred to in this expression.
A tenterhook is “A hook that in the past was used to keep material stretched on a drying frame during manufacture.” [Oxford Learner’s Dictionary]
So imagine the hook being tender like a tendrill! We would be very chilled out in this situation. I suppose there are some who really don’t care about the outcome. They might be said to be on ‘tenderhooks’.
PSYCHOLOGY CORNER
I am an admirer of Psychology researcher Maryanne Garry. She is one of nine psychologists on my blog list. Imho and experiences meeting her face to face and communicating with her, she is an exceptionally caring, helpful, insightful, sincere, and wise person. And, more importantly you may say, I think her research and knowledge are sound and of value in understanding ourselves.
I listened to this recent interview with her. It flows really well and describes a recent study she headed that asked a number of subjects if they thought they could land a modern large airliner unaided. I hope I have this right, in essence the study revealed.
- A worryingly high proportion of the 800(+?) subjects thought they could get it down without killing the passengers.
- The proportion of over-confident men was significantly higher than for women.
- Those shown a video of real pilots landing the plane were more confident they could now land a plane despite the video being of nu instructional value.
That effect from watching the video reminds me of Kahneman’s availability heuristic, aka the immediacy effect, whereby ideas or information that are most readily brought to mind (e.g. more recent, easier to recall, or striking information) will be given greater weight than it should. I like the discussion in the interview. I looked for the book Maryanne mentioned (Women Don’t Ask - the high cost of avoiding negotiation by Babcock and Laschever in our library, but they didn’t have it! A friend (JC) sent me a copy, so I am starting reading...
SIGN of our TIMES
“A commonly held assumption inherent in our political economy that it is still possible to buy a home under your own steam. This new Aera¹ index simply exposes more starkly how our housing market and society has become a landed gentry.” [ Bernard Hickey 7 Nov 2023]
Te ORA I roto i MAIREHAU We now have an old piano. Besides my small classical repertoire, I am learning an old song, I do Love to be Beside the Seaside for my retirement village concerts. I just ran through a couple of Xmas Carols on my Neokoauau flute, and was chuffed that my sight-reading was still good. The roses are in bloom profusely. Our two grandchildren just down the road in Prestons are thriving, and seem to like visiting our place.
VIEWING
We enjoyed Infamy on Netflix, and Forgotten Love (very touching and heartwarming) both Polish productions. Infamy centres on the Romani people (aka Gypsies or Roma) and how prejudices can be broken down through friendships…There is a Romani (Indo Aryan) language revealing their origins in the Punjab. Carmen (in Bizet’s opera) and of course Spanish flamenco dancers and guitarists are Romani…
FOLLOW UP on China
Jill Remmant from Nga Pou Tauaha o Aotearoa ( NZ Geographic Board informed me we have two places in NZ that have Chinese names:
Shek Harn Historic Reserve Shek Harn being Cantonese for ‘big stone ditch’ and
Wong Gongs Terrace Historic Area, which includes Wong Gong creek
Genghis Khan attacked Northern China in 1211.
Kublai Khan and his grandson Genghis Khan, even reached N Vietnam…China was ruled more or less like a colony by the foreigners and their allies.
1230s Muslims from the Middle East took positions in Mongol rulers…During the 1260s the central bureaucracy and the local administration of the Chinese empire were remodeled on Chinese lines, with certain alterations introduced by the Jin state
[Britannica]
UPDATE on
BLOG #22 Talking False Beliefs
I have two false beliefs of my own to confess in more detail later:
1. I was once skeptical of the claim ten percent of sexual offences and rapes go unreported. My beef was, how could you know if they are not reported? Since reading the recent Ministry of Justice report, I am now corrected. There people did report to the investigators, and what that report meant by ‘unreported’ was unreported to police. And it looks like more than 10%...
2. The word ‘diddums’ more on that next month. I thought it came from or was at least used by Shakespeare!
INDEX ..........
2023
#59 Israel and Palestine
#58 China
#58 A skeptical tool ask 5 whys
#57 Why I do Concerts
#56 'Controversy' (June)
#55 TravelTed's trip
#54 Gaslighting
#53 A Falling Pillar
#52 Leaving a Legacy
2022
#51 Information Overload........Dec 2022
#50 Iranian protest..................Nov 2022
#49 Justice and Peter Ellis.......Oct 2022
#48 History Repeats.................Sept 2022
#47 Enemies.............................Aug 2022
#46 Jesus, I was wrong.............July 2022
#45 Let's Cancel cancel..............June 2022
#44 The oppressed can err.........May 2022
#43 Crises and God ....................April 2022
#42 When to be kind ..................March 2022
#41 The Vax Dialogues Ch6..........Feb 2022
#40 Journalism, film work, Art...Jan 2022
#39 Postmodernism.....................Dec 2021
#38 Am I Woke?...........................Nov 2021
#37 Ellis again...............................Oct 2021
#36 Cranks and Crackpots.............Oct 2021
#35 Who do we trust?....................Sept 2021
#34 Useless Health Advice............Sept 2021
#33 My Self Esteem.......................Aug 2021
#32 The Value of Human Life........Aug 2021
#31 Unconscious motivations........July 2021
#30 The Vax Dialogues Ch 5...........June 2021
#29 The Vax Dialogues Ch 4............June 2021
#28 The Vax Dialogues Ch 3............May 2021
#27 The Vax Dialogues Ch2.............May 2021
#26 The Vax dialogues Ch1 .............May 2021
#25 Covid the real hotspots.............May 2021
#24 Getting Yourself Fit..................April 2021
#23 Divorce for Men.......................April 2021
#22 Talking False Beliefs................April 2021
#21 True Conspiracies ....................April 2021
#20 On being a skeptic...................April 2021
#19 Are men Talking Too Much?.....March 2021
#18 Reiki and Poetic Connections...March 2021
#17 Did you get my Name? ..............Mar 2021
#16 Magnesium Supplements .........March 2021
#15 Bush remedies in Titirangi .......Jan 2021
#14 Self-esteem...............................Jan 2021
#13 Whitebaiters ..................... .......Feb 2020
#12 It Worked For Me! ....................Feb 2020
#11 Me too .......................................Jan 2020
#10 e-scooters .................................Jan 2020
#9 Prolix .........................................Nov 2019
#8 'Ia' (he/she) instead of 'they".......Oct 2019
#7 Fake fronts, fake facts..................Sept 2019
#6 The language of thought..............Aug 2019
#5 Peter Ellis (again)........................July 2019
- Link to my book HERE
#4 Am I a Pakeha? ............................June 2019
#3 Where are you from? ...................May 2019
#2 My Crackpot Hypothesis no1.......April 2019
#1 Chiropractic ................................March 2019
China (Blog #59)
November 2023
I have two friends who have close connections with China, and others with an interest in Chinese history. China has been in the news of late...
India Today (Oct 26) along with other media noted,
“The removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers appears to enforce leader Xi Jinping’s demand for total obedience and the elimination of any potential rivals within the ruling Communist Party, analysts say.”
That rather makes clear China is a totalitarian regime.
I find it interesting in a world with too many humans making a mess of the planet (my description) that last year China’s population shrunk for the first time. But that creates some side effects - an ageing population and shrinking workforce, and empty buildings…and now Xi Jinping is suggesting many women stay home and have babies it seems.
The Chinese economy may be big, but…“The turmoil at Evergrande and other developers has exposed deeper problems within the Chinese financial system, which has long accommodated unrestrained borrowing, unchecked expansion and, often, corruption. Yet even as regulators have tightened the rules and tried to force companies to behave, Evergrande continues to stand out for poor corporate governance.” NY Times 29 Sept
A very brief history of China
According to The American Historical Association, “China has the longest continuous history of any country in the world—3,500 years of written history.” Wow!
Chinese people descended directly from prehistoric cavemen in North China. So they are indigenous.
“…by the time of Confucius (500 B.C.) they occupied most of the country between the Yangtze River and the Great Wall, and had developed from primitive Stone Age men to men who could domesticate animals, irrigate land, make beautiful bronze weapons and utensils, build walled cities, and produce great philosophers like Confucius.
“…[Venetian] Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, told the people of Italy that China under the rule of the Mongols had a much more centralized and efficient system of government than European countries had.”
Buddhism came to China from India around 150 CE. Later there was a revival of Confucianism. The Pew Research Centre estimates up to a third of Chinese today are Buddhists.
Has China invaded other countries?
Firstly, for a long time, China remained isolated from the rest of the world. Let’s tally up a few conflicts over the last 300 years.
England attacks China
England fought two Opium wars against China after the Chinese government wanted the trade stopped. The problem for England was a balance of trade deficit. They wanted Chinese porcelain, tea and silk, but lacked silver to pay for it. So they devised a system of bartering Indian opium instead. Boston University’s guided history takes up the story…
“The increase of opium in China between 1790 and 1832 brought about a generation of addicts and social instability. Clashes between the Qing government and British merchants ultimately escalated into the infamous Opium Wars. As a result, the British were given the island of Hong Kong and trading rights in the ports of Canton and Shanghai. Although British imperialism never politically took hold in mainland China, as it did in India or Africa, its cultural and political legacy is still evident today. Hong Kong remains a significant center of global finance and its government still functioned in much of the same ways as it did under British colonialism. Furthermore, the language of English and British culture highly impacted the society of Hong Kong and Southern China for over a century.”
Sino-French War (1883–1885)
“China had assisted Vietnam in partial resistance to French expansion since the 1870s, first with irregular forces of the Black Flag Army and after 1883 with regular forces. In 1884, after both governments had rejected the compromise Li-Fournier agreement, war broke out. The Chinese were unable to resist the French navy, which attacked Taiwan and destroyed Fuzhou (Foochow) dockyard in south-east China, and the Qing dynasty's reputation was weakened. In the treaty signed in 1885, France won control of Vietnam.
[Oxford (University) reference].
So twice attacked, maybe make that three times so far…or this could be a kind of proxy war…
There was a clear horrific third invasion of China 1931 and 1932 by the Japanese who invaded and then controlled Manchuria.
The rape on Nanking was a terrible atrocity committed by Japanese troops in China.
But my description (based on a podcast by English historians) is a bit imprecise.
The faculty of History at Oxford University looks to me to be a good source. Their entry on this,
“The Second World War in China was the single most wrenching event in modern Chinese history. The conflict is often termed the second Sino-Japanese War, and known in China as the War of Resistance to Japan. There are arguments that the conflict began with the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, but between 1937 and 1945, China and Japan were at total war. When Japan was finally defeated in 1945, China was on the winning side, but lay devastated, having suffered some 15 million deaths, massive destruction of industrial infrastructure and agricultural production, and the shattering of the tentative modernization begun by the Nationalist government.”
There is a reasonable video if you are interested in how the Nanking atrocities came to light.
Today, China seems to support other repressive regimes ( North Korea Russia and Iran
Is China a Threat to world peace and order today?
China would like to regain control of Taiwan…
But this hardly amounts to an invasion.
“More than 900 miles from the Chinese mainland, near the Philippine island of Palawan, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, or P.L.A., has fortified an archipelago of forward operating bases. Beijing has branded these waters as China’s despite having no international legal grounding… waters that were long dominated by the U.S. fleet.”
NY Times 25 Sept 23
the Philippine Coast Guard, and the rope was part of a barrier placed by Chinese forces to keep Philippine boats away from an area where they had a legal right to fish. NYT 27 Sept
This is only a cursory summary. What have I missed?
COMMENTS
One of my friends commented,
“Re China, what about their Belt and Road scheme, which amounts to economic imperialism, their massive military build-up and their attempted takeover of the South China Sea? They look worryingly aggressive to me. What is the US going to do when they finally invade Taiwan?”
My very good friend Mark Edwards commented,
“China also tried twice in its history to invade Japan and both times they failed as their fleets were wrecked of the coast of Japan by severe winds and storms. Japanese fighter aircraft planes in World War 2 that were flown directly into American navy ships were called Kamikaze planes, Kamikaze meaning divine wind, harkening back to the above reference of Chinese invasion fleets being destroyed by severe winds and storms.
In terms of Religion, it is said that Chinese have traditionally embraced all their religions in their lives often converting to Buddhism in the later stages of life because of salvation aspects.”
A Third friend was born in the British concession in Tianjin. This small land area included a horse racing track and many English features. Similar characteristic small areas were set out for Belgians, Canadians, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, and U.S. ‘settlers”. Today they might be regarded as Imperialists.
His grandfather managed the Astor Hotel there. That grandfather (whom I have met) used to say something like, you need a strong authority to control that many people…With the Chinese Revolution of 1949 his family decided to get out. The Hotel had been taken over by Mao’s new Communist government.
…two more (proxy?) wars
The North Korea conflict 1950 – 53 (we had troops there)
and North Vietnam (1954 – 1975) aka The American War.
What do Chinese people think?
Harvard Business review reports (from Rana Mitter and Elsbeth Johnson in 2020)
Three myths in the West:
1 A liberal economy somehow leads to a liberal democracy…Chinese people think their economic growth has been helped by their totalitarian government.
2 Chinese people must realize their government is not legitimate or effective…No, they think it is legitimate and effective. They are not abandoning Communism according th these authors,
“Entry to the CCP and to a university involves compulsory courses in Marxist-Leninist thought, which has also become part of popular culture, as evidenced by the 2018 TV talk show Marx Got It Right.”
I found this interesting,
“Such [Leninist] ideas may appear very different from the outward-facing, Confucian concepts of “benevolence” and “harmony” that China presents to its international, English-speaking audience. But even those concepts lead to considerable misunderstanding on the part of Westerners, who often reduce Confucianism to cloying ideas about peace and cooperation. For the Chinese, the key to those outcomes is respect for an appropriate hierarchy, itself a means of control. While hierarchy and equality may appear to the post-Enlightenment West to be antithetical concepts, in China they remain inherently complementary."
There are many more aspects I have started looking at:
- Who was our intensely racist anti –Chinese PM?
Answer is here.
- Who was the world leader who caused the most unnecessary deaths?
Juan Carlos has an answer
- BRICS and a new world order…China + Russia – Iran – Hezbollah. China’s response to the invasion of Ukraine.
- Many families in Nelson are descendants of Appo Hocton who arrived there in 1842.
- Repression in China of the Islamic Uighurs, Tiananmen Square, and the Falun Gong sect.
- Was Rewi Alley one of the useful idiots for the communist government?
Ditto Jerry Grey today
- A unique report prepared by New Zealand’s spy agency in August this year names China, Iran and Russia as some of the few states conducting foreign interference in New Zealand. [NZ Herald]
- The NZ China council answered a question I had about a NZ place that once had a Chinese name.
“…Nigel Murphy (NZ historian)
‘As far as NZ towns with Chinese names, the only one I know of was Canton, which was the Chinese area of Riverton back in the gold mining days, but I don't think it was ever formally known by that name. Once the gold ended, so did 'Canton.'
++++++++++++
QUOTE for October (Is science itself racist and colonial?)
“…[there is a ] common argument that the claims of science are untrustworthy because the scientists of some earlier period were motivated by the prejudices and chauvinisms of the day. When they were, they were doing bad science, and it’s only the better science of later periods that allows us, today, to identify their errors.”
Steven Pinker (Enlightenment Now) p391
READING
I have finished Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker (2018).
His writings on the influence of Neitzsche on Hitler, Mussolini, D.H. Lawrence and modern postmodernists, relativists, populists, and neoliberals I found fascinating and illuminating.
More here if you search for Nietsche in the text. I find it very difficult to comprehend how anyone today apart from a few psychopaths and bullies would have much time for Nietsche’s ideas.
https://quillette.com/2019/01/14/enlightenment-wars-some-reflections-on-enlightenment-now-one-year-later/
I also read a well researched and informed book on ageing and diet. The Longevity Code by Kris Verburgh (2018).
Here is a review by another doctor
https://www.lifeextension.com/magazine/2018/10/the-longevity-code
There seems to be agreement in the dozen or so similar books I have read (and WHO texts I receive) that:
We eat too many empty carbs that are more harmful as we age.
Too much red meat and trans fats are bad for us.
Foods that are mildly toxic (and don’t taste great) like brocolli are good for us.
We may not eat enough good fats: Walnuts and Salmon. Brazil nuts (no more than a few a week) may be needed to give us enough selenium…
MY JOURNALISM
The editor of N&S has promised to publish my feature on chaplains in NZ hospitals in January.
I am considering pitching a story to North and South magazine on counselling.
I’d like to find out:
How many counsellors might there be in Aotearoa? Paid cf volunteers?
How much harm might poor counsellors cause?
Should counsellors be supervised or trained by experts like clinical psychologists and psychiatrists?
WORD for October
Hormesis a refined take on the idea that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. We need the right amount of stressors in food and exercise where interval training is probably needed as well as long easy runs/walks/or bike rides or swims. And I think we also need the right amount of psychological stress for mental resilience.
PSYCHOLOGY CORNER
Animal Psychology…
What animal sound do you think would most scare the wild animals in the African Animals in Savannah? Here is the answer.
An intelligent failure is a discovery and brings new knowledge. The risk is as small as possible. Perhaps we need more of this, and fewer catastrophic preventable failures. Successful medical teams (and others) may make more mistakes, but fail less. There is no progress in science without the willingness to fail…
Ideas I took from a RNZ interview on 18 Oct afternoon with prof Amy Edmondson.
SUICIDE in NZ
Here is a short quiz for you: (answers at the end)
1 Compared to the number of annual road deaths, how might suicide tallies compare? Which is more common? Is one twice as common or more?
2 What is the ratio of male to female suicides?
3 How does our rate compare with similar countries?
Chris is a young man I interviewed for my psychology study.
PIC Chris
He told me he has lost his brother to suicide. Subsequently, he had his forearms tattooed...(on the left is life and the other is of course the grim reaper)
WHO mentions 10 Sept was World Suicide Prevention Day.
This was set up by the International Ass for Suicide Prevention.
WHO says there are more than 70,000 suicides per year worldwide.
To take care of your mental health WHO recommends:
Talk to someone you trust; Do some physical activity, like going for a walk; Do things you enjoy; Give yourself time to rest; Know that having a bad day does not make you a bad person…I’d add spend time in nice places you love like gardens, mountains, villages, favourite city streets, A cool Café…wherever you feel inspired…
Where to Get Help
Te Whatu Ora suggests
The Depression Helpline and Youthline (whom I do not recommend)
I’d recommend Lifeline.
I became a senior counselor at Youthline a long time back (so it is probably a lot better now), but then while it did teach important non-judgmental and non-directive listening skills, I felt it was also infected with some dangerous and authoritarian ideas from the then current self-realization movements. The idea of giving honest blunt feedback in encounter groups sounds like a good idea, but in practice I found it seemed to do the opposite and was abused to bully and belittle participants. Youthline in Auckland then had links to the sexual abuse cult, Centrepoint (see the book, Cultwatch by Anke Richter). I can tell you a lot more…
GOOD NEWS
An article published in the NZ Medical Journal recently argued New Zealand’s covid response meant 20,000 people were alive today, “based on the deaths we would have seen if we had the same mortality rate as the United States.” [Noted on Bernard Hickey’s blog…]
Russia failed to regain a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council after a majority of countries voted against it.
Quiz answers on Suicide
1. There are roughly twice as many people dying from suicide in Aotearoa as from road deaths.
2022 318 road fatalities 607 suspected suicides.
2021 318 road fatalities 538 suspected suicides
2. Men are at least three times more likely to die by suicide than women.
3. New Zealand sits in the middle of other OECD countries when comparing total population suicide rates. Our suicide rate is higher than Ireland’s or the United Kingdom’s, but lower than Australia’s or the United States’. [mental Health Foundation]
SIGN of our TIMES So election results present a welcome Winston. He gets his facts wrong quite a bit…remember when he said the Cook Strait Ferry had hit the bottom? Then that the PM hadn’t been informed of the Mosque massacre at the time….I do think his work on the Winebox Inquiry helped reveal how some rich people here have undue influence and poor moral compasses. Let’s see how reliable our Winston proves to be, and whether his self-esteem is a little too high for optimal political performance…
ISRAEL
I just like what Naomi Klein (I have her book, No Logo) and Daniel Barenboim had to say. More on this in my December BLOG. I think this cannot be resolved through war.
OUR LIFE IN NZ Cathy recently was diagnosed with breast cancer. One thing that became very clear is that women do need to not just have mammograms, but proper breast examinations. I think GPs probably should all do them routinely. Time matters here. The Malaghan institute is doing great work on promising immunotherapy. All the books I have read suggest this is the most promising approach we have. The side effects are very minimal compared with chemo…Sadly I am not aware they have an immunotherapy for breast cancer….yet.
VIEWING
We really enjoyed a romantic movie on Netflix called Long Story Short.
It is like If I Hadn’t Met You (another Netflix one we enjoyed) it skillfuly merged parallel universes and time travelling to an interesting effect, following through on the what if?s.
Long Story Short is an Australian film with a big heart and three different characters who are developed well and brought to life by very good actors …
Then we really enjoyed another feelgood show about the power of doing music together. I Once Was Famous is also on Netflix and set in London.
Having made this central to my own music career, this one rang true for me.
Far Away (Ger Croatia?) and Love at First Sight
Un Cuento Perfecto love story …nice and well executed…
The Dwelling Catherine Cookson…story of rich and poor and humanism…redemption
Uproar we saw in the cinema and really enjoyed. Set in Dunedin…
We are on the second Netflix series of an interesting and passionate Turkish film called The Club. It portrays background events such as the Istanbul pogrom against their citizens of Greek origin in 1955. It was triggered by Fake News, thanks to their lack of independent unbiased investigative reporters at the time. A bomb had been deliberately planted by Turkish leaders to make it look like the Greeks had set it off. So let’s be more tolerant of those who believe in conspiracies that didn’t happen. Moist of our fears have factual origins.
PODCAST
The Peter Ellis case is now on a podcast Radio NZ called Conviction. I'm on the last (12th) episode. It covers the case evenly and well. I found the episode about how Ellis handled prison (2,416 days) inspiring. I was disappointed none of my many published stories nor my book were mentioned. But still I think it told the story well and accurately.
POLITICAL CORNER
“Dumb question, but why are we growing out population at an annual rate of over 200,000 per year when:
· we already have a housing shortage of more than 100,000 affordable homes;
· rents are rising at near-double-digit rates in our most popular and populous city;
· we have the most stressfully-high rents in the world to the point where 11% of the population or 600,000 people are either totally dependent or regularly have to use food banks?”
Bernard Hickey from his regular news email.
National’s tax switch plan would create a direct wealth transfer from beneficiaries to landlords totalling $2 billion over four years, a CTU analysis found,
FEEDBACK
Please send me more. [email protected]
Jonathon
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A skeptical tool ask 5 whys (Blog #59)
Friday Sept 1st 2023
This month, I present a post by guest writer Paul Docherty, a fellow skeptic and Humanist from Waikato who has a background in manufacturing.
Asking Why Five Times
– Lessons from Lean Manufacturing – Root Cause Analysis
By Paul Docherty
The easiest way to fix a problem is to fix the symptom. This is known as a ‘Band-Aid’ or ‘sticking plaster’ solution (after the popular supermarket brand of wound dressing). Fixing the symptom will often miss fixing the cause.
Sticking plaster solutions are evident everywhere from proposals for multi-million-dollar annual funding for pot-hole remediation to simple taking paracetamol for a headache. Immediately addressing a symptom may be required when presented with a legitimate wound that needs a sticking plaster. All too often once the symptom is addressed, the cause is never established and addressed. The exposed sharp edge that caused the wound will likely cause more wounds.
At every level of society including band-aid solutions lead to waste of time, resources or effort, when a related problem emerges elsewhere. When this happens, it is often because the collective or
individual ‘we’ have not understood and addressed the underlying root cause of the problem.
Root Cause Analysis – Asking Why 5 Times
An easy to remember methodology for root cause analysis is known as ‘Why Five.’ This simple technique can be used almost universally as a method for establishing the root cause of a problem.
‘Why Five’ emerged from Lean Manufacturing, and may be known by other names in other fields.
Put simply – When presented with a problem ask ‘Why is this happening?’ five times. Lean Manufacturing (also known as the ‘Toyota Way’) proposes a number of relatively simple
philosophies and methodologies for optimising manufacturing processes. The ‘Toyota Way’ emerged from the rebuilding of Japan after WW II, advice given to Japanese industry by the Engineer/ Mathematician W. Edward Deming and problem-solving techniques taught as core skills in the Japanese education system as early as Primary School.
A Toyota Example
An oft-used manufacturing example from Toyota – speckled paint on the final paint finish of a car.
Turning the problem into a question: Why does this car have speckled paint?
Answer: Because the paint spray nozzle was clogging.
The band-aid solution is to employ someone with a tooth pick to regularly clear the spray nozzle – problem solved.
Analysis of the band-aid solution reveals that this solution requires employment of a person to clear the nozzle and a supply of toothpicks.
Using the Why Five method:
Why One: Why does this car have speckled paint?
Answer One: Because the spray nozzle was clogging.
Why Two: Why is the spray nozzle clogging?
Answer Two: Because the paint is too thick.
Why Three: Why is the paint too thick?
Answer Three: Because the warehouse ran out of paint thinner.
Why Four: Why did the warehouse run out of paint thinner?
Answer Four: Because paint thinner was not a required stock item in the warehouse.
Why Five: Why is the paint thinner not a required stock item?
Answer Five: Because it is not on the required list of stock items for the purchasing officer.
Solution: Add paint thinner to the required items the purchasing officer has to keep in stock in the warehouse.
The solution not only fixes the speckled paint problem it also fixes any other problem that would be caused by the lack of paint thinner. Note how the band-aid solution would have also required toothpicks to be stocked in the warehouse.
Why Five Method Observations
When applying the method Why Five avoid the ‘blame game’ which is counter-productive and leads to concealing of problems rather than resolution. Unfortunately, the blame game is the main game
in town in the political sphere (or at least the public political sphere). Lean Manufacturing includes the related Japanese management philosophy that ‘7 out of 8 problems are caused by the management.’ This philosophy reduces the likelihood of blame gaming in Japanese management.
Sometimes asking Why Five leads to an answer before the fifth Why is asked. The point is that Why Five is a method, not a Law. Why Five may lead to branching questions, rather than linear in the speckled paint example. Five times does seem to be a practical maximum number of times to run through the process.
Why Five and Being Rational
To be rational is to recognise that many of the ideas and beliefs upon which we base our lives are false. To be rational or to be a rationalist is not a statement of knowledge rather a journey or process of seeking truth. To be rational is to recognise that an immediate response to a problem
may be only a ‘band-aid’ and further analysis will likely be required.
The Why Five method should be considered a practical addition to our Sceptic and Rationalist toolkits helping us in identifying problems, to finding enduring solutions and avoid band-aid ones. Personal and group discussions are also considerably improved by avoiding the ‘blame game’.
For myself, I have found using Why Five in disagreements at work and with my Wife and children to be useful in getting to the root cause. The root cause of a disagreement is usually misunderstanding or different assumptions. Getting to the root cause helps avoid conflict. The net result is a much more harmonious work and home life.
My comments
This looks good, but like any tool it may not be the best one for all situations. Especially in the social sciences like psychology there can be multiple causations.
We had to do multivariate analyses in psychology. The multiple causes can interact.
For an example because it was thoroughly reported recently, let’s take a public example - Kiri Allan's driving over the alcohol limit, then walking away after hitting a parked car, then refusing to accompany a police officer. None of it was a terrible crime in my opinion, and I think she did a lot of great work as an MP.
…So let’s imagine you are in this situation; and let’s leave aside any judgement for the short unfortunate episode…I am only making one point: there may be multiple causes: emotional distress due to the ending of a close four year relationship was the one most often mentioned; another might just be her genetic disposition making certain reactions more likely; then there is the racist, political and misogynist abuse she has had to suffer; perhaps at thet time her closest friends and supporters were in a different place (Auckland, Mauao, Whakatāne…), her beliefs and attitudes she picked up from others (Helen Clark, perhaps the Church Pentecostal church she attended as a chld and the conversion therapy she endured and Palmer – the Law firm she worked for)…she has a very interesting background…
Then there is Steven Pinker, who discusses violent crime. He thinks focus is needed on the simple measure of the symptom (frequency of manslaughter for example) because you will then see it is very unevenly distributed, and that helps explain causes. I think it is worth reading in Enlightenment Now But remember, as I always told the athletes I coached and my guitar students, I am not always right...
...But I think it is important not to lose focus....you can't cover every skeptical tool in one short article...so I like Paul's essay.
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QUOTE for September
“Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to play chess with a pigeon—it knocks the pieces over, craps on the board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.”
I saw it adapted by Siouxsie Wiles regarding debating people like Robert Kennedy (July 17 The Press). I gather this famous quote is by Scott D. Weitzenhoffer, who wrote it as an Amazon.com review for Eugenie Scott's book Evolution vs in 2005.
I am READING
Still on Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker (2018). He presents data to show when there are weak governments who are not trusted, crime will increase...But when we went away, I took Cathy’s copy of War and Peace. Quote - "Our good and sublime [Russian] Emperor has the greatest part in the world to play and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not desert him."
MY JOURNALISM
I Just handed in my story for N&S on chaplains in NZ hospitals…
WORD for August
Karōshi is a Japanese term for making yourself sick with extreme over-work. My Japanese guitar student gave me another word, Zangyou. I must ask about the difference between the two words. Meanwhile I've added Karõshi to my English vocab alongside tsunami, tycoon, honcho, typhoon, wabi-sabi, karaoki, etc.
PSYCHOLOGY CORNER
Bullshit is more harmful than lying. Petrocelli’s research continues to confirm this with new details. I recently met a bullshitter at the Albion pub in Lyttelton who claimed to know a friend of my daughter. As the friend had visited Lyttelton and lived in Christchurch in the past, this seemed likely. Then he started on that tired old trope of “I was there at a party” where she was conceived. Except his date was more than a decade out (Cathy pointed this out fortunately). He then made what I later discovered was an obscene gesture. His companion who went along with (but did not initiate) the distasteful bullshit was Gary McCormick. I was very upset at having been taken in, not least with myself…Maybe I should hang out more with ‘interesting’ types as Gary says he does…I saw enough when I worked as a social worker, so no thanks!
Luck is something Psychologists like prof Sutherland and Kahnemann say we overlook as contributing to our successes. I like the writings of journalist Hayden Donnel who in a recent column skeptically appraises claims Bill Gates, Eion Musk, and a few other entrepreneurs made it big mostly because they were so creative and clever or worked harder than their competitors. He says they “Fail to acknowledge the mix of privilege, luck, and light exploitation that propelled him to the top. …It’s offensive to say these people earned everything they’ve got…”
https://www.webworm.co/p/therich
GOOD NEWS
I think the sentencing of those Christchurch drugging rapist brothers produced some inspiring comments from the women who had been assaulted. They Detective Inspector Scott Anderson, said, "I would like to acknowledge and honour all of the victims who bravely came to police to share what had happened to them… because of their courage they have made our community a safer place." Bravo! Let’s all speak up and call out the bad attitudes and bad people most of whom are psychopathic in their lack of remorse and empathy.
The ODT (Stuff) reports..
"
One survivor, Sophie Brown, waived her right to name suppression.
She told the court that being stupefied and sexually violated by Danny Jaz led to "some of the darkest days" of her life.
"The times when I couldn’t deceive myself into believing nothing had happened, I was filled with sadness, shame, embarrassment, fear, emptiness.
"I searched for constant distraction, which has even sometimes meant self-sabotaging my life to live in chaos in order to avoid the silence," she said.
"You stole my fierce independence from me. You stole my right to feel safe in my own mind from me. And you stole my right to autonomy over my own body away from me."
“People will still describe me as a person who is confident, tenacious, and strong willed. ..
“I lack confidence, trust, and the safety of believing that I have control - there’s a few reasons that I’m exploring as to why this is, but your name is highlighted, underlined and in bold on the top of this list.
She also referred to the fact Danny Jaz has a young daughter.
"She’ll be 19 one day, and you’ve made sure that she continues to live in a world where women are exploited," she said.
"She continues to live in a world full of men like you who believe women owe you the privilege of access to their own bodies, irrespective of whether she wants to or not."
I think this is well worth re-reading.
Brava Sophie. Brave, searingly honest words.
I'm more inclined than ever now to call out any of that kind of shit...
Why I do concerts (Blog #58)
July 2023 (Matariki)
I was recently reminded of why I do concerts, after receiving some rare negative feedback about how I apparently didn’t present enough material that was well-known to my audiences, and I was almost stopped mid concert because I performed two or three instrumentals (instead of songs) at the beginning of my one-hour concert. That was very odd, as she knew I would be performing instrumentals.
There may be some musicians who focus on presenting what they think their audiences will like; maybe some think it will make them rich – very few I suspect would entertain that illusion for long in NZ, even if they get a job in the NZSO.
So it all reminded me I perform primarily to connect and share something emotional and ineffable with my audiences. When that happens, it is palpable in the atmosphere and responses in the room. The best times are when I have the feeling we are all participating together in the music. My audiences may sing, dance and play percussion instruments with me…I have done that sometimes in my serious public concerts with a great deal of success.
My second concern is to be polished, and well prepared, so everything I play flows. As I write this, Eva Cassidy came on my Chill playlist….then Hamza Namira…another inspiring, flowing beautiful performer. As Cathy observed, the music can distract me from reading my emails. I play from this youtube list (on random play) in the mornings as I read my emails and messages, and plan my day. Often I will stop my work and reflect…but that connection means the time distracted from my tasks is well spent and inspiration is a good way to begin what may turn out to be an inspired, productive engaging day.
One of my stock (and true) stories that people always seem to enjoy hearing speaks of a revelation I had around talking about problems cf playing music.
Several decades ago, when I had just completed my M.A. degree in psychology, and worked as a counsellor, research psychologist, and clinical psychologist, I began what I thought would be my life time career as a clinical psychologist. But I felt a little frustrated having to shut up and listen; then when I made an intelligent researched-based suggestion, my advice was usually ignored by my clients (NO, passive voice is fine, Google! There are good reasons why it exists!). Further, talking about often intractable problems became a little depressing for both my clients and me.
When someone (I am pretty sure it was playwright Mervyn Thompson) suggested I give a public concert at Auckland university, I thought I’d try that. My thesis supervisor (who played clarinet, and thought cell phone towers were irradiating us all) thought my talents as a musician were greater than my clinical psychology skills. After that concert, and almost every one of the many hundreds I have given since, my audiences seemed to become animated in a positive way. They smiled, and talked enthusiastically with me about the experience of listening to my classical and Latin guitar playing…
Then I began my record-breaking series of school concerts. My last and 2,513th was in 2016. Before each one, I trained a group of half a dozen (sometimes more) talented pupils/students to be my band for several songs. I usually also had dancers I choreographed. The last song was my World Dance song during which we all did simple dance movements from around the world, usually with a child from somewhere overseas leading. There were many beautiful moments, like when I drew their attention to Indian dance movements with hands and head. The whole school was suddenly enthralled with the grace of an Indian Kiwi girl. Tey all copied and shared it. As the song says, “Let your difference be a strength to share.” Another time, I went to Norsewood, and the whole school had learnt a Norwegian dance which they proudly shared with me. I took that to the next school…Much of my music in the shows fused Polynesian (log lali drums, Māori koauau) with Latin American (Quena, charango) sounds. I hope those 2,513 concerts helped Aotearoa to appreciate our indigenous, bicultural, and multicultural roots. I invented a new flute called the Neo-koauau that combines English, Celtic, South American and Māori sounds. I have played it at Te Papa with a Polynesian (log drum) percussionist from Canon’s Creek who was half Samoan and half Scottish, and Carole Hempton (a Māori Latin guitarist). I think I may have had my friend Dave Parsons there that day. The tourists were interested... Dave, btw, is a great composer of Eastern music, and a good sitar player…Music has been a good life for me. I sing in some 20 languages. Still working on my Farsi for that great Iranian protest song Baraye…
Since my last (except I hope it won’t be the last) school concert, I had begun wondering why my public concert audiences had dropped off slightly, after nearly four decades. But I discovered where many of them have gone. Now I am enjoying great and appreciative audiences again (many of whom seem to know me) in Retirement Villages. I really enjoy chatting with them afterwards, too over a cup of tea or a beer. I think we could make much more use of the wisdom and experiences of our older people…myself included!
Over the years I have enjoyed collaborating with a wide range of great musicians. Just a few that come to mind are: Bill Mar who taught me electric rock bass playing for a successful Nelson rock band I played in called HIGHWAY, Edrick Corban-Banks (a top classical guitarist…we toured the North Island as The Wellington Guitar Duo), Mani Fagundes from Brazil (we were Duo Latino), my amigos who played in my Latin dance band AMIGOS (the late Mark Alexander, Grigota Monasterio, Vanessa Blondell, Paulus Van Bussell, Lisa Sheppard (where is she now? I can’t track her down), Wally Tai-Rakena (who died in the earthquake), trumpeters for AMIGOS included Mike Lewis (USA), and CSO's Alexandre Rapoport (I recall he insisted he is not Russian, but Ukrainian. at the time I didn't fully appreciate the difference)…Penny Chapman (now back in Wales), Rob de Leeuw (from Motueka and a great African percussionist), Mark Edwards, Maria Elena, and Phil Bates and my other flamenco amigos, Classical violinist Erica Colbert, Ramón, Bernard Wells, Dave Parsons, NZSO violinist Robin Perks (we were at SCOPA in Cuba St as Souvenir for a few years on Sunday evenings)Truda Chadwick (blues singer), Cristián Huenuqueo, Wayne Tahere, Brian Solomon, Wendy Lockyear (from Townsville), Mathew Mann, Noel Kaa Reid, my current occasionally performing ART GHETTO with Richard Prowse, Baz Bailey and Erwin La Cruz and many, many more (sorry for those I forgot to mention!)…I often think of these collaborators when playing certain pieces (e.g. an Emaj9 chord always reminds me of Wendy Lockyear,who first introduced me to it). They all shared something musical, and something about life...
The other thing I like about music (and athletics obviously) is the constant challenge to produce excellent performances; performances that flow because of all that preparation and practice.
…and my music has improved my languages. I have presented my school concerts so far speaking totally in Māori, Italian (in Italy) and Spanish.
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QUOTE for July
“You can ridicule ideas without hurting anyone.”
- Ricky Gervais with Richard Dawkins June 2023
Steven Pinker (like Richard Dawkins) talks of trial and error as being useful, but different from science. He describes bad epistemologies on page 8..
“[We] should not fall back on generators of delusions like faith, dogma, revelation, authority, charisma, mysticism, divination, visions, gut feelings, or the hermeneutic parsing of sacred texts.”
READING I have finished Song of The Cell by Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee (2022) an eminent cell biologist and medical researcher. I found interesting how being “precisely wrong” can be very useful in science, because the truth will be the exact opposite…and…osteoarthritis..not wearing down of cartilage between bones, but …and a balance between creating new cells and destroying old ones…to stay the same…
The research, announced by Professor Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz of the University of Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology, has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. But Żernicka-Goetz told the meeting these human-like embryos had been made by reprogramming human embryonic stem cells. [The Conversation]
Mukherjee is a scientist originally from India, so an Eastern scientist (not a practitioner of ‘eastern science’ as he will tell you there is no such thing). But he does inform us in his book that there were some pretty good vaccines in the East before Jenner came along…
I am now reading Enlightenment Now by Steven Pinker. Already he has changed my thinking, and opinions about inequality, growth, Blake’s ‘dark satanic mills’, and population.
Among my recommended non-fiction books on the human condition are:
The constitution of Knowledge
Mistakes were made but not by me
Thinking Fast and Slow
Irrationality the Enemy Within
I’ll update this next month
MY JOURNALISM
There is a new editor at The Listener. I am (was?) hoping she will be more accepting of my work with any story she commissions than the last editor. Mind you, Karyn did publish my story on the Peter Ellis Supreme Court hearing. I do not agree with the new editor’s claim in an email to me that stories about secondary schooling is more important to listener readers than primary school issues. I reported on some religious teaching in state schools and private religious ones that were considered to be indoctrination. I thought the whole thing is interesting, and of note, as we now have a big variety including: Hare Krishna, and Islamic schools …Perhaps it was my own fault, but I felt so frustrated at losing my scoop, and being let down by the editor.
Noreira, I have two other editors interested in my latest related project that will go head.
My latest effort submitted to the NZ Skeptics newsletter editor on the likely Mass Psychogenic Illness outbreak in Iran. Still no response…More on them next time. I claim NZ Skeptics are unreasonably adverse to skepticism about the claims made by some within the committee. But of course you may well be skeptical of my claim!
WORD for June and PSYCHOLOGY CORNER
gaslighting
We recently saw the original 1944 film (online for about $5). It really clarifies where the word came from. Great acting too I thought from Ingrid Bergman…
GOOD NEWS Russia…I claimed last year I thought Putin would be gone by this October. I think that now looks more likely. But who will replace him? Will he be worse or better? All bets are off with me on that! (and why am I not saying ‘she’?)
I think Josie Pagani (stuff today) and this video by Dawkins and Ricky Gervais kind of explains why Science itself is not colonialist or racist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBLdMmNuHlQ
People and organisations of people can be. Check out the well-known (or, it used to be!) philosophical fallacy of the category mistake. Is maths purple? Is 2+2=5 the wrong vibration? When a policeman or policewoman murders, does that mean our police force was set up to steal, rape, and murder? (OK the Russian, and Iranian ones may be at the moment).
FEEDBACK
comments on last month’s blog on controversy.
"Anyway, I stand by my comments. Had I not made them, I think it would have left readers with the impression that I (and by extension, NZ Skeptics) fully support the work of Boghossian. That is certainly not the case. There are plenty of well-intentioned voices in the skeptical movement that we can call on. I’d prefer not to be promoting the work of bad actors."
- Craig Shearer, president of NZ Skeptics in the NZ Skeptics newsletter (which I understand is in the public domain as it is not just restricted to members),
Reply to that from JC
“Again I feel that he confuses the issue. He talks of "the work of Boghossian" and notes that "the reviewed book was written back in 2013", and yet he refuses to let the book and Boghossian's work on it stand on its own merit, he instead steers readers away from the book based on something Boghossian does years later that is quite unrelated to the ideas set forth in a book on atheism. Craig apparently dismisses his book because he disagrees with his later "crusade against “wokeness” ... a crusade against what they perceived as ... disciplines where intellectual rigour was lacking". I see nothing wrong with exposing "disciplines where intellectual rigour was lacking". Surely theology courses fall into that category? But again, even if Boghossian has now gone off the rails or has joined the Ku Klux Klan, you can't condemn his 2013 book based on his current activities. JC
Controversy (Blog #56)
June 2023
Recently someone I know wrote that he is hesitant to recommend a book by Peter Boghossian, “…As he has become a somewhat controversial figure.”
The Oxford Learner’s dictionary defines ‘controversy’ as, “causing a lot of angry public discussion and disagreement.” It does not state whether the anger is avoidable or unnecessary. It gives Winston Churchill and Richard Nixon as examples.
In my youth I heard the word ‘controversy’ usually used to describe issues rather than people: the Springbok’s tour, the war in Vietnam, liberalising laws around homosexuality, censorship (does anyone remember Patricia Bartlett, or the segregated audience screenings of Lady Chatterley’s Lover?), whether the Christian God exists (it was bad manners to say no in public). People taking either side could however encounter angry resistance. My point is the anger is independent of the truth of your position. It just may be the person expressing the controversial view is ahead of the zeitgeist. Maybe the angry resistance is a necessary step for change for the better (or worse, to be consistent).
Nowadays, being ‘controversial’ seems to add these ideas:
1. you are on the ‘wrong’ side – your belief is false; and
2. you are being unnecessarily polarising and unpleasant towards those who disagree with you.
There are plenty of convincing examples that fulfil both those points: Donald Trump (on women and vaccines, the election being rigged, etc, etc) and Vladimir Putin in regard to just about anything regarding Ukraine or NATO.
Ricky Gervaise, whose writing and acting in Afterlife I greatly admired for its understanding, warmth and empathy seems to have been perhaps right, but unnecessarily unpleasant when he said at a recent Golden Globe awards ceremony, …”Mel’[Gibson]s forgotten all about it…that’s what drinking does…”
So when I say ‘controversial’ I am not implying the person is wrong, or that ia (he, she, ‘they’, or you don’t want to say…so just say ia!) is being malicious, unnecessarily unpleasant and making it likely a listener feels alienated, hurt, or upset for no good reason and with only a poor outcome. i.e. a person who is criticised directly or indirectly by the comment might just double down rather than consider the criticism seriously
That brings us to what may be a third deeper issue and layer of meaning when we say someone is ‘controversial’. We may mean the person is being malicious. Given that a recent meta-analysis estimates 4.5% of the adult population are psychopaths (most are male), and given that crime is commonplace, we may need to always give that possibility serious consideration. I had a recent hypnopompic phrase enter my undirected consciousness…”I open that terrible door”. Maybe my unconscious was referring to the experience of probing the nefarious purpose behind some person’s seemingly innocuous reference to something I did or thought…
Linguists describe how words can perjorate meaning a neutral word can become a term of abuse. ‘Negro’ (the Spanish word for Black) and then ‘black’ once meant simply of dark skin colour. Then it perjorated…Maybe ‘controversial’ has perjorated?
Wdyt (What do you think)?
My friend Erwin (who has a PhD in linguistics) commented, “The Controversial is a topic that brings opposing views (that's the etymology of the word contro (against) verso (turn), so facing each other). BTW, not all controversies create "angry" opinions, I would rather say "passionate". Euthenasia is a controversial topic. Of course, you get the topics that are not only controversial but just chauvinism and bigotry.”
Zeitgeists usually change slowly, which may be just as well because some new ideas do not turn out to be as good as first thought.
But with perhaps the present exception of much of the East and Africa, the world does seem to gradually become more liberal and free and life becomes easier (washing machines, life expectancy phones, etc)…Kate Sheppard no doubt was a divisive controversial figure in her time…
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I have bought and read the book A Manual for Creating Atheists recently reviewed in the NZ Skeptics newsletter by Paul Docherty.
I would strongly recommend it because it is not actually focused on de-converting religious beliefs as the title might suggest. Rather, it is a practical guide to using good epistemology in everyday conversations in regard to any beliefs for which there appears to be scant evidence. Boghossian makes the point that you needn't go out on the street and talk to strangers, although you could do so - if you feel comfortable with that - and are able to have a free, genial, and equal exchange of ideas with someone whose ideas may seem crazy to you.
I've tried his approach, and enjoyed the engagement and amiability it has engendered for me and my interlocutors. I no longer find myself at loggerheads or triggering defensive closed kickback from those difficult conversations. My relationship with my son (who has some beliefs I think are poorly founded) has significantly improved to a very fulfilling connection and closeness as a result.
As to Boghossian being ‘controversial’ ...I remember back to the 1970s when NZ Skeptics generally avoided talking about religious claims of any sort. I remember when questioning the validity of astrology, and psychic beliefs was considered rather offensive by those who were true believers, and even some of our members. Even basic feminist premises, and acceptance of homosexuality were thought to be ‘controversial’ back then. We have all come a long way since those days. And we are better for it. Let's continue to politely and in good faith call out any belief we think may fail a close skeptical analysis. As Michael Shermer has recently suggested, "Be anti-fragile...the current craze of protecting students from anything that makes them feel uncomfortable including ideas that may challenge them...it is making them weaker, not stronger..."
Remember just two years ago, Boghossian's students appear to have had him fired for doing just that.
Would it not be hypocritical to claim his views are 'harmful' and then deliberately inflict significant harm on him? Who was it that said the best antidote to bad ideas is good ideas? And I have found Boghossian's ideas to be overwhelmingly good and benign.
QUOTE for June “ I think theatre is about checking on some controversial ideas among the people and seeing where we all square…” [Branden Jacobs-Jenkins] and “The ideas presented in [the play] Appropriate may, or may not, be controversial to you, but we hope that you enjoy the conversations they spark”
- from the Court Theatre programme notes to the brilliant play we saw last night.
READING I am still finishing Song of The Cell by Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee (2022) an eminent cell biologist and medical researcher. I found interesting how it was discovered that ordinary cells in our bodies can be turned back into stem cells. I feel we must be closer to being able to regrow damaged nerves, new organs…eternal life! (maybe not quite the latter just yet!).
MY JOURNALISM My latest effort submitted to the NZ Skeptics newsletter editor on the likely Mass Psychogenic Illness outbreak in Iran. Still no response; after another short reminder. I think that is disrespectful, especially as a story that was very similar was published in Skeptical Inquirer in the USA. They interviewed the same expert (Robert Bartholomew) as I did. I had the advantage of being able to interview Robert in his own home in Auckland.
WORD for June
Māfana
This is a Tongan word meaning the feeling you have of being so immersed in a strong feeling where one is just going with the flow and feeling and losing all sense of volition. I understand this is usually a positive togetherness, and appreciation in a group of some great performance. It was used in the film (in which I appear briefly as an extra, so I have met some of the cast) Red White and Brass
It reminds me of a similar German word I think of Yiddish origin. Verklempt means much the same, although it contains the connotation of being squeezed into inaction. Perhaps it has a slightly less positive feel than māfana. Wdyt?
PSYCHOLOGY CORNER Check out the book Toxic Positivity. Some friends are fans of a book and film called The Secret” It was enormously popular. And yes, life and people can be unduly harsh. Maybe we do all need more positivity. However not false hopes, I hope (truly hope!). Positivity can be taken to excess, as the book Toxic Positivity points out. It received some very positive reviews!
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/apr/24/dont-insist-on-being-positive-negative-emotions-much-to-teach-us
I prefer Michael Shermer’s advice to The Secret. For me it is more grounded. But he does not attack The Secret here just provides other advice…on living a good life
GOOD NEWS I don’t think many people realize Japan has its own indigenous cultures with their own languages. Some of their cultural treasures, including “a traditional stencil resist-dyeing technique that was prized by Ryukyu nobility” and women’s facial tattoos are finally being revived, and I think less subject to persecution in Japan.
…
FEEDBACK COMMENTS On this one, the feedback has all been good. Comment below is from JC who writes on his Silly Beliefs website
- I agree that we shouldn't avoid reading a book or listening to an argument simply because the author holds some unrelated view that some might disagree with. I feel that to do so is somewhat like falling prey to a version of the ad hominem fallacy, where we dismiss someone's argument by attacking some personal flaw they may have. They're a racist or a homosexual or they voted for Trump, so clearly their view on the Harry Potter movies must be rubbish. I just read a succinct comment from philosopher Peter Singer in his book "Ethics in the Real World: 90 Essays on Things that Matter" (2023) where he says, "History is full of deeply flawed people who did great things". I have long been annoyed with people who elevate certain people almost to the level of gods just because they did some truly great things, like Einstein or Newton, assuming that they must have been outstanding and moral in all aspects of their life, when often that is not true. Some really nasty people can have good ideas and some really nice people can have abhorrent views. Like the Nazis proved that smoking caused cancer but no one wanted to use, or even believe, their data because of their treatment of the Jews, and the world believes that Mother Teresa was a kind and loving person, a real saint, when in fact she was nothing short of a monster, for example, withholding pain killers from ill children in the disgusting belief that suffering is good and reusing syringes to save money, and yet when she fell ill she went to the US for the best of treatment, paid for from donations given to help the poor.
I've read "A Manual for Creating Atheists" and thought it was very good. I would recommend it based on solely on the arguments and information presented in the book. I care little for any author of any book I read, they're just someone I don't know. Their book must stand on it's arguments, I'm not influenced by some other views the author might hold in their personal life. I agree with some authors whom I don't like personally, and I disagree with others that I do believe are nice people. It's a bit like how I really like some Tom Cruise movies but I don't like Tom Cruise as a person. Probably the Scientology thing. Thankfully I can separate movie characters from the actors who play them, unlike many people, and I can separate Boghossian's book on atheism from Boghossian's view on other topics. [the person quoted at the beginning] may be right, there may well be good reason to challenge some of Boghossian's other views, but even if he was a "racist" or a "serial killer" or a "fill in the blank", that is no reason to blindly dismiss his view on atheism. Each viewpoint must stand or fall on its own merit, not on whether we like the author's haircut. I suspect some are calling a person or topic "controversial" simply as a means of censorship, saying they don't want to make people uncomfortable when in fact they don't want people to hear and consider new arguments, they don't want to rock the conservative boat. Protecting people by giving them safe spaces where nothing controversial is heard and discussed is just keeping the masses ignorant. Regards JC
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Further feedback and comment is welcome. I don't have to be right.
Aku iti noa
Jonathon [email protected]
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TravelTed's journey to Ōtautahi (Christchurch) (Blog #55)
May 2023
Cathy and I moved house from Te Whanganui a Tara (Wellington) to Ōtautahi (Christchurch) last month. Because our ferry had been cancelled Cathy flew on ahead, while I just turned up at the Interislander terminal hoping to get on before too long. Somehow. After I missed out on the morning sailing, I headed off to Oriental Bay to fill in time efore the next sailing. That was when TravelTed popped up his head in the back of our loaded car, and wanted to come into ther Café. I thought people may think I was mad, and was not so keen on that idea at first. However, nobody minded. In fact they started to smile. We found Beach Babylon very amigable and gemütlichkeit...The people seemed to accept his presence.
TravelTed soft talked the nice woman behind the counter into letting us on the afternoon ferry. A German school teacher who also got on, told us she brought her Teddybār on a plane from Germany and kept it in the cabin with her...(remember the umlaut she told me, otherwise it is a bar - Teddy did become a Teddy (at the) bar later on the ferry
Another passenger did a photoshoot with us, he seemed very committed to the whole story...
Ted is sad remembering a quarter of a century’s happy life in Welly.
This was one of Teddy's fond travel memories. He began his journeys with Ariana.
Teddybår becomes Teddy(at the)bar…
Ted goes exploring near Kaikoura
Ted insists on a stop beside the river
By the time we get to Cheviot, Ted is becoming something of a celebrity...
Finally, even settled into Mairehau, Ted likes to get out and about!
QUOTE for May ” I couldn’t have written this book ten years ago. I wasn’t wise enough” - Neil deGrasse Tyson CsiCON 2022 in conversation with Richard Dawkins
I HAVE JUST (almost) READ Song of The Cell by Dr Siddhartha Mukherjee (2022) an eminent cell biologist and medical researcher. The Guardian reviewer really liked it. I learnt more about our complex immune system (T regulator cells that act like a trigger lock as T cells given free reign may kill off too many good cells). The history of medical discoveries showed how most characters are neither clearly reliable heroes nor quacks. Linus Pauling, for example, seems to have generated so many wild hypotheses and beliefs that he may have been wrong more often than right. Yet he won the Nobel Prize. I love the comment, “his [madcap] hypotheses and models were sometimes so wrong that they weren’t even bad.” The converse is also mentioned, where a poor student’s work was thought to be “so bad it was not even wrong.” Makes you think! - as the Victoria Uni. advertisements used to say. I strongly recommend this book if you are interested in these things, and there is a chapter on covid…If anyone would like to borrow my copy, let me know.
MY JOURNALISM My latest effort is an amateur short piece submitted to the NZ Skeptics newsletter editor on the probably Mass Psychogenic Illness outbreak in Iran. I suggest many of the schoolgirls who are getting sick may be simply reacting unconsciously to their appalling conditions and mistreatment. I just read the Iranian government turned off the whole internet there after their morality police began beating up and murdering Iranian women.
WORD for May
Accha
An English word that derives from India (Hindi) this time. It means something like, Yes, I understand and I go along with all that. It can also be used as a question…i.e. is that accha? I use it a lot now because it is efficient and now an official English word.
PSYCHOLOGY CORNER Check out The Narcissism of Small Differences. I came across this in an excellent stuff article by Charlie Mitchell a couple of days ago. An early fictional example he gives is in Gulliver’s Travels, where a war is waged on how to crack an egg…
I found some enlightenment on this from Christopher Hitchens (sadly no longer with us).
FEEDBACK The None this time although I did get some general positive supportive comments about the fallen pillar (and all those repairs we made to our old house before we handed it over to a lovely enthusiastic artistic couple.
Aku iti noa
Jonathon
Gaslighting (Blog #54)
Friday 7 April 2023
Jessie married Claire. A week later Adam goes off with Claire for a few hours and they kiss….
Adam gaslights Jessie. “You have a problem”…
[source Marriage at First Sight Reality TV…]
Despite the church’s good intentions, their solutions lacked the professional and clinical support and insight that were needed to fix underlying childhood trauma. My life could have taken a very different trajectory if the church had simply recognised their own limitations and referred me to appropriate professional support. Instead, for me, their programmes did more harm than good.
Year after year I went into deliverance meetings desperate to be ‘transformed’, but when I failed to experience a ‘faith healing’ it was implied that my heart wasn’t in the right place – I hadn’t spent enough time in prayer or done the necessary preparation for God to heal me.
Year after year, I was left feeling shamed, inadequate, hopeless, and beyond help.
My church context also put a high emphasis on moral ‘purity’, especially in regard to girls’ clothing and body language, and elicited vows to avoid any kind of sexual exploration outside marriage. My entire worldview was tied to the religious belief that sexual purity correlates with worthiness and value. Webworm Megan
https://unfolding.blog/2022/02/08/unfold/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
QUOTE for April S QUOTE ” I couldn’t have written this book ten years ago. I wasn’t wise enough” - Neil deGrasse Tyson CsiCON 2022 in conversation with Richard Dawkins
I HAVE JUST READ ????
MY JOURNALISM ???
WORD for April
Accha
An English word that derives from India (Hindi) this time.
Next time…(FEB)..Hypnopompia
Cryptomnesia cool! Goes with lethologica?
FEEDBACK The schoolgirls in Iran again
Aku iti noa
Jonathon
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.A Falling Pillar (Blog #53)
Friday 3 February 2023
I am running up the Silversky track above Crofton Downs in Wellington. I like the name. I see my long silver locks flowing almost effortlessly and consistently upwards through the regenerating native bush towards the sky. Well nobody sees my hair, nor any part of me, as there is nobody else up here. The air is warm, but not hot, and I like the feel of a moderate sweat as I move across the dappled light shining through the foliage overhead. Bliss. Uh oh! Rhythm broken as I stumble on a tree root. I almost fall.
Now I’m thinking of that big wooden pillar in the corner of our porch. We had almost sold our house amongst our own jungle in Ngaio, when I noticed it was rotten at the base. We love that porch in our 100 year old character house. The sun pours in there in the mornings, and the brick steps and paving I rebuilt there make a perfect place to watch the Tuis, Piwakawaka and Kaka in the big Pohutukawa trees. I think I might be rather like that pillar in the corner. I’ve stood for many decades, but I’m a wee bit weaker, and more prone to failure. Due for replacement? I think I understand the source of that unfounded (great replacement) conspiracy belief…
We homo sapiens evolved with many flaws: an optic nerve in the wrong place across our retinas creates a blind spot, etc, etc. I have several bionic teeth (aka implants) which might improve on nature’s faulty designs. And talking of running, Roger Robinson loves his two new knees (they even have names) that are carrying him to new world class masters running records…He is now over 80 years old…
As I come on to the wider four wheel drive track that leads right up to the skyline ridge, I think about my recent significant failure as a journalist. It is easier to contemplate here, alone with the wider path looking down on the whole city of Wellington. The whole hillside is covered in shrubs and trees. Beside the track I now pass some abandoned failed rusty roofing iron...
My failure was revealed back in Auckland, after my trip to Whangarei with old friend Ken (who lives in Puhoi). I crossed the city many times (across the harbour bridge four times) throughout the whole Gabrielle disaster period. I gave fourteen retirement village concerts. None were cancelled. I decided not to bother buying an umbrella, and only very briefly once (during the strongest deluge) regretted that. I met my son Zeph in Maraetai, and enjoyed a wild run along the beach (one mistake – should have got to him first, as he would have joined me).
At Maraetai the wind was less strong than I have felt in the past up this hill. One day, just a little higher up, I witnessed my fellow club runner Stu being blown off his feet. Stu and the others turned back, but I carried on…
My journalism mistakes. In the midst of Gabrielle’s worst in Auckland, I went to ARE Media headquarters in Kingsland, in a neo-modernist strongly built concrete and steel two-storied building. I don’t think it will fail after a hundred years like our porch pillar. But as I discovered there, although I am younger than our pillar by about three decades (you do the maths!), my feet of rot have already started revealing themselves (apologies to whoever thought up the clay reference).
LSS I hope nobody is saying TLDR. [LSS = Long Story S]
My piece on Religion in our schools won’t be published in the Listener because it has some fatal flaws. I agree with editor Karyn’s assessment. In short, I start vaguely and lamely with “some time ago” and don’t name some people I should have named. I tried unsuccessfully to extract some comment from then Education minister Chris Hipkins when I should have approached the Ministry lower down. In another sentence, the meaning is not clear…
I’m almost done with this, except, as I run past some larger native trees (no Kauri I can see here) I remember the night before I met Karyn. I was staying with my friend poet Ron Riddell and his Colombian wife Saray. Saray took me for a run one morning through Titirangi and its distinctive ancient model kauri trees. We talked partly in Māori and Spanish and noted some recent slips. She and Ron were very supportive of my anguish at the revelations from Karyn at The Listener. I woke up on the morning of meeting Karyn very early, and wrote a poem about how discombobulated I felt, as I have published many investigative pieces in Metro, North and South, NZ Law Journal, The Press and even once, about a year ago, The Listener. I read the poem that afternoon at the Titirangi Poetry Society (founded by Ron many decades ago).
It is titled Unpolished version 7.1 and concludes
IV The Crime Scene within my mind
Discom-bloody-bobulation
Nothing fits and nothing functions
Just a rhythm, just a schism
Sometime, somewhere ¿surely somehow?
I’ll could blend the garbage with the flowers
Sprinkle in my Wabi-Sabi
Wabi-Sabi’s crap reflections
Wabi-Sabi’s prior perfections
Bang¡BANG!
Clickety-click
Swish swish…tick tick
Bad mistakes…
Swish swish tick
Crap computations
Swish, swish, cross,
Crap clackety clunkety
Rickety rackety
Wrung out, spun out
Wobbly writing…
…
¡BANG!
Gate closed
I found at our meeting Karen was very helpful, and understanding. I thanked her sincerely for her patience and time – I will do my best to fix it and try North and South as she suggests.
I just hope I am like that old pillar. It can be made better than when it was first put there for a lot less money than we had anticipated.
I think we will then sell the house and replace it with one about forty years younger and in much better repair in Mairehau, Christchurch (near our grandson and soon to appear granddaughter Mia).
I’m on my way back down the Silversky track now. This is easier. Faster, Exhilarating!
QUOTE for Feb Sometimes things will go wrong and just don’t work out. But you needn’t get stressed when you have done the best you could…[not verbatim]. Our cheerful Intercity Bus Driver from Christchurch to Picton on 28 Feb 2023 Note this – Karyn! ]
I HAVE JUST READ half of two books this month. Roger Robinson’s latest Running Throughout Time is one. Boy can he tell a story well and do his research to get to the truth. He gives plenty of dates and names…
MY JOURNALISM Covered in this month’s blog
WORD for Feb
Wabi-Sabi is a word from Japan. Wikipedia has a nice entry…”is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.” Btw there is a wiki seminar in Wellington coming up. I hope to attend some of it.
FEEDBACK The schoolgirls in Iran thinking they have been poisoned by Nitrogen gas…(I read the report today in the NY Times) Check out how much of the atmosphere is Nitrogen. I call probable mass psychogenic illness. I asked expert Robert Bartholomew who notes it parallels a story he has written on phantom terror attacks in Afghanistan.
https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/mass-hysteria-likely-behind-reports-taliban-poisoning-afghan-schoolgirls-expert
Leaving a Legacy (Blog #52)
January 2023
I and Cathy recently visited my old friend Don King in Christchurch. Now in his early 80s, Don seemed a little frail in the way he walks slowly and carefully, but that is due to an operation that didn’t go perfectly from which he is recovering. Don now lives in a rather new townhouse. Don played us some beautiful sounding music he had arranged for an instrument that looks like a lute, but is not a lute. It has several more strings than a guitar…Despite one eye having some macular degeneration, the score he had hand-written was just as beautiful as the other ones he has generously given me. I still perform them and find my audiences also appreciate them. So Don already has quite a music legacy. His three volumes of guitar tutor books are used by teachers all over New Zealand.
There is no logical imperative as far as I can tell to suggest we must leave a legacy. Perhaps it is just a good idea to simply make the most of our precarious, vulnerable, and often short lives. Carpe Diem. Provided I hear you say, we don’t wreck others’ enjoyment of life…
For me, I’d like to think I will be remembered well as someone who could empathize and work with other people from all walks of life. Someone who had a reasonably reliable grasp of reality (a reliable epistemology), and the human condition (psychology)…and who generally espoused values like honesty, transparency, humility, integrity. …Don has these admirable qualities, as well as being a quiet and kind person.
Cathy has a great legacy of paintings. Some 17 were sold last year. I think they record something of what life is like here. I hope to do the same with some of my music and writings…
We can be gone suddenly. We lost three nephews while they were still young men. I laughed and joked with cousin in law Pete last year, just before he took ill and suddenly died.
But today the sun is shining. As our Roman friends would say, “Il sole splende, il caffè è buono…” I am only 72, and healthy and fit still. Although I run at half the speed of a couple of decades ago, the grass still smells sweet. It is a glorious day! I am off for a bike ride, then a run, and some time in our garden amongst the trees and flowers, piwakawaka and tuis…I think my three grown up children will all feel rather like that today, too! Pete would approve as he always made the most of what he had.
QUOTE for Feb "Before you believe a claim, find out who disagrees with it and why…. Once you have located the opposing arguments you can evaluate which side has the most credible evidence and the fewest logical fallacies. [from the late Skepdoc, Harriet Hall]
I HAVE JUST READ Invasion 2022 Luke Harding. 308pp. Harding reports from Ukraine. Not a lot I didn’t already know, but horrifying, of course. Maybe The Russian Conundrum gives more of an insider’s view.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/05/exiled-russian-calls-on-those-still-in-country-to-sabotage-putins-war
MY JOURNALISM I am looking at an old case that may reveal (or at least allege credibly) that someone now high within the legal system acted with malfeasance a long time ago, and maybe that should be exposed. I will see…Meanwhile I continue with charities and those issues, and await publication of my Listener investigation into religious lessons in schools.
I spoke with a young woman in Titirangi who works for NEOM….helping the Saudi’s build that 270km long wall with no crs to house 9 million people….Sounds great…right (Khashoggi…)?
WORD for Feb
Panglossian means being over-optimistic, like Pollyanna in the eponymous film. Interestingly, there was a fictional naively optimistic Dr Pangloss in Voltaire’s novel Candide from which the word derives.
Btw Please let me know if you have any thoughts to share on my short blog. That includes suggestions for improving it before I put it up next week…or just an update on what you are up to. And let me know if you’d like me to put your comment on the blog in the feedback section…
Aku iti noa
Jonathon
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Information Overload and Updates (Blog #51)
Friday 2 December 2022
There is too much information and noise…so I’m not adding much to it this month.
I had two short poems published recently in the 2022 Titirangi Poets anthology.
This was one…
Last Word (Laingholm August 2020)
I’d rather say
The best word
The kindest one
The wisest word
Than the last
…
...
...
one
So I hope you will all be able to step back from that constant rush of noise and interesting information, and be able to relax and take a break.
Updates
Follow up on Post Modernism
“This is no mere philosophical quibble. The notion of objective truth is what anchors all serious, clear-headed inquiry, and without it the distinction between science and pseudoscience breaks down. And while subjectivism about truth is a rare view among professional philosophers, it is highly influential in other parts of the humanities and social sciences, where, as a consequence, reason and argument have been to a large extent replaced by political ideology.”
Victor Moberger – Free Inquiry website October 2022
QUOTES for December on learning some new skill…
from David, a new addition to my subscribers list. I think this is wise.
“…My old hockey coach used an expanded version of the phrase: "perfect practice produces perfect performance; piss-poor practice produces piss-poor performance", which seems more truthful. Hence, I despise those who simply call for "more education".
And on religion
“You could easily spot any Religion of Peace.
Its extremist members would be extremely peaceful.”
- Ricky Gervais
WORD for December
Apophenia.
“Apophenia, or patternicity, is characterized by seeing patterns in unrelated things. Anyone can experience this, but if you live with schizophrenia, it may be part of a delusion.” [Psych Central website]
A nice Masterclass site essay lists some different kinds of apophenia:
- Gambler’s fallacy,
- Pareidolia (focused on visual information),
- clustering illusion, and
- confirmation bias.
I AM READING Bullets and Opium by Liao Yiwu. I am pretty sure I have met the author. It gives some great insights into what happened during and after the Tiananmen Square protests. Worth a read in light of the current Iranian and Ukrainian protests.
and just finishing Cult Trip by Anke Richter. Rather enlightening on the details of how cults bully, indoctrinate, intimidate, gas light, and importantly coerce their members...It is in three parts: Centre[point (Auckland) a Tantric Yoga cult based in South Asia, and Gloriavale. All seem three are sex cults where serious sexual crimes including rape have been reported and at Centrepoint and Glorivale successfully prosecuted.
MY JOURNALISM My Listener investigation into teaching of religion in our schools should come out next week.
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QUOTE for NOVEMBER
“...for many of you there will come a day when you will be faced with a choice you will have to make: integrity vs. convenience, doing the right thing or justifying the wrong thing. Will you take the brave path and step up, or will you play it safe? Will you blow the whistle on some unethical practice in your company, risking your job, or will you remain silent? Some choices must be made instantly, and sometimes you’ll have a bit longer to think about what you want to do. What choice will you make?” eminent US memory scientist Elizabeth Loftus.
Iranian Protest Wellington (Blog #50)
Friday 4 November 2022
Last Friday I turned up to support the protesters outside the Iranian Embassy in Whataitai (‘Hataitai’ is a spelling mistake), Te Whanganui a Tara (Wellington).
I arrived five minutes early but it had already started. The first thing I saw was an unmarked police car with its red and blue lights flashing. I had to cautiously edge past in order to find a park further down the road.
There was shouting and chanting in English and Persian…”WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM!”
It was colourful with huge flags and some music and singing.
I am a curious person. I walked up to the concrete wall beside the steel gates of the embassy. Odd, I thought, two bits of a wooden frame, with some glue in the middle. Messy looking. I felt the edges of the wood…Then I saw a man spit on something on the ground covered in red paint. Slowly (I am never going to be a detective!) I pieced together the connection…under the bloody paint was a brass plaque. It had some Persian script on it…
Then they sang a song I love to sing. Bella Ciao. I joined in. Now I was one of them. Bella Ciao is an Italian song (you may have seen it on Netflix’s Casa de Papel = Money Heist). The current version is about being prepared to die resisting the Nazis during WWII. But the original version was about the terrible working conditions of Italian women working in the rice fields way before…Bella Ciao literally means ‘goodbye to beauty’ – a reference to a prematurely lost youth after working for too many hours, too hard; and being abused in the sun…Io parlo Italiano; abitavamo a Roma per sei mesi…Oh, and that beautiful Iranian hit protest song by Shervin Hajipour, Baraye. The man who played it from his phone to a portable speaker kindly helped me make a note of it on my phone. It is popular with Ukrainians too. I later found a great version in English. The band Coldplay performed it recently in Brazil (Bolsonaro is gone Bravo!)…
The next thing I observed was that a few women were wearing headscarves. At the same time a uniformed policeman was taking an interest in a small bowl shaped metal thing someone was placing near the Embassy. I thought back to Jacinda Ardern wearing a headscarf as a sign of empathy with the Mosque massacre victims. I’d always felt it was OK, but was uneasy about whether it might also be seen as supporting repressive restrictions on Islamic women…make what you will of that; I’m sure you know what happened next. The policeman held the scarves and looked like he might take them away, but then handed them back to be burned.
There were speeches, one from Iranian Green MP Golriz Ghahraman who came here as a refugee aged around nine. One passionate man who told me he had represented Iran in the sport of diving shook his fist at the Embassy walls and shouted that protesters were prepared to die; but he believed they would prevail and the totalitarian regime will inevitably fail…
Then the Iranians all danced. It was uplifting. I saw tears in the eyes of some of the women.
During that emotional time I also spotted a difference between the flags of the protesters and the Embassy flag. Both had the same areas of Red white and Green. I asked one of the women about that, and she told me they had the previous pre-Islamic revolution flag. It had a lion and a sword she felt inspired courage and strength. I later discovered the sun was associated with the ancient Iranian god of light, Mithra.
I had mostly kept to the edges of the protest, but at the end, I was told by several protesters they appreciated my support, and some even gave me a hug; or should that be the other way around? Either way, it felt right.
I had researched a quote from Hafiz, a Persian poet from a long time ago. They encouraged me to make a banner with the poem quote on it…
“Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living
In better conditions.”
COMMENT
Well done on supporting the Iranian protests. I’m just disgusted that in the 21st century we still have men (and women) going to such lengths to keep women submissive. How can anyone fatally shoot young women for simply not wearing a headscarf properly? How does that not make you a monster? How can they believe their religion supports their murderous actions? I did some work in Iran for NEC back in the late 90s, and the Iranian men and women I worked with were just normal, friendly, decent people wanting to live happy lives. Of course I also observed the religious fanatics that you wouldn’t want to cross, but luckily from a distance. The Iranian women in my office (lawyers, accountants, secretaries) all wore the headscarfs and all-encompassing coats, but whenever the Iranian men left the building they would all strip off, revealing skimpy tops and lots of skin and hair. Of course they knew I wasn’t going to be shocked or offended by bare female flesh and that I wouldn’t tell their male associates. They would often say, You have no idea how hot it becomes when you must wear all these coverings all day, in summer! I really felt sorry for them. And this was in the main office in Tehran, it was far worse for women in the rural areas and small towns where most wore the full veil and heavy black hijab. It must have been like being in a bloody sauna! And many Iranian women, especially younger women, are well educated, some have traveled overseas, they all watch (illegal) satellite TV and now of course there is the Internet, so they are well aware what feminism means and what human rights are available in other countries, so it’s no surprise that they want more from life than what their religious male leaders want them to have. Even back in the 90s it was young women that would bravely try and talk with me on the street, eager to talk with an obvious Westerner and hear of the freedoms in the West, and I say bravely because obviously it was dangerous for women to talk with any man, let alone a foreigner. But even back then it was clear that women were seeking change. Unfortunately I have no idea how many will be harmed and even die before that change happens, but I believe change is inevitable, the ever increasing spread of ideas has made the world too small a place for any country to keep its citizens in the dark forever. Of course some countries, like Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and North Korea will not give up power without a fight. Bastards.
- JC from the Silly Beliefs Website
Our Ministry of Justice's Injustices (Blog #49)
A short exposition
Friday 7 October 2022
So after about 28 years our justice system has finally figured out that the evidence against Peter Ellis was very dodgy indeed. The few remaining convictions are now quashed and gone forever, as you will no doubt now know.
I was a small player in the long saga. I suspected some kind of public hysteria was driving it. Robert Bartholomew, an expert on these matters, was probably the first to identify it as a special type of socially transmitted false belief driven by fear known as moral panic.
I may write again a follow-up to my recent Listener story.
I may cover these three things:
1 The general problems with our justice system. It is gradually improving I think. Lawyers seem to me to be pretty poor psychologists, yet seem so over-confident that they can tell when people are telling the truth. That kind of false certainty seems to only get worse with experience.
Within the Ministry, we have had several players who I think should now apologise; particularly Val Sim.
One Minister of Justice at the time of the appeals was Phil Goff. I have a letter signed by him he sent me which I hope he will now repudiate.
UPDATE No wonder the title of this is Ministry of Injustice.
MoJ officials have just planned to pay lawyers more money if their clients plead guilty. Fortunately we do have a Minister of Justice Kiri Allan, who quickly scotched that unjust plan.
2 Those who tried to uncover the flaws. A lot of caring people were able to see something went horribly wrong for Peter Ellis. They did what they could; some worked together (best approach imho); and it was good, even though it was never really effective. Peter refused to meet me, and I was told he thought I was pretty useless. I accept he was right.
A few that come to mind, I personally remember:
Richard Christie who helped me knock this (my concise critique of the Ministry's flawed Eichelbaum report into the case)into shape. Nancy Sutherland helped with my research.
Dr Mike Corballis I knew pretty well, and he supported me and others. He wrote a good piece for the Listener on the case.
https://nz.general.narkive.com/D1ZzvISd/peter-ellis-psychological-evidence-is-on-trial-the-listener
Then the late Brian Robinson who set up the Peter Ellis website. There is probably a mirror of the site somewhere…I am told Winston took the site down.
https://info.scoop.co.nz/PeterEllis.org.nz
Brian persuaded me to change my mind on one or two issues with impeccable reasoning and evidence. For example, I would not give the name of someone guilty of perjury who had admitted and apologised, as this could add unnecessary punishment.
Ross Francis whose articles I think had a lot of apposite and well researched details. He published important details of psychologist Harlene Haynes research into the case in the NZ Law Journal.
Winston Wealleans kept a big shelf of files on the case in his house. He was a good reference person, being married to one of the women originally charged along with Ellis.
Psychologist Barry Parsonson who quite early on allowed me to see his report on the case prepared for one of the appeals.
..that’s just a few..
3 Other Cases The only one I know really similar to Ellis happened just after in Wellington with the same dodgy prosecutor, and expert witness psychiatrist Karen Zelas. That case will have to be reviewed now. and the convicted man hasn’t died.
But there are too many imho where justice was also glacially slow.
Teina Pora
convicted 1992 imprisoned 21 years 2015 convictions quashed by the Privy Council
Compensated $2.5 million
Inappropriate interrogation false confession
2003 - 2012
Rex Haig
convicted 1995 imprisoned 10 years 2006 convictions overturned Court of Appeal
Will not be compensated
Jayden Knight and Phillip Johnstone EW file
convicted 2004 imprisoned 9 months 2006 convictions quashed 2006 and 2007 retrial
compensated
Judge misdirected the jury
Aaron Farmer
convicted 2005 imprisoned 2? years 2007 convictions quashed by Court of Appeal
Awarded $350,000 compensation
Poor eyewitness ID procedure
1993 - 2002
David Dougherty
convicted 1993 imprisoned 3 years 1996 convictions quashed.
Minister of Justice Doug Graham dismissed concerns as “the musings of some cop.”
Compensated
Poor eyewitness ID procedure
2013 - 2022
Alan Hall
convicted 1986 imprisoned 19 years 2022 convictions overturned.
Expected to be the largest ever compensation payment – likely $6 mill. Teina Pora received $3.5 mill in 2017,
The Crown advised that it did not intend to oppose the appeal (2022 Supreme Court),
Inappropriate interrogation lied to by police corruption by police.
Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann at Hall’s acquittal the reason for this miscarriage of justice,
“must either be the result of extreme incompetence or of a deliberate wrongful strategy to secure a conviction.”
QUOTE FOR THIS MONTH
“There is no Shame in being wrong,
only in refusing to admit error.”
- Jonathan Howard a writer for Science Based Medicine.
COMMENTS
1. "This case does not make the Crown look great, especially in light of its reliance on pseudo-expertise. "
-Maryanne Garry - a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Waikato.
See her Garry Lab website.
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2. "Re Ellis: I think a real hero here is Lawyer Rob Harrison who , as a young lawyer, took the case on in 1991 and has finally taken it through to the final decision after all these years. I have worked with Rob on quite a few cases and I am aware that he has a very good legal brain, now evidenced by his leading the team on this case that has set a legal precedent by finally bringing justice to a dead person.
...I am sorry for the young people who were disappointed by the Supreme Court ruling, but perhaps they should question their parents and their counsellors whose actions in some instances clearly consolidated their belief that the evidence generated by familial and evidence gatherers' questioning, interviewing styles and other forms of contamination had a major role in creating their trauma.
I understand that Peter Ellis jokingly called the paddling pool at the creche 'The Centennial Pool" in a parody of the city's actual swimming and diving complex. In some of their evidence, some children reported being taken to the actual "Centennial Pool" and abused by Peter. One child described Peter as having a pony and trap at his place (he lived in a flat!) and another described Peter's car (he had no driver's licence) while playing with a toy that matched his description of Peter's 'vehicle'. I think I was the first to actually analyse these interviews and point out the improbability of some of the evidence. I could go on, but I can also feel some relief that a senior colleague who called me a "paedophile lover" for my involvement in the case will now have to retract that allegation thanks to the decision of the Court of Appeal!"
an expert psychologist
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TRUTH and JUSTICE.
"It's not about favouring a convicted criminal, it's about favouring the truth, and it's not about ignoring the victims since Peter Ellis was the only victim in this case. And finally a court decided it was time they stopped ignoring justice. If the last few decades have taught us anything it's that the justice system doesn't guarantee justice.
...convictions [can be ] falsely reached due to clear biases due to racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes on the part of witnesses, police and prosecutors. Even religious beliefs can easily sway a jury, especially in the US, where people can be found guilty of belonging to secret Satanic cults simply because most witnesses, jurors, lawyers, judges and police all believe Satan to be real.
... I'm equally appalled that a medieval community like Gloriavale still exists in 2022...
ON OUR ADVERSARIAL SYSTEM
"…Whether they know the truth or not, one team of lawyers is always deliberately trying to mislead us, leading us away from the truth, away from justice.
…In my view most lawyers don't seem to care whether their client is telling the truth or not, they are merely interested in whether they can convince a jury or a judge to believe their client.
no surprise that two appeals and a ministerial inquiry failed when there are many influential players who don’t want their personal reputations sullied, or want it revealed that the justice system could accept such crappy evidence, and consequently make the public question what other trials might have been equally flawed.
TIKANGA MĀORI
"Are we really saying that only Maori feel that a person's reputation, good or bad, can continue to have an effect on family and friends left behind? That non-Maori believe that once a person dies their reputation dies with them, it's forgotten, and no one would ever say, "Hey, aren't you the brother of that fucker who sexually abused little kids? We don't want your sort around here!"
Surely people of every culture would want the opportunity to clear the reputation of a family member, even after they've died, not just Maori
- JC who authors the Silly Beliefs Website (extracts from his email)
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History Repeats (Blog #48)
Friday 9 September 2022
As a 71 year old, I see young writers ‘discovering’ things I’ve seen at least twice before.
So, what’s old?
Q1 Was the recent Parliament Grounds riot a new scary trend in violence?
Protesters in NZ/Aotearoa can turn violent. I protested the visit of US vice president Spiro Agnew in Auckland in 1970. We disagreed with the war in Vietnam (I’m not so sure now given the subsequent history of communism there and in Korea). I didn’t hang around long enough to see it, but it turned violent in the end. As did some anti Springbok tour protests. In one protest, just as at the Parliament riots, pavers were torn up and thrown at police. I did know one of the anti-Springbok tour protesters who had dressed as a clown in Hamilton. He left the protest to visit a private home, where he was followed by police, who hit him so hard with a baton, his eardrum was burst. I think police are generally more restrained these days.
Q2 Is misinformation a lot worse than ever before?
I am skeptical that there is all that much more misinformation around now. I well recall a woman in Te Puke, where I mostly grew up who would breathlessly tell anyone who wanted to listen of the latest scandal from her Truth newspaper…Being against vaccines happened in New York as did resistance to mask wearing way back during the influenza epidemic. New York was pretty bad again this time with Covid. The public again resisted mask wearing and other measurers, resulting in a very high death rate there. Again.
Some misinformation is propaganda…Isn’t that rather an old phenomenon?
Dealing with holders of silly beliefs (aka misinformation believers)
A new study suggests Poll Respondents Lack as much Confidence in their False Beliefs as many of us had thought.
Usually telling anyone ia is wrong will just lead to a doubling down of the false belief. I just read a new study by Ecker et al Jan 2022 which shows quoting a false belief then showing how it is wrong is more effective than just saying it is wrong.
Isn’t this obvious? Well a NZ Skeptics associate not so long ago went on radio telling listeners what products to avoid because they don’t work to improve health. He just read through a longish list. While I agree with the list, he later criticised me for taking a different approach. I talked about how we know something is true (epistemology) on National Radio…”Why didn’t you keep repeating it doesn’t work?” He asked…
- There are small groups who are either plain malicious or incapable of enlightenment. I think we need to consider to what extent such people have psychological or psychiatric impairment, are being duped and controlled by others or are just selfish uncaring and manipulative. And ask, why are they like that? Generally our legal system provides strong sanctions. But I say it must be done as compassionately as possible. The clearing up of the protesters at at the Parliament Grounds is an example. Now many of us consider it was left a bit late, as laws had been broken, and threatening behaviour was left unchecked.
Do you have any more examples, or comments? I’m not always right
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Enemies (Blog #47)
Friday 12 August 2022
UPDATE 16 August
Sherryn Groch writing in the Sydney Morning Herald July 2022 on Psychopaths. I mention some of her findings at the end of this blog.
I think I have been most fortunate in my life to have always enjoyed a warm, supportive, loving family and a great bunch of supportive friends and associates. Perhaps because of this, I have usually been slow to spot those who have decided they are my enemies.
Earlier this year I had one of those rare encounters. There were plenty of clues I had missed. Going back a decade or so and then a few more decades before that, my peace of mind was shattered by encountering one or two people whom I am sure were malicious psychopaths. They are not easy to deal with because can harm you by manipulating and lying to other people who are close to you. Charisma, charm, and confidence can mask evil selfish intentions.
I found some interesting reflections on friends allies and enemies from Larry Stybel writing in Psychology Today - How To Manage Your Enemies
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/platform-success/201303/how-manage-your-enemies
“You can count on [enemies] to work against your interests regardless of your behavior. They wish you out of the organization, and nothing less will satisfy them.
Do not waste scarce time or political capital trying to turn enemies into friends. Enemies tend to remain enemies…enemies provide each other zest, self-definition, and predictability in an unpredictable world.”
He mentions trust as a key to distinguishing enemies from friends, and those inbetween such as allies and buddies. Friends will unconditionally trust us he says, while enemies show unconditional mistrust.
PSYCHOPATHS are now considered to be a sub category of antisocial personality disorder.
The chances of crossing paths with a psychopath are high. About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. But perhaps some can at least manage their condition to the point that they are of little danger to others.
Sherryn Groch writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (July 2022 reprinted in Stuff) mentions Ray Fallon an expert on psychopathy who tells how he discovered he himself was psychopathic, and how he managed to act in accordance with effective ways of working with others, even though he didn’t feel the empathy the rest of us experience. But he was only a milder case, and there are plenty of warnings that psychopaths usually don’t change.
Fallon told Groch he thinks Putin is likely a "functioning psychopath". Psychopaths may have some evolutionary sources, he says. I guess they are useful in a sense on your side if you are fighting a vicious war; however Fallon points out, what is good for the tribe may not be good for our species. That applies also between family and tribal or loyalties.
Groch emphasizes these key features of psychopaths:
- psychopaths are able to use others' desires and feelings against them
- they treat others as expendable
- they do not experience fear so as a result take risks and act impulsively
- they often exude superficial charm
- they are sexually promiscuous
- they have a parasitic lifestyle
Psychologist Barry Parsonson has confirmed what many of us suspected in a comment to me on the case of Donald Trump...
"Regarding psychopaths (as distinct from cycle paths), one need only follow the behaviour and career of Donald J. Trump for a perfect example! Liar, scammer, thief, bully, and sexual abuser of women, etc., etc. for an example par excellence!!"
HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH
This looks useful.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/basics/psychopathy
There the senior writers give the revised version of the Robert hare psychopathy checklist as including the following characteristics:
· Glibness/superficial charm
· Grandiose sense of self-worth
· Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
· Pathological lying
· Conning/manipulative
· Lack of remorse or guilt
· Shallow affect (i.e., reduced emotional responses)
· Callous/lack of empathy
· Parasitic lifestyle
· Poor behavioral controls
· Promiscuous sexual behavior
· Early behavioral problems
· Lack of realistic, long-term goals
· Impulsivity
· Irresponsibility
· Failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions
· Many short-term marital relationships
· Juvenile delinquency
· Revocation of conditional release (from prison)
· Criminal versatility (i.e., commits diverse types of crimes)
The one female psychopath I met who attempted to destroy my life met 17 of these 20. I don’t know enough about her early life to know about two. I don’t think she was prosecuted or imprisoned, or ever married, so two negatives. Easily qualified as a psychopath imho. 16 strong hits out of the 20.
Perhaps an excellent easily understood source is psychology professor, author and clinical psychologist Dr Ramani Dervasuda. Her youtube videos are on the Medcircle channel. This one distinguishes between psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. She says there is not much you can do about psychopaths except keep away, and they would only come to her for therapy if ordered to do so by a court.
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Jesus, I was wrong (Blog #46) Friday 1 July 2022 To be posted 8 July
I used to think probably there was no real Jesus, at best the stories in the bible’s new testament are myths built around maybe several preachers called Jesus.
I was wrong.
Scene 1 Te Puke circa 1962…my epiphany.
As an altar boy in our local Anglican church; I am preparing the sacraments as the sun shines through the stained glass window, illuminating the white cassock of our vicar with a rosy glow. At that moment, I feel the vicar doesn’t believe much of the liturgical set script he is following. Suddenly I have that epiphany, I don’t believe any of it. It was as though God spoke to me, saying he has never existed…(yes, I know, but to quote Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”)
Scene 2 Waterview, Auckland circa 1969.
I pick up a book, God in the New World, from my parents’ bookshelf written by (now Sir) Lloyd Geering, the famous non-heretic who confirmed my suspicions about Christian theology (we don’t need supernatural explanations)…I eagerly read it from cover to cover. Sir Lloyd is still going strong at a hundred and something. I have a recent report from Paul Morris.
Scene 3 Ngaio 2022…yesterday
I finish reading a book called “Did Jesus Exist” by Bart Ehrman, an author recommended by a philosopher friend (Simon Keller). I am impressed by Ehrman’s scholarship as an historian. I learn there was a Jesus, and he tells me what we can know about him. This changes some of my thoughts about Christianity…Jesus was not big on family values, and really thought the Son of Man would return within his lifetime and establish him and his followers as rulers of the Jewish people. A kingdom of god here on earth would apocalyptically arrive, he wrongly thought.
Epilogue…please write to me with your take on Jesus (or Mohammed maybe for a change). I could be wrong again. I’ve left plenty of space here for you.
I didn’t mind the singing in our Anglican church, and I liked the invocation as the service wound up. It signaled the end of the rather tedious rituals; and imparted in me a sense of comradeship…It went, “May the grace of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit go with you now, and remain with you always.” I no longer believed in any kind of spiritual realm, but if ‘holy spirit’ were to mean just feelings of cooperation and compassion, then I might be happier with it. When I sent out my first draft version to my now 44 friends, relations, psychologists, writers, and philosophers one corrected me when I had addressed the grace prayer to you all. I had wrongly thought of it as something other than a prayer. Personally, I don’t experience it as a prayer! Bugger! What a stubborn self-contradictory idiot I can be!
Following up on blog 42 When to be Kind…and last month #43 cancel culture
Kate Hannah from the Disinformation Project talking on Nat Radio Nine To Noon, 18 May 2022
“…people who are not exactly the same as us, who do not necessarily share the same political or religious beliefs but who we do know we share values [with].. it’s to talk about those shared values…talk about what makes us a shared democracy…what are the things that we celebrate…it’s really important…it’s not something the government can do…or [the] law…
Following up on blog #2 I was wrong
I have caught myself out again twice. I am pleased to report both times I immediately expressed gratitude to the person who corrected me.
ONE After seeing Ricky Gervais’s series on acting Extras, I assumed he is gay without checking. He has been in a long-term relationship (with Jane Fallon) for longer than me (over 30 years). I love his current netflix series, After Life btw.
TWO Then I thought that babies’ hair often looks gold because of all that gold they get from their mothers’ breast milk. They do have a lot more gold (albeit still very small amounts) in their hair than adults. However, I can find no evidence for the idea I had entertained that we can actually see the gold literally…
Humility! A virtue I value…
I feel relaxed in the company of curious people who can be wrong, and don’t beat themselves up (or me) about it.
Abi Gezint
Nāku iti noa
Jonathon
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Cancelling cancel culture (Blog #45)
A three page exposition (next month I'll be briefer)
Friday 3rd June 2022
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I am a long time member of NZ Skeptics. I had a cup of coffee not so long ago with erstwhile Chair-Entity Vicki Hyde in the Christchurch Arts Centre’s Bunsen Café, so named because Ernest Rutherford’s laboratory is still preserved nearby. Vicki gave me a copy of her book Oddzone, which describes her experiences investigating weird and almost certainly false beliefs in psychics, UFOs, homeopathy, psychic’s claims about talking with the dead, precognition, clairvoyance, and much more. We are an odd species! Vicki was often in the public eye, and was able to reproduce many convincing psychic effects like cold reading where those hearing all about themselves are convinced of supernatural powers. The ‘readings’ are mostly positive and flattering, and often generic, so while sounding special can apply to everybody. I remember the rather wonderful public homeopathy overdose demonstration during that era. Vicki was able to build on the work of NZ Skeptics’ founders. NZ Skeptics began its existence in Christchurch in 1986 as the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. The infamous spoon bender Uri Geller had been exposed as a fraud by one of the founders, psychologist David Marks along with Richard Kammann. This was reported in their 2000 book The Psychology of the Psychic. It is still being sold. For her efforts, Vicki was awarded the NZ Order of Merit in 2013. One thing I love about Vicki is that while she may be hard on deliberate fraudsters, she comes across as an empathetic person with a great sense of humour. We had a great lively chat that day!
But I am worried that the current committee of NZ Skeptics appears to me to have a more censorious approach to those whose beliefs seem unfounded and even silly. My ongoing studies in psychology seem to continually confirm that if we were to knock over all the people in Aotearoa harbouring silly beliefs, there would be very few left standing. I think I’d be on the ground, too. I don’t know what false beliefs I have now, but I do know of many past ones. During the height of the pandemic, there was a lot of cancel culture in evidence on both sides. I don’t think it was helpful because it established tribal us/them and good/bad divisions where people were not listening but shouting past one another. We can do better than that as a humane, workable society.
Having worked as a social worker amongst those who constantly make poor decisions (even allowing for the limited options they have); I found some empathy, understanding, and getting alongside my clients was effective. Telling them they were wrong, or cannot change just didn’t work. Rather than trying to get them sacked, we worked hard to get them into employment where that was possible.
The current president of NZ Skeptics examined the Nuremberg website set up by
Daniel Suter, who runs a number of websites promoting belief in unlikely conspiracies (‘conspiracy theories’ if you like – I avoid that term as there are many true conspiracies, and a 'theory' here is being ironic). Netsafe, The Spinoff, and our Science Media Centre were expressing concern at the end of last year about the website. It displays what they say is general misinformation around vaccinations and covid mandates.
The Disinformation Project (Te Puna Matatini) has plenty of good information on how and why false beliefs about covid have been circulating. In recent interviews on Radio NZ (morning report on 18 May for example) te Puni Matatini recommends a move away from deplatforming towards asking questions in community and whanau discussions.
So I am in agreement with my fellow Skeptics and have no doubt the Nuremberg website is seriously misguided, and contains dangerous misinformation. But I question it crosses the line where we should limit free speech. I think I probably disagree as to what is the appropriate response for NZ Skeptics.
Professor Jerry Coyne was recently interviewed on the limits of free speech by Auckland musician and podcaster Michael Goldwater. I think Coyne made a good case that the limits to free speech should only be incitement to violence, defamation, and he talked about creating harassment. I would suggest contacting the employer of someone with whom you disagree with a view to getting that person fired is a likely breach of acceptable limits of free speech.
But I have found I can have amicable conversations with people who think I am bonkers, and who have some ideas I think are bonkers. I think that is an open honest starting point. I like to establish some connection with all those I talk with. We all have more in common than we have differences. Then I find it rewarding to have my ideas challenged, even by so-called ‘idiots’. Often I find the factual and logical basis I had was not as good as I had thought. I learn less after all by speaking with those who are almost clones of myself in terms of social background and opinions. That’s why as often as possible I partially or totally have conversations in other languages.
And I think change to better supported opinions is often a gradual and slow process. We can all change. If that were not true, we would not have schools or universities! So I am no evangelist. Just a patient plodder and prodder for better epistemologies. In that respect, I admire Street Epistemology founder the Canadian philosopher Dr Peter Boghossian. However he recently resigned his university position at Portland State because, “it has become clear to me that this institution is no place for people who intend to think freely and explore ideas.” You could say he was cancelled out of his job. And I think knowledge is gained by looking for the consensus of expert opinion. There is a newish movement in philosophy called social epistemology; and I have interviewed Dr Matheson Russell from Auckland University to learn more about that productive approach.
Now imagine someone posted potentially harmful misinformation on the Nuremberg site, and sent anonymous emails to reporters ia (she/he) disagreed with. Let’s assume it could possibly breach proposed hate speech laws, but would fail Coyne’s tests: it was not libel, didn’t directly incite violence, and below a legal threshold for harassment. Imagine contacting that person’s employer, and employer’s clients with this. I can’t see any crime being committed in doing that either, except it may amount to harassment.
But is this the best way to deal with the issue?
What would this person be likely to do after losing ia’s job? That could mean more time to create mischief on the Nuremberg site and other social media campaigns peddling misinformation. That person could now feel the notion of a conspiracy out there to silence ia’s opinions is very real indeed. The us/them tribalism may be reinforced. And what if the worker actually does a good job, and gets on fine with ia’s co-workers? What are the chances now of having productive chats over the work breaks that might have a positive effect on that person’s picture of reality? It may be the worker has dependent children. Might they not become innocent victims?
I think a better response to someone like this hypothetical worker might include some of these:
It could be, as it was put to me by Victoria Uni’s Religious Studies Emeritus Professor Paul Morris last week, that for some, skepticism is not extended to include their own opinions. He suggested cancel culture thinking finds real human qualities too complex; and so tries to reduce and simplify people as only good or bad with that old false dichotomy rhetoric about being either for us or against us.
Cancel culture is talked about by Jonathan Rauch in his book The Constitution of Knowledge. Nobody is safe, so it can be a scary thing. I think a good epistemology looks at a consensus of opinion of experts after they have subjected various proposals and claims to skeptical scrutiny. Whatever still stands is more reliable than what is left at the fringes. And as Rauch strongly asserts, it is OK to make mistakes, but not so great when once an error has been exposed, to continue denying one was wrong.
Vicki suggests at our next conference NZ Skeptics invite a psychologist with expertise in changing false beliefs. As Rauch says, nobody has the final say, in science findings are provisional. And I like this saying, from skeptic Jonathan Howard writing for the Centre For Inquiry,
“There is no shame in being wrong,
Only in refusing to admit error.”
Utua te kino i te pai
Jonathon
Three links
Stuff offered this background history in 2021
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300439357/covid19-nz-why-a-small-group-of-doctors-opposes-vaccination
Reuters fact checked the Neuremberg claims
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-nuremberg-mandate-idUSL1N2ST1XP
Our Science Media Centre
https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/tag/covid-19/
The Disinformation Project
https://www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/2020/09/06/covid-19_disinformation-in-aotearoa-new-zealand-social-media/
One book
The Constitution of Knowledge Jonathan Rauch 2021
Sets out the features of a functioning knowledge community (journalism science law etc) and makes the case for caution in trying to cancel and suppress silly and dangerous ideas. He shows how such efforts can backfire. The book is available in Wellington library. Rauch builds on the work if another Jonathan (Haidt).
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The oppressed can err too (Blog #44)
Very short story
Saturday 7th May 2022
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This month I am coming close to heresy. Cutting it fine, risking causing offence, hurting and re-traumatizing others etc….But new research on trigger warnings suggests I should not give you a warning because that may reduce your resilience…But…too late! ¿ What is the opposite of a warning. ¿A warning that something positive could occur (i.e. resilience)
Let’s start with some values I hold dear, because misguided though I may well be, at least you should understand that if I say something that turns out to be harmful or wrong, I have not done so intentionally, nor in bad faith.
So my values:
Inclusion. I think we are all in this life together. I do not like us/them tribalism. People who do bad things, I still regard as part of our family. Even when we feel we have to lock someone up for many years, I feel it is still wrong to totally abandon that human being.
Empathy, understanding, wherever possible I at least try to engage meaningfully and in good faith with people. That includes those who have Ideas I think are very whacky, false and even deluded. I think about the consequences of my ideas, what I say and my actions. I sometimes get it wrong, and do harm. I think we all do. It’s just that some deny this imho. So I have found I love some people who have one or two ideas I think are wrong and could prove harmful. The harm caused by alienating them and trying to shut them up is imho greater in the long term than the harm their ‘silly’ ideas may cause. I remember well hearing many vigorous debates here on the issue of whether we should have a death penalty (I think the idea is horrible because if killing is bad…)
Diversity is good and I extend that (beyond different nationalities, ages, cultures, languages, sexual orientation, etc) to also mean being exposed to people whose opinions I think are hurtful, harmful, and wrong. So I mean diversity of opinions helps us make better decisions. Having to defend your cherished beliefs against people with ideas you think are clearly wrong may strengthen the basis of your opinion if you are right. Many people would imho at first lose their argument for the globe model of the earth against flat earthers when it comes down to the specific evidence.
So I’ve touched on epistemology. Let’s leave that sidetrack now…More here if you are interested. And I strongly recommend this 2021 book on knowledge by Jonathan Rauch.
So here is one example of what I am talking about.
You can buy a T shirt on Amazon emblazoned with the words, “Boys are Stupid, throw rocks at them.” Now I doubt very many people will carry this out, and I am not proposing banning them, but I do reserve the right to say I don’t find them funny, nor helpful to people in general. I think they do qualify as (alright, “jokey” bad taste) hate speech, but I don’t want that banned except where it incites others to violence, or is defamatory.
I found these discussion on the topic interesting.
Sarah Begley in Time Mag 2014 (why such ‘jokes’ aren’t funny)
History of misogyny and misandry (the former of course is more common) Joe Kort writing in Psychology Today
And in case you’ve never heard of androphobia according to the Cleveland Clinic it exists as a bona fide phobia diagnosis…Not all misandry of course will be androphobia, but I hadn’t considered before that some misandry may be the result of androphobia.
One more thought I shouldn't have to say this but, just in case I am misinterpreted...
I cut a bit of slack for oppressed traumatised groups and individuals. Of course some of them they will kick back vehemently. But we all know what happens when revenge is dished out with interest. I discourage going too far...
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If you have some thoughts, please let me know. I can post your comments on my website, but let me know if you wish me to do that. I won’t otherwise.
Send them to [email protected]
Crises and God (Blog #43)
Very short story
Friday 1st April 2022
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Henry (not his real name) loses his job. Everything had been going nicely in his ordered life until then. The world (not the real world) inside his head was understandable and predictable. It all made sense, and everything held together like a fabric with the same pattern in a garment that always fitted and always did its job of keeping his warmth in, and the rain and bad weather out.
The day he loses his job, Henry’s garment unravels. People he thought he could trust tell him he is being stupid. Some abandon him. They don’t behave as he expected. They don’t want to know. He didn’t expect to lose his job. He didn’t expect Mary (not his real wife) to get so fed up with his “moroseness” and leave. Henry is not a real person,
but Henry ends up in hospital diagnosed with a stress panic reaction. Henry sees a chaplain. Henry isn’t religious, but the best they can do is to provide him with a Christian chaplain.
Henry desperately needs to belong somewhere, to feel appreciated, valued positively. He tries going along to Destiny Church. Arise, and The Assembly of God…The music and sense of belonging and being valued are good, and it reduces his stress.
After Mary takes half the furniture, Henry goes to the Salvation Army. They provide Donna for him to talk with. Donna is down to earth, reassuring and practical. Donna understands. Donna is sympathetic. She sorts his budget, tells him exactly what government help is available…he is able to receive everything he is entitled to without feeling guilty …well almost - he feels a debt to a lot of people…
Henry asks if there was anything else the Army could offer him. Donna tells him they could also provide him with spiritual salvation.
Henry starts to think the Christians might have a more reliable world-view than the one that wasn’t real, and that let him down. He tries praying. Donna tells him:
The bible is inspired by and provides Divine rule…so there are all the rules for a stable, satisfying, meaningful life.
There is only one God who is “infinitely perfect”…the only proper object of worship.
Except the one god is really three “persons in the Godhead.”
Jesus was Divine and human at the same time and came to earth to tell us how to live.
Adam and Eve…you know the story…
Jesus’s suffering on the cross somehow atoned for all our sins, and after that you have to come to god and he will save you…as long as you also repent your sins.
Henry struggles with this bit, so I’ve copied it direct from the Salvation Army website
“We are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and that he that believeth hath the witness in himself.”
If you don’t want to risk your state of salvation, then stay faithful and keep following God’s rules…
And then the final bit which I believe is called eschatology..
“We believe in the immortality of the soul; in the resurrection of the body; in the general judgement at the end of the world; in the eternal happiness of the righteous; and in the endless punishment of the wicked.”
I am not disparaging those wonderful, caring people at the Salvation Army. I’m just trying to describe what I was told recently by a creditable officer there. She told me about their work with the Mongrel Mob. I was touched. I think one’s moral character, or moral compass if you like, may transcend religious or political beliefs. Someone who genuinely cares about others, is altruistic, understanding, compassionate, a foul weather friend, is empathetic….I guess we really are all sinners. I know I often fall short of this....I'd love to be caring, altruistic, etc, every time that is called for.
Anyway, the interview was part of my current investigation with Daniel Ryan for the NZ Listener on religious influences in NZ life. If you have any suggestions or leads, please let me know.
[email protected]
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Follow-up COVID. A character in my Covid dialogues story predicted this covid wave would peak with tens of thousands of daily cases, and around ten deaths a day. Correct order of magnitude…
Follow-up My mistakes: I was wrong in believing that the Chinese (I had it as Japanese) word for crisis means danger and opportunity. It seems it is an urban myth…Crises are not so good, bugger!
https://husdal.com/2010/11/26/a-crisis-is-not-an-opportunity/
When To Be Kind (Blog #42)
Bullies, Idiots, madmen, and the misguided
Friday 4th March 2022
1 KINDNESS towards people with ideas we think are silly. Nearly all of them are just like me or you, and both you and I almost certainly believe something that is not true.
: I read some words I thought to be wise, and based on good psychology.
“ As disinformation experts confirm, constructing an 'us versus them' situation isolates protesters further, plunging them deeper into their personal paranoias and collective conspiracies..." [Morgan Godfery Stuff 24 Feb 2022 Follies of Camp Covid…]
I have a close person whom I love very much, who refused to be vaccinated, thinking ia is better off that way, and not likely to get seriously sick with covid if infected. I worry. Another close person changed ia's mind and got vaccinated so ia could work. But I would never call either an idiot, nor ever say either is/are ‘not one of us’. Ia is. (I say ‘ia’ = he/she/anything in between to maintain that person's privacy. Hugely useful word, btw). Ed Coper emphasises the need to find common moral ground and to have private conversations…
[His 2022 book is called, Facts and Other Lies]
So there we have my first suggestion. Many good people whom we love have ideas we think are plain wrong and sometimes even dangerous, and arguably irresponsible in their unintended consequences. Don’t alienate those people unnecessarily.
2 BULLIES: APPEASEMENT FAILS…Well history suggests appeasement and love are ineffective. Lenin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Putin… Bullies seem to me to have excessive self-confidence and self-esteem. If only we could lower their self-esteem so they would understand they are just as prone to biases and false beliefs as the rest of us. We are all wrong sometimes. Myself included.
¿Can we stop Putin. Helen Clark says realpolitik means probably Ukraine will have to be a NATO free buffer zone. ¿Appeasement. I’ve emailed the Russian Federation Embassy here in Wellington and keep in touch with the facebook group, Ukrainian Gromada of Wellington.
A quick google search suggests terrorists are beyond rehabilitation. I found just one reliable source. It concluded, “Overall, the available evidence strongly suggests that re-offending rates for released terrorist prisoners is surprisingly low.” [Silke and Morrison International Centre for Counter-Terrorism 2020].
- I also plan a small footpath demonstration of thanks and empathy towards police and politicians here in Wellington.
3 DELUSIONS: I worry about some people who were at the covid deniers’ protest in Wellington who appear to be mentally unwell. When I come across someone whom I suspect is mentally ill, I will stop and see if there is anything I can do to put that person in touch with expert help. There are psychotic delusions and then mass delusions for the mentally well.
I am currently researching the status of reiigion in New Zealand for NZ Listener. ¿ Do churches have any special privileges over secular organisations?
If you have some thoughts, please let me know. I can post your comments on my website, but let me know if you wish me to do that. I won’t otherwise.
Send them to [email protected]
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The Vax dialogues episode 6 (Blog #41)
In which a Naturopath is struggling
Saturday 5th February 2022
I have a new idiosyncratic style element that comes from Spanish. ¿at the beginning of a question imho makes for a more fluid reading experience (¡Gracias, Erwin). And…¿don’t you think that now, adding another question mark at the end is at least usually redundant (?).
Some time has passed since we visited Erik and his work colleagues, family, and friends.
Vovid-19 vaccination rates have climbed to over 90% of adults in NZ – one of the highest in the world, it seems. But the new Omicron variant seems set to sweep through the country.
Influenced by the journalists he works with, our main character Erik did his own research and as a result had himself vaccinated. His mother, more under the influence of her naturopath is still not vaccinated, and Erik is becoming concerned for her.
Erik and his sister Astrid are visiting their parents (Sven and Bente) for a Sunday evening meal. Astrid is studying a second year paper in philosophy and stage one biological sciences at Auckland University. Some of their conversation takes place in Norwegian and a little Swedish…Astrid likes to practice after studying both Swedish and Russian last year).
It is after dinner, and they are all drinking beer and cider.
“¿So what are your medical friends telling you about the Omicron outbreak” Sven asks Astrid.
“Väl, it will spread, probably there will get to be tens of thousands of new cases every day, at the worst point. We expect about ten people dying every day at that bad point, for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks. Then it will gradually tail off. But not everyone will get it. Many vaccinated people will never get it. We will get…”
“¿So, getting vaccinated is a no-brainer”, asked Erik.
“I have to anyway,” volunteered Sven, “I couldn’t do my job without my pass, and I don’t want to be unemployed.”
“So, we are a safe family, now,” ventured Bente, much to Erik’s surprise, given the last conversation with his mother on the topic.
“¿But what about Irena. Isn’t she upset with you”, asks Erik. “¿Didn’t she try to talk you out of it.”
“She is conflicted. Our Naturopath has just closed down her business. Because of the rules. She was struggling to make a living. They are worried about me. Irena thought I would get sick I didn’t.”
“¿But what made you change your mind,” asked Erik with great curiosity. He felt a little disappointed he had played no part in all this.
“Marina got the vaccine, and didn’t get sick, then two of Gloria’s clients who had been given the homeopathic flu complex got very sick with covid. One almost died; and the other made a complaint to the Health and Disability commissioner about Gloria. She couldn’t prove it, and I think Gloria turned around and pretended she hadn’t made any promises. Gloria says she had said the flu complex ‘might save her from getting covid’….
Uansett, I still think I might as well take some of my supplements. I still think the vaccine is not very good for me. But I decided there is a risk I might get very sick with covid; and I don’t see anyone who has had the vaccine getting covid, or getting obviously sick. I think the risks of the vaccine are probably not so bad as the risks of getting covid. Maybe these vaccines work better than I thought…
Writing and Acting (Blog $40)
Friday 14th January 2022
Sorry regular blog readers, I have been late this month; but I'll keep it very brief...
Of late, I have been busy completing my NZ Listener feature on the Supreme Court hearing into the Peter Ells case.
I am thinking privilege is in many ways a very good thing; because in this case, I have been privileged to be able to talk with several very wise psychologists, a lawyer, a friend who is a very experienced editor, and more...and of course the ebullient and encouraging, supportive, friendly editor, Karyn Scherer.
I really liked working with the team at The Listener. Believe me, mainstream media like The Listener do not just take anyone's word for anything, and they work together to get at the truth, whether the truth was what you expected or wanted to discover...Or not, as we say, probably committing a pleonasm...
So please check it out. and let me know what you think. It is always nice to see letters to the editor in response - or comments on The New Zealand Listener's Facebook page. Criticism is imho better (usually) than indifference. It is out on Monday (17 Jan).
Thanks to my wife Catherine putting me forward and encouraging me, I have also lately worked as a featured extra, then as very small part (one speaking line) of the cast in two films. Once again, I feel very grateful and privileged; privileged to have worked (in my a small part) in two great film-making teams. Teams run by people who are caring, fun to be with, and know what they are doing (Clarative Media in the second case). I think both films will be great Kiwi films telling important stories. More on that when they come out...On set, I met people who enjoyed conversing with me in Māori, Spanish, French (I only have a little French) and a word or two in Tongan...and in the recent film, Cathy and I were even paid to dance together!
On Tuesday (16th January) I will be in another team (playing music in ART GHETTO with Riccardo Testore and Baz Bailey) supporting Catherine's new exhibition at Thistle Hall. All of you are welcome to attend.
So I hope those happy experiences might spread a little more warmth and sunlight in the world...I'm inclined more these days towards doing my best to find connections with people who may have differing views. Besides, if you alienate someone, I think you reduce the chance of sharing any of your ideas, experiences, or knowledge with that person...and I feel I have been very privileged of late to be part of each of those aforementioned (yes, pun intended!) four teams...
Postmodernism (Blog $39)
Friday 3rd December 2021
I think a great place to start for a topic like this is the Encyclopaedia Britannica (E.B.). I think it is not so subject to error as is Wikipedia. I notice the Wikipedia entry on the term ‘politically correct’ needs correcting for example. That term originated in Russia before the first mention quoted in Wikipedia.
Noreira…Very briefly, it seems the Postmodernists tried to overturn the main thrust of the Enlightenment. (Frenchmen Foucault and Derrida are often quoted in this context). I think postmodernism operates within the realm of philosophy, and specifically within a branch called epistemology. Epistemology sets out to discover the best ways to arrive at truth or knowledge about the world.
Here are some postmodernist tenets according to the E.B.
There is no objective reality. It is all in our heads. [I suppose our heads can’t be real, either?...Maybe we are all in a Matrix or the mind of God?
So please settle your mental indigestion; arrest your mental confabulating wanderings; and let’s take a look at the second idea.
There is no such thing as truth. Postmodernists seem to deny that historians or scientists can help with this. This also follows from the first principle. So that means epistemology is likely a waste of time. However, I must be oversimplifying, because
postmodernists (according to EB) say as a result of what we have discovered (atom bombs for example), things are not getting better for us. They must believe bombs work. I think the claim is we are not progressing and becoming more enlightened, tolerant, etc as Enlightenment scholars claimed.
Having rejected evidence, and logic, according to the E.B. postmodernists also claim they know the answer in the nature/nurture debate. It is all nurture.
Language, which we use to refer to ideas and also reality, is of little use to postmodernists, who then go on to espouse hypotheses about how language works. Jacques Derrida originated the idea of deconstructing language to reveal its cultural biases. And that’s where I find I cannot decipher the postmodernist ideas about ‘semiotics’, 'the simulacrum' 'the trace', 'structuralism', etc…So I don't know. It could be a useful tool for revealing the ideologies and biases behind a written text or movie.
I read Robert Hugh's book on Postmodernism as an art movement way back when I was researching the major art movements for a recital with pictures (slides) I presented at various Public Art Galleries and the NZ High Commission in London. I applaud the introduction of outsider art (including street art such as graffiti), art from minority groups, and a variety of cultures which has resulted from postmodernist art curating.
I'm just not so sure it is so useful when it comes to science, including the 'soft' sciences such as Psychology.
Stanford University Philosophy Department provides more on postmodernism. I'd do well to read this book...
"The term “postmodernism” first entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard."
I like this critique from Stanford. It seems fair to me.
"Habermas argues that postmodernism contradicts itself through self-reference, and notes that postmodernists presuppose concepts they otherwise seek to undermine, e.g., freedom, subjectivity, or creativity. He sees in this a rhetorical application of strategies employed by the artistic avant-garde of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an avant-garde that is possible only because modernity separates artistic values from science and politics in the first place. On his view, postmodernism is an illicit aestheticization of knowledge and public discourse."
I agree with people calling themselves postmodernists who claim that horrible colonial attitudes have produced some very bad rhetoric that attempts to hide true motives. I agree cultural and intellectual diversity is healthy. I agree language can contain hidden subtexts. I want to know what they are, too. But according to the definition above, they are not postmodernists. They are making claims about reality. The same claims can be made using basic historical methods.
We also get ‘postmodernist’ lawyers who seem to say truth is unknowable while strongly pushing their own version of it relentlessly. One such is a prominent US law academic Menkel-Meadow. Her colleague Freedman takes issue with her approach.
But here’s the bottom line. I care about the truth. It matters to me. So I’ll part company with the postmodernists. I don’t reject the whole Enlightenment as a backward movement. Of course Enlightenment scholars were wrong about some things. But I think a good epistemology is self-correcting. If there is no way of knowing, there is no self-correcting except through logic. But postmodernism rejects (while using) that too.
Nicholas Shackel is a professor of Philosophy at Cardiff University (Wales). He summed up Postmodernist in a Philosophy journal back in 2005.
“Many of the philosophical doctrines purveyed by postmodernists have been roundly refuted, yet people continue to be taken in by the dishonest devices used in proselytizing for postmodernism.”
I’m not sure I want to read too much more on postmodernism, except to understand what a minority of what I suspect are rather maverick amateur epistemologists are on about.
Jacques Derrida, was if a little misguided certainly witty.
"To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.”
I need to read a basic textbook (not too long) that will explain the core ideas. This is only a small start. I have read chunks of the Bible despite finding it seriously wanting because it still influences many Kiwis. So does postmodernism.
You could say all viewpoints are of equal value, so all are winners and should get prizes (as Alice said in Wonderland). Or when you hear unsupported views that Covid-19 is just a slight cold, masks don't help, and vaccinations are dangerous and useless...you could say there is an opposite view which is true.
Anyway I could be wrong. I’m prepared to admit that, and have done so in one or two blogs I’ve dedicated to just that.
WDYT? (what do you think?)
UPDATE Feb 2022
Foucault certainly had a dodgy personal life...I wonder if we can trust what this "famous theorist of power and sexuality" has to say on that topic...
Philosopher Stephen Hicks is yet another who feels Postmodernism has not been very healthy for academia. He explains why here.
FOLLOWING UP see blog #8.
I had two conversations in Māori recently.
In one, the Māori woman with whom I had the kōrero thought the idea of using 'ia' in English here is a really good whakāro.
Why?
It is elegant. c.f. 'the person'
It is gender neutral. The Swedes realized they needed a word like 'ia' and invented 'hen'. I don't think that sounds so good in English...
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Am I woke? (Blog #38)
Friday 5 November 2021
'Woke' originally meant a US person of colour who noticed racism is still a serious problem, felt angry about it, and was going to do something about it.
So as I am a Pākeha New Zealander I can't be woke in this sense. I am very symparhetic to this cause.
Since then 'woke' has taken another wider meaning to include major issues like global warming.i accept the overwhelming evidence ftom the IPCC so in this sense, yes I am woke.
Some use 'woke' in a perjorative manner. They mean to describe a trendy belief they think is false. If I were to accept that definition I think Id say no, Im not woke. Well, not that kind of woke. Id try then to define the woke issue and discuss the evidence and logic.
So to conclude, my answer is yes I am woke snd no I am not woke.
Comment:
The term “woke” down here tends to be used in a pejorative sense if at all. I recall Malcom X had a real issue with wokes. He preferred Southern Rednecks any day, as you at least knew who you were dealing with. That assumes of course that many people adopt a woke persona for self-advancement. Perhaps I am being too cynical but I recall thinking when I was at uni that the very visibly woke..
- Southerner Ken
Ellis again (Blog #37)
Friday 22 October 2021
I have just spent a couple of weeks going to court and watching our Supreme Court at work via a video link. It was very educative. Five of our best judges made interesting comments about how evidence from witnesses (especially young ones) is best assessed in our courts. There were half a dozen psychologists who assisted with very interesting presentations on how our biographical reports from memory can be (or are less likely to be) contaminated by time and suggestive questioning. I think they all agreed that sometimes a distinct memory we are convinced is real may turn out to be false. The distinction between a memory and a report is an interesting and useful one. One lawyer suggested science just confirms what we already know. But the judges then asked him how that works with counter-intuitive knowledge. He didn’t have an answer. I think this attitude is anti-scientific. wdyt?
With Covid-19 you may have noticed that a small number of medical clinicians (General Practitioners) are out of step with the strong consensus coming from experts who do the studies and assess the research. Your doctor does not do the research, but is trained to respond to the consensus of expert opinion in diagnosing and treating you with things that are likely to work. GPs who fall short by saying counter-factual nonsense (like vaccines don’t work) can be disciplined by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. You can (and I am about to) complain about them here.
https://www.hpdt.org.nz/
In my experience clinical psychologists may be more likely than GPs to think they know better from their clinical experience than a consensus of research scientists. Last month a clinical psychologist (Heather Adele Heron-Speirs) was disciplined and fined by the Tribunal because she was “negligent, unethical” and acted “outside of her sphere of experience and competence, and yet persisted with her views which were clearly going to have an adverse effect on not only Mr H, but the entire family.” This relates to the Ellis case as Heron-Spiers had made unfounded accusations of sexual abuse.
https://www.hpdt.org.nz/Charge-Details?file=Psy20/486P
You should be able to read more of what I have discovered when I publish my findings about that court hearing in a magazine. That is provided I make it a well informed, impartial and interesting story that is worth reading. I have an editor who is very interested…
Cranks and Crackpots (Blog #36)
Friday 1 October 2021
So what do I mean by a crank? The word comes from a Germanic root, Krank meaning bend. A mechanical crank is bent...
The Art and Popular Culture website gives a definition covering well what I mean,
"Crank is a perjorative term used for a person who holds an unshakable belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false. A crank belief is so wildly at variance with those commonly held as to be ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making rational debate a futile task, and rendering them impervious to facts, evidence, and rational inference.
Common synonyms for "crank" include crackpot and kook."
The dictionary considers fanatics and quacks are rather different. I’d add unlikely conspiracy theorists as also differing as they include the idea the truth is being hidden from most of us, despite the fact they “know” all about it, and are telling us.
I know someone who believes some kind of vibration in sevens is the magical key to the universe. Of course we love the number seven. There were seven wonders of the world, sevens rugby, etc. etc. One hypothesis is that our short term memories can only hold about seven items in our conscious working memory; so we don't so much like longer lists.
Until you talk with my friend with the crank sevens “theory”* about his magic vibration, or one or two other matters of “spiritual” significance, you might think he is very practical and knowledgable. Indeed, like many cranks, he is perfectly rational and sensible as long as we keep outside his crackpot sphere.
Before you condemn my friend; along with the QAnon unfounded conspiracy theorists and dangerous vaccine misinformation “theorists” and cranks….Be aware that many famous scientists were cranks. Even (but less often) within their own field of expertise. Check that out. For some reason(s) they ignored the usual checks and tests when it came to the pet crackpot idea.
Despite this, some scientists have an interest in cranks, because occasionally cranks do come up with something useful. Even if they are psychotic. A lack of good evidence makes an idea unlikely, but does not prove it is false.
As I have often said without yet being contradicted (that’s no guarantee I am making sense btw)…I think we all (myself included) are likely to have at least one crackpot idea we think is at least most likely to be true (see my blog #2 for example. I have another similar essay to pen about how I was wrong about something else).
I do not think new ideas are necessarily scoffed at by scientists. They may withhold judgement until it is confirmed by new independent data; and science is self-correcting over time. I go by the consensus of experts (see last week's blog).
There are also widespread delusions - in the sense of a belief that is probably untrue*. Peculiar conventional religious beliefs have been very widespread usually within the countries in which they originated. They can't all be right as often they contradict one another. Another kind of delusion is mass psychogenic panics such as occurred In Auckland a few decades back about a smell emanating from the wharf near Parnell. Most of the population falsely thought they were being poisoned.
Then there are common facts of which many of us are ignorant, or we have false beliefs about the world often due to socially transmitted false memes. I wonder how many people think trees grow mostly by moving matter from the soil? Surely, they don’t materialise from fresh air? No, that can’t be true!
So let’s challenge silly beliefs; while respecting the people who carry them. Be kind, patient, and understanding. Otherwise you might as well say you are a stupid idiot yourself…etc…i.e. add a few expletive intensifiers.
I deal with cranks by asking if they have submitted their ideas to experts, if they have good evidence, and does the idea actually make sense? Finally, does it contradict things that are well established facts? If so, I'd like to see some amazingly good evidence.
The sun is shining today. Let’s get out there in the real world swim, run, bike, walk, go to the beach, meet up with friends, play a game, or just sit in the sun. Yes, we can be stupid, but life is generally good regardless. Especially here in Aotearoa. The world will truck along nicely taking not the slightest notice of what we think of it.
Notes *
1 There are two meanings to the word theory. A well established scientific explanation like evolution or relativity. Or it could mean a crackpot idea for which there is no credible evidence.
2 A psychotic delusion differs in that it may be true, but is based on clearly irrational illogic. The psychotic one leads to dysfunctional behaviour like making false accusations, and avoiding safe situations, etc…But the two types of delusion have many similarities…
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Who do we trust? How do they know what is true? (Blog #35)
Friday 17 September 2021
So here's the key thought...most of what we know, we have accepted on trust.
Cranks, cult members, and people with false beliefs therefore might be expected to be like this:
- Over-confident and over-reliant in their own critical thinking skills
- Applying logic and evidence tests to too many issues when there just is not the time to do so. This might distract from their ability to just listen to experts
- Resisting authoritative statements from experts who do know what they are talking about.
- Keen on finding a group or cult sharing minority alternative views like QAnon.
There is a philosopher who is an expert in this area of thought whom I have met. I think what he has to say is important. You can listen to social epistemologist Matheson Russell here. At the 1hr 27 min mark (you can just slide along to there) he makes these points.
- referring to those who accept mainstream opinion as "sheeples" or "muggles" etc.etc...
and feeling smug that they know "better".
..."There is no alternative to trust…there is blind trust then there is warranted trust …the idea of self assured critical thinker who only believes things she or he has evidence for ...that has always been a myth. There is a body of beliefs we have taken on trust.
Matheson (who is a lecturer at Auckland University btw) points to indicators that trust is warranted...
Like the existence of a medical council that can take complaints and uphold a consensus of basic medical facts...
I'd add organisations that are self-correcting - like Th Guardian Newspaper which seems to always publish corrections to any story that may have been in error...
- Matheson also mentioned groupd that are diverse make better decisions.
- He suggested to me to also look for whether say a doctor regularly consults with colleagues, and belongs to groups that discuss evidence together...
- and there is that well known obvious one about ignoring or giving less trust to scientists who are speaking outside of their own sphere of expertise...
and a few more...but I'm off to do some athletic coaching now...I hope they trust what I have to offer and that it is warranted trust!
I wonder, maybe my baby boomer hippies went too far with our anti-authoritarianism. That might have spawned some beliefs that were even more dangerous than the ones we challenged...like anti-vaxers, and people who think there is a useful alternative to medical science...
Reference book (from Matheson's talk)
The Enigma of Reason....Review here from Psychology Today
Useless Health Advice - part one diet (Blog #34)
Friday 17 September 2021
Today, I listened to a live talk by an expert on pseudoscience in sport.
I thoroughly recommend it for anyone who would like to be healthy without wasting time on diets, supplements, and treatments that do not work.
It covers and reinforces some of the ground Harriet Hall talked about in regard to Olympic athletes back in 2012.
Some take-aways...
- protein CAN be converted into fat by your body, so eating a diet of mostly protein is not a good idea for this and several other good reasons.
- promoting useless ideas that are only placebos is unethical because it only worsens the current obesity epidemic.
- most sports supplements are useless and may have negative side effects. I bought an excellent summary of this from our library for 50c because borrowers would not read it! [Anita Bean's Sports Suplements, 2007 ]
- cupping (a form of acupuncture that can cause burns) not only does not do any good, but relies on believing in magical energy systems...
world class athletes do often fall prey to bullshit and useless time and money wasting pseudo - treatments. Often their sponsorship arrangements (necessary for them to survive financially) will steer them towards using and promoting useless products.
- like K tape, "barefoot" running shoes, supplements (Athletics NZ urges all asthletes to avoid the lot)...
My Self-Esteem (Blog #33)
Saturday 28 August 2021
I found a simple and quick test for self-esteem here.
You can check out your score here in about 30 sI think it is a good test.
I was pleased to see this time I scored smack in the middle. Last time I felt it was too high. It only took about eight years of determined effort to get it down as bit, so I hope less boasting and over-stating things I think are true...And a shorter time for me to admit when I have clearly made a mistake. I have noticed I have been poor at that.
So...I hope this pleasing (to me) result will not shoot my score back up nect time I test it.
Please check out your score and let me know what you think via email of my Facebook page.
[email protected]
I think the above graph shows very few people have low self-esteem; and there are a lot (psychopaths and jokers and sufferers from the Dunning-Kruger effect?) giving themselves top marks.
Anyway if you haven't read it yet, just search here for my blog #14 or the longer detailed version on my practical psychology tab...
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The Value of Human Life (Blog #32)
Friday 20 August 2021
This will be concise. Perhaps one day I will be motivated to expand on this; probably only if it is considered for publication somewhere...reasonable enough? - On a good week only about forty people will look at my website...and some of those will read my blog. I do have one valued friend or two who tell me they enjoy reading my blogs, so maybe I have made some kind of a start...
Noreira...I began today meditating on how irresponsible governments seem to me to have knowingly allowed covid-19 to flourish in their countries. As a result, we see thousands of preventable deaths in their countries....and (this is what gets to me) they must have known it would be exported to countries like ours, which otherwise would not be having to lock down now. In fact, had it not been for the attitude of probably India's government, we may not now have the delta variant which was given had so many (millions of) opportunities to evolve.
So, long story very short. This is where that book comes in...I revere this text by the late Scottish psychology professor, Stuart Sutherland. I think it will continue to be published for a long while yet. Sutherland points out that when a major public construction is undertaken - like a long tunnel or large skyscraper - a calculation is made of the likely human deaths it will cost. This is considered against the benefits.
I am one (like our P.M.) who places a high value on human life; especially within our country. We can but do little to affect other countries' policies; but when they knowingly endanger our citizens, that is when we probably have a right speak up.
Afghanistan was invaded after 9/11 for two reasons: to prevent further terrorist attacks on U.S.A. soil, and I think also to protect civil rights (especially those of women) from the horrific excesses of the Taliban. The Taliban kills and maims people unnecessarily.
So feel free to consider my facts and (tentative) conclusions. Let me know if you think I am in error; or if there is something I don't know here...and make your own conclusions. I'd just urge you to base them on reliable information, critical thinking and logical arguments free from bias - especially cherished political, tribal or philosophical/ideological positions...
Unconscious Motivations and thought (Blog #31)
Friday 23 July 2021
I am sure some of you who have seen the impressive Surrealism exhibition at Te Papa will find some of this interesting and significant.
I am very interested in hearing what you think, and some of your experiences with these phenomenon.
[FEEDBACK please to [email protected] ]
Does some kind of largely unconscious process or language in our brains (mentalese) precede conscious thought?
Just how free are we to think our own thoughts and make our own choices?
There is much I have come across in my studies of psychology to suggest at least some of our perceptions and decisions are biased or noisy (unreliably varied). That leads us to fail in our intentions to understand the truth, and know why we make decisions. Read on…(this is an extension of blog no 6 - index of my blogs is below this entry)
I wonder…can I wonder without words?
Hold that thought, because it runs all the way through this essay.
prologue…a babbling brook
Once I lived temporarily with my wife and two small boys in a cabin at the sylvan Brook Valley Holiday Park. The brown cabin is still there in its idyllic setting close to Nelson city.
Because it was summer, and we were not there too long, it was a pleasant experience. From our cabin we could hear the babbling brook. It was a peaceful sound and sight that inspired me to compose a beginners’ classical guitar study I named The Dancing Stream. When I sat beside the brook, it seemed to talk to me directly about the place and the atmosphere that surrounded it. I thought about the ineffable nature of that experience. By what process had I translated it into music? The piece was successful. It was published in a collection, and many of my guitar students said they enjoyed playing the piece.
…in the beginning, baba
The effect reminded me of that joyous babbling of my first two sons as babies, not so long before. …and now the babbling of our grandson at almost 6months of age. Before they could speak, they seem to simply express a happy contentment and enjoy the apparently meaningless sounds of their vocalizing. Of course crying is a completely different matter…Babies next progress to what is called canonical babbling, when they listen to themselves and learn to reliably repeat patterns of sounds like, ‘ba, ba’. Our younger son, when he was just beginning to speak would happily spend hours just sitting in our beautiful big garden in nearby Richmond. We sometimes thought he must have wandered off, and panicked, racing off down the road looking for him….but he was very happy just babbling to himself. There was nothing wrong.
Dada
Besides “ba, ba,” a baby’s canonical babbling also inckudes, ‘da, da’. The baby does not try to say any specific word to begin with. The Dada Art Movement seems to have been an attempt regain or explore that kind of pre-language consciousness.
German Dada poet writer Hugo Ball, decided in 1916, “The next step is for poetry to decide to do away with language.” So he soon after performed his nonsense Dada poem, which began,
“gadji beri bimba
glandridi lauli lonni cadori....”
Romanian Dada leader Tristan Tzara was an anti-war poet, eccentric Cabaret singer and critic. He set up an event in Zürich in 1919 involving over 1,000 people that began with a boring conventional lecture on art designed to make the audience angry. It progressed through deliberately discordant music to end in a riot. In describing the event Tzara proclaimed,
“Dada has succeeded in establishing the circuit of absolute unconsciousness in the audience which forgot the frontiers of education of prejudices..."
His 1919 manifesto ends with this, “Freedom: DADA DADA DADA, a roaring of tense colors, and interlacing of opposites and of all contradictions, grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE.”
Babies, composers and Dada artists seem to have one thing in common. The presence of an ineffable fundamental experience that could precede thinking in words.
Albie…our cat and his thoughts
Now - many years later - my second wife and I had a smart and amiable fluffy ragdoll cat called Albie (he is our daughter’s cat, and now lives with her). He responds to his name and (sometimes) the command, “Shake paws!” Once or twice, he has just come up to me and held out his paw for me to shake…then he seems to think I will give him a snack. I like to give Albie as an example of the meaning of the word ‘atheist’. Because there is no sign Albie has any concept of a god, I assume he is without (a-) a religious belief (-theism). Neither does he show any sign of thinking we are Gods. He could think he is one, judging by the way he cunningly gets us to open doors for him, and to do what he wants…
Be that as it may, he “talks” to us (i.e. meows) quite a bit in a very expressive manner. The American SPCA and quite a few other cat people say cats don’t meow to other cats; but they have learnt it is the best way to communicate with humans. As with babies, their insistent pathetic cries - provided they are not overdone - evoke responses in their mnders and carers.
the oracles
It seems the ancient oracles attempted to access that wordless state inhabited by our Albie.
The most famous oracle was at the temple of Apollo -in the Greek town of Delphi. Built nearly three thousand years ago, it had previously been a temple for the earth mother Gaia. The medium there was a woman “over fifty, known as the Pythia, who lived apart from her husband and dressed in a maiden’s clothes”, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The Pythia would often babble unintelligbly, and her utterences were translated into intelligible but often ambiguous language, that was then written down by the priests. A common request was to know the outcome of a proposed war. A recent examination of the Delphi site found the reports of the Pythia entering a trance-like state were likely true, as ethylene gas is emitted there from a spot where two fault-lines cross directly below. Ethylene can induce both euphoria and incoherent speech. Just like modern psychics, some oracles claimed to talk with the dead. Just like some pentecostal leaders, they claimed to also receive prophesies from gods.
If we are to apply Occam’s Razor, however, we may could eliminate the gods and conclude the oracle’s prophesies were a kind of group exercise. The vague unconscious utterances of the oracles were shaped into words by the priests according to gut instincts, and some knowledge of the world.
The claims about the gods or dead spirits not only added gravitas, but probably also helped the oracle and priests to escape blame for false prophesies. The town of Delphi prospered for a very long time from this business.
anoesis
Some people who meditate try to still their thoughts in order to experience their minds and/or the world more directly.
“When there are thoughts, it is distraction: when there are no thoughts, it is meditation.”
– Ramana Maharshi (an interesting celebated Indian Hindu sage who died in 1950)
I used to meditate in that Indian style… and it felt like that on long runs when I was so fit, my body seemed able to take me on a tour as though I were a mere passenger on board a running machine.
Years later I was in a conversation with world class ultra-distance runner Fiona Hayvice in Wellington. She enters extreme races like the 100 mile Western States Endurance Run. She told me she just zones out when she is in a long race. I introduced the word ‘anoesis’ to her. She immediately liked that word, as she thought it describes her zoning out perfectly.
aphasia
Something like anoesis can be imposed by disease or disability. I once knew a man who suffered from aphasia that had been caused by a stroke. He understood what people said to him, but I think he could say only two words: yes and no. He could think, he knew who we were, but could not tell us. He had thoughts, but no spoken language apart perhaps from some incoherent babbling, that I think he had largely given up on. His wife understood some of what seemed incoherent to the rest of us. He was in some respects like our Albie; except I am sure he understood all of what we said to him. And like Albie, he wasn’t able to report much detail of what was going on in his mind. We inferred a lot of it. We don’t know whether he thought in words.
Hypnopompia and hypnagogia
The mental state betwixt sleep and wakefulness, where we can experience lucid dreams is called hypnagogia as we fall asleep (characterised by intense images); and hypnopompia as we awaken. I like to collect poetic nonsense words and phrases that usually float into my mind during hypnopompia. If I don’t quickly make a written record, I usually forget what they were.
I am also fascinated by the hypnagogic images that are in themselves meaningless, yet strongly feel as though they contain definitive information. These have been collected, recorded and painted by surrealist artists, as have been the nonsense words and phrases from those twilight states. I dreamed of a bright yellow parallelogram, whose pointed corners connected two fields of wavy blue lines that clearly (at the time) represented two discrete thoughts or realities with associated feelings. At the time, the connection seemed obvious, like when we “join the dots” between related observations to reveal a causal connection. Yet as time passed, I was progressively less able to convince myself there was ever any connection. I no longer have any idea now what the wavy lines represented. It all seemed so obvious at the time! It was and often feels like synesthesia where we see sounds or hear colours. The abstract artist Kandinsky thought each note of music had its own colour. My hypnagogic images were very similar to Kandinsky’s famous painting, Swinging.
I often hear a commentary in the state of hypnagogia - once these words floated into my head, “I am going to the Sunshine Mind Festival”…but sadly, I failed to record the details of the festival experience!…The words often have been taken apart and reassembled in weird ways. One afternoon I thought to myself, “Can I truffle you to debollock this?” It all makes perfect sense at the time…actually I made up that example using dada and a little glossolalia (more on that soon).
The famous Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Carroll (published in 1871 in his book Through The Looking Glass ) which I love to recite is similar…
“Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe…”
Carroll goes on to give meanings for the words he invented. Galumphing and chortle went on to become widely used real words.
dreaming
Hypnagogia will segue into dreaming providing one does not wake. In that case there is usually no memory of the hypnagogia.
I think dreaming is like an artist endlessly recombining elements of a painting in a myriad of ways, until one combination looks original and works. Dreaming is mostly images rather than language.
My wife (second wife – not the one this story began with) has painted oil paintings professionally for decades. Some of her most successful paintings started off with absolutely no conscious plan or idea. Perhaps they – as with our dreams, anoesis, and hypnagogia - were powered by an unconscious ineffable State.
Once I awoke with a nice melody in my head which I was able to write down and use. Sir Paul McCartney’s Yesterday came to him almost complete in a dream. He reminisced that it was as well there was a piano next to the bed at the time so he could capture it before it slipped away.
Scientist Otto Loewi had a very odd idea for his time about bursts of chemicals being released to create nerve impulses. He hadn’t thought about it for years until one night in 1920 he dreamed of an experiment to test this theory with frogs. He woke and immediately wrote it down in a hurried and unfortunately rather illegible manner. In the morning, he could not make the notes out. However, luckily the dream came back the next night, and he successfully wrote it down, did the experiment and made scientific history. The first time Loewi had the answer, the reason he was then unable to understand his notes may have been because those notes were an attempt to recall what he experienced in a wordless state. Perhaps it is impossible to translate directly from the original emotions, sound and colour of pure thought into ordinary language.
mentalese
More recently I discovered the word mentalese. Harvard Psychologist Stephen Pinker developed on the hypothesis that we all have a universal language of thought (referred to as the LOTH). He named it mentalese, and thinks our brains first conceive thoughts in images, abstract propositions, sensations and feelings (mentalese) that we then translate or convert into language.
Pinker has pointed to ambiguous words that sound the same (like ‘tyres’ and ‘tires’) to show something other than the sounds or words underlies and drives language. Pinker says when we invent new words, we must have had the idea first.
Someone who has no language at all can still think. Pinker points to deaf people who have never learnt sign language, yet can handle money and do complicated repair jobs. If only we could look within their brains and see if they have invented their own (silent?) words!
The eureka moment so often comes after we have been sleeping, or doing something unrelated to the problem we were trying to solve. Our unconscious minds must have been working hard in the interim.
Lethologica
We all have experiences where we know whom or what we are thinking of, but cannot recall the name. For a while I had trouble with ‘hydrangeas’ and ‘geraniums’, both of which grow in our garden. As soon as I noticed both contain the word ‘drain’, and that our hydrangeas grow somewhere near a drainpipe, the problem evaporated. Now every time I either see or imagine either plant, the word ‘drain’ and an image of a drain automatically pop into my mind. Finding the word is then easy and certain.
I wonder…as we become a little more forgetful with age, perhaps we are beginning to partly abandon language for some deeper thought process.
Thinking fast
Our minds can think in two distinct ways. We can spend time and effort (using our cerebral cortex) to logically consider various options, and come to a reasoned conclusion. Or we can use the older part of our brains to almost instantly give us an answer in simple terms. That answer is usually either it feels great, (so yes, do it, enjoy) or it feels scary or repulsive, (so run away or fight). The latter fast (type I) thinking is rough and ready and subject to biases. But it is faster than conscious thought and can save our lives. There is an excellent book on these thought processes called Thinking Fast and Slow (2011) by Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Thinking fast uses unconscious processes like the many phenomena described thus far.
In 1969 Upper Hutt musician Wayne Mason released his song Nature. He thought the song would flop. But it went to no1 in NZ. In 2001 the performing rights organisation APRA voted it New Zealand’s best song out of the best 100 songs of all time. The chorus is unusual in that it has no words. Just “do, do do…” and then “de de de… “ Mason had written the song after spending an hour on his front porch in a state of anoesis looking out at a beautiful day and listening to the breeze in the trees…In the song he says he can hear Nature’s own voice, and, “Rustling whistling leaves turning breeze into speech…” Mason must have understood how mentalese works, and how to communicate some of its sounds and rhythms without using words.
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The Covid Vax Dialogues episode 5
(blog #30) Fri 11 June 2021
Tāne talks about the empathy trap
Erik woke with the same tight feeling in his chest he had felt most of Thursday. It was overcast and the kitchen of his Mt Eden flat villa was only faintly illuminated by the murky dark green light that filtered through the smallish cabbage tree and larger camellia bush outside the window. His flatmates were already gone, so he turned on the coffee machine and his Chill Youtube playlist. It took him first to Sweden with some nostalgic sounding vocal harmonies and soothing cello and piano. He did some stretches, slowed his breathing, and thought about the cause of his anxiety. Covid vax. Offending Irena and his mother. Security of new job at Epistemology magazine. And that woman driver who had given him the fingers as he dithered on an intersection before resolutely taking what he knew was the wrong turn. Erik breathed in deeply as he stretched his hands above his head, exhaled slowly as he released the tension and relaxed – it was a kind of simple Yoga sun salute Irena had taught him. As he breathed in, he imagined he took in some kind of vitality, and when he expired, he imagined ridding himself of all polluting aggravations, tensions and well – all the bad shit…
Only a little better, Erik thought, the aggravations were still there to be sorted; and that needed energy and thought. Maybe Tāne could help? he wondered. After all, before he established the magazine, Tāne had trained and worked as a clinical psychologist for about ten years. Except, he remembered, Tāne had told him psychotherapies were still a new science and of limited proven use. Which was why Tāne had decided he could be of more use in his new role helping educate and share useful information.
This was all in Erik’s mind after he ran his morning circuits of Mt Eden, where the view over the city helped him feel more centred and in control. Today, he took the gentle slope back down at a much faster pace than usual. That helped. It rid him of that feeling in his chest entirely.
The run finished with a walk through the main street of Mt Eden road to the offices of Epistemology and after a shower, his weekly meeting with his editor and boss, Tāne.
“Hei! Hei Erik, “ Hvordan er dagen din?”
“Ata Mārie, Tāne. Everything is not ka pai, but the advertisers are still happy. We would be dead without the travel and lifestyle sections. We are good with the tourism industry and bad with supplements and a lot of beauty products. You are paying twice for Pippa’s work.”
“Accha, Erik. Do you have any leads into companies that sell stuff without thinking they have to make stupid claims based on no good evidence? “
“I’m looking at Califa and their oat milk. Oats are low glycemic index, so that’s good, right? We runners mostly power ourselves up with slow release carbs…”
“Yeah, probably better for losing weight and avoiding diabetes. Go for it!”
There was a pause during which Erik’s concerns began to resurface. He took another deep breath, and did his stretch.
“O.K. Erik, your body language is like semaphore! At close range with a megaphone! The easy charades kind of semaphore! Haha! So what’s eating you e hoe? He semaphore e hoa!” haha.
“Just my offending my mum and her naturopath and family friend Irena.”
Tāne remained silently looking at Erik with a compassionate and kind expression.
“I love my mum. I am lucky, she always supports me, she shows always love and empathy.”
Tane just nodded and during a short pause, still said nothing except after a few seconds that seemed longer - quietly and slowly…
”Ae,…ae, ka pai…god.”
“The problem was, well Irena helped me through a bad patch and I am so grateful to her. She listened a lot, and reminded me of my own strengths. She was just there for me…..and now….and now….she is so anti-vax….and I ja jeg…meg.”
“OK so you are changing your mind about that?”
“Ae, ja…yes (the latter word now seemed foreign to Erik).
“Irena believes quite a lot of stuff in Natural Medicine. I’m starting to question the whole Naturpath thing….”
“But you don’t want to question your trust in her support, love, all that?”
“Yes”. (the word now seemed less foreign to Erik) “I had a list of a dozen experts here in Aotearoa. Mum found my list and I could see Irena suddenly got very upset and shut down the conversation on that. I just left it, but then she came back to it, and I set her off again, so that was it. Disaster…”
“No it’s not, Erik. I call that the empathy trap. I bet if you got on to some other topic where you are not going to question her, she will turn off the tap quite quickly.”
“Aha! Yes. Thanks, Tāne. I’ll try that next time. If she had been one of my clients, I would have dne that. It wouldn’t have happened in the first place either unless absolutely necessary and I didn’t mind too much losing that advertiser…hey, come to think of it, I have seen her and my mum…..and a few others …probably me too…doing that…empathy trap….Does that mean it won’t happen with someone I don’t care about?”
“Yes.”
“Nō reira…I’m taking off my psychologist hat and I have to put back on my editor hat…oh taihoa e hoa one more quick one. I don’t think Sheree will mind me letting you know she was impressed by your last marathon time. 2hours 30minutes. Chur! Fast, eh! You must be fit Erik! …but, hey! I think she looked it up out of curiosity. So make what you like of that. She is a bloody good artist and valuable person on our team, Erik.”
The Covid Vax dialogues episode 4 (Blog #29) Sat 4 June 2021
Erik talks with his naturopath and mum
Erik woke feeling exceptionally relaxed and refreshed. He had been dreaming of flying through the air, and floating through a colourful landscape of mostly pastel greens and blues, seas, skies, forests, trails, rivers, lakes…It all meant something important as he dreamed, but when he woke, he couldn’t remember any of those insights. He decided to stay with the images and feelings as long as he could. The colours, and images felt right, as though they held him fast to the important uncounscious insights. Drifting through his semiconscious state was the nonsense phrase, “flotsy, tah..ah….rain, to blue, flew blue…..flotsy toogreebly too bluebly by…” It repeated with variations. But he quickly lost the words as they floated away…The glorious colours and the feelings the images evoked were much slower to fade, like a strong after-image…
His phone then rang, and his mother invited him to come out for a meal with her and her naturopath and friend, Irena. There was a vegan restaurant Irena wanted them to try. Erik readily accepted, they were always supportive and interested in him. But he evaded the question about whether he might be bringing a woman friend. He thought about Pippa or Sheree. Erik felt Pippa held him in rather low regard, and had lots of other friends…no,no why did I even consider her?, he asked himself…
“I could ask Sheree, But she is just a workmate…I saw her exhibition in Titirangi…”
“She sounds lovely, Erik, so there is someone?”
“No. Sorry to disappoint”.
It turned out Sheree was interested Erik discovered after he plucked up the courage to text her, but Sheree had something else on that night…Erik was both elated that she would consider the idea, and relieved as he realized her views on naturopathy and the wellness and alternative health movement would have doubtless caused some friction.
So after work, Erik picked up his copy of the tenth anniversary edition of Natural Health with his own notes written in, and a little more Sheree had emailed him, and headed off to Herne Bay and The Butcher’s Son. He entered the natural timbered rooms and found his mum, aunt Marina and Irena chatting quietly at a high table in a corner beneath three rows of herbaceous plants that werte lit up. His mum, then Irena rose and hugged Erik, asking about him and expressing delight that he could make it. After ordering – Taco Loco for Bente (Erik’s mum), B BQ ‘pork’ bad buns for Erik and the Autumn vegetable medley for Irena, the conversation turned to Irena’s business (thriving, but some clients expected too much), Erik’s flat in Mt Eden (flatmates much quieter these days) and his Aunt Marina’s Russian relatives (only one had covid and recovered). Then, as they were beginning on their mains, the conversation segued naturally from covid recovery in Russia to vaccination in New Zealand.
Irena talked about administering homeopathic alternatives she thought were ideal for travellers who had decided not to vaccinate. The homeopathic flu complex, she said trained the immune system to deal with twenty different flus and also covid.
“So does it have some covid in it?” asked Erik. “Homeopathy uses diluted down toxins, that usually produce the symptoms you are wanting to cure, doesn’t it?
“Well, yes, so things that are not covid but produce the covid symptoms is classical homeopathy. So we wouldn’t use covid. Remember, homeopathy cures the real essences of illness, it doesn’t have to worry about the substance.”
“So, what’s the essence of covid?”
“Essences are really energy frequencies.”
Erik felt more confused. He wasn’t sure if he was lacking in understanding, or perhaps this just didn’t make sense.
“Now we have a machine that has measured the energy frequency of covid and the different influenzas. We can impart the right therapeutic frequency into the medicines.
Erik was confused. “So, wouldn’t anything change the body’s energy system?”
“Well, yes,” replied Irena, “ but some things more than others. Once you tune the body to a healthy energy, it can recognize unhealthy energies and keep a healthy balance.”
Bente (Erik’s mum) felt it was time to support her friend and the wellness cause.
“You know, Erik, don’t you that allopathic medicine works on a different plane to homeopathic medicine. Ordinary doctors look at broken bones and obvious things like that. Symotoms. But they don’t see the real causes of disease. Isn’t that right, Irena?”
“Yes. There is a lot they don’t see. Energy systems, chakras, energy flows in the body and vibrations. The universe is tuned to certain vibrations. Not everything is physical as we all know.”
“ But this machine…”
“Radionics machine, Erik. It was a real doctor Albert Abrams who made that discovery. The authorities hated him, because he was curing so many people!”
Erik hadn’t heard so much about frequencies before. He had thought there are two worlds, the physical and the spiritual, and he was becoming less sure about the latter.
“So this machine, it produces real vibrations and energy you can measure?”
“Yes.”
“So is there some interface between essences and reality?”
“I think it is rather mysterious kjaere. We can’t know everything.” Answered Bente. But somehow it works.”
Erik had been for a long time trying to think through how - if at all - it is possible for the spiritual and real world to connect. And he felt Irena had somehow convinced him that attempts to prove a connection were not so likely to succeed. He wasn’t convinced, either that he would bother coming to Irena for a homeopathic covid prevention.
“So here’s what I really want to know,” burst out Erik, “does the homeopathic covid vaccination work, and do the ones that are being rolled out and most people are taking, do they work?”
“Well,” began Irena, looking at the desert menu, “aha! Peach and oassion pie! I’m having that…and did you know, Erik, the Greek athletes used to eat cheesecake!”
The conversation veered off as they ordered deserts, back to Norway, and Irena’s father’s Russian family who lived very close to Norway…
But eventually, Erik’s curiosity returned and he decided to ask Irena politely again how Irena knew her homeopathic vaccine worked, and how she knew the Pfizer one most people were having didn’t. Having any kind of vaccine didn’t seem to be a bug issue with Irena. But deciding about the Pfizer one was important to Erik. He figured both Irena and his mother might be horrified if he were to get the vaccine.
“So how do you know about the vaccines, Irena?” he asked eventually.
“Well, we know you have to get the essences right, for a start.”
“Yes, but wouldn’t it be reasonably simple to just test vaccines? Like give a thousand people a certain vaccine, and another thousand get a placebo, except nobody knows who is getting which until the end of the trial?
“Ah but meantime, a lot of the one thousand people who get no vaccine get sick! How can you justify that?”
“I think that is just what they did with the Pfizer vaccine, because it was new, and nobody knew if it would work.”
“Well, I’m too busy helping people, and doing things that work, to bother with that nonsense!”
Erik’s salesman instincts stopped him from asking again how she knew it worked. He figured that a repeated question would signal disagreement. Disagreement in Erik’s experience meant push-back. Push back meant alienation and alienation means no sale. That was what he learnt in a seminar once. And like Irena and her clients, he felt that following that advice generally worked. But he suddenly thought to himself, ‘how do I really know that?’
“I understand what you mean”, replied Erik. “Of course if your clients are getting better, and I know they trust you and like coming to see you – like I do!…
“Thank you Erik, it’s always a pleasure talking with you!”
“So I guess if we were to do that experiment, then, would you expect the ones getting the homeopathy would do better then the ones getting a sugar pill?” asked Erik very gently and with a welsoming smile on his face.
“There is more to naturopathy than just taking a pill, Erik. As you know, holistic medicine treats the whole person.”
“Aha! I was wrong, sorry, then. I don’t want to go on and be annoying”…Erik smiled and laughed a little, “but what if our imaginary experiment had all subjects getting the holistic treatment, except half still got the placebo instead of the homeopathic medicine…”
“Oh, that kind of double blind experiment has been done with homeopathy, and it works,” replied Irena a little hurriedly and in a less friendly voice. Erik noticed the change immediately, and decided that line of questioning had better be given away before it was too late.
His mother gave him a gentle nudge, “We’d better get our energy states to harmonise, I think, Erik, “ she demurred and remonstrated.
Erik took a deep breath, let it out slowly and held his mother and Irena’s hands…”Aaaah! That’s better!” he said with a dropping gentle tone and a smile. Peace was restored.
They talked about Erik’s success with new clients, and how Irena was starting to tap into new markets with her clients. And Erik’s father, Sven, who was away in Dunedin on business.
But as they were supping on a last hot chocolate, Irena decided to return to the topic of vaccines,
“You know, Erik,” she said, the allopathic pathetic medics have made a lot of mistakes. They can’t measure the virus reliably – keep getting it mixed up with flu; and they are ignoring the patients who are dying after being vaccinated…and they are in cahoots with the vaccine manufacturers. Big pharma!”
“Aha! said Erik, and at last pulled out and unrolled his copy of Natural Medicine from his bag. Is this one place where you are getting that kind of information?”
“Oh that’s nice you have a copy, Erik! Good on you! Yes, but I don’t believe everything I read in there. I do think for myself.”
“Have you noticed many of the articles are not interviews but the writer is just re-hashing what the person they quote has said?”
“Yes, just like other magazines…like The Listener. The story on kanuka honey quotes Shaun Holt – it’s not written by him. And it agrees with something I think I read in Natural Medicine.”
“I suppose you are right, except I think the listener story at least talked with Holt. They didn’t ask his colleagues what they thought, though.”
“So what are all these notes of yours here?” asked Bente recognising Erik’s handwriting above the fixt advertisement in a glossy white corner near the top.
“…Dr David Skegg epidemiologist, Professor Philip Hill epidemiologist, Dr Maia Brewerton, immunology specialist, Professor David Murdoch infectious diease expert, Dr Ella Iosua, public health exper, Dr Nikki Turner director of the immunisation Advisory Centre…”
“Ignorant allopaths” was Irena’s response. Erik thought his mother had said quite enough, but she went on… Then we also have Dr Michael Baker (epidemiologist), Associate Professor Helen Petousis-Harris, Professor Rod Jackson, senior epidemiologist..
Professor Nick Wilson, Dr Ayesha Verrall, Simon Thornley, epidemiologist. Why have you circled Simon Thornley?”
“Becasuse he is the only one who speaks any sense,” replied Irena.
“Wow!” exclaimed Erik. “Out of those twelve experts, only one questions that the pfizer vaccine works, or that many people are not dying from covid. It was almost time to leave, but Erik was really curious…”How can you be so sure he is right and the others are wrong? They notice he doesn’t like to admit he is wrong – like when he predicted most of us would have covid antibodies and his prediction turned out wrong…”
“ He has the right answer for a start…”
Erik thought of something Sheree had asked him. He found it to be a very good question.
“ One thing I have someone (it was Pippa) say abut Thornley… Just something I heard. It may not be true…for him, being right is more important than knowing the ttuth. He could be a bullshitter who actually doen’t even care about the truth. He seems to start off with an idea, and he thinks it is proven beyond any doubt right from ther start. So then he only looks for evidence that confirms he is right, and ignores and discounts anything that suggests he is wrong…Or he could be a genius who is a better scientist. Which is more likely?”
Both his mother and Irena turned a little pale, and their energy vibrations were certainly not humming quietly. Erik figured he had gone way to far – he had let his curoosity get the better of his usual salesman affability and agreeability.
It took three repeats of the hand holding and easy breathing to dispel all that, and Erik made sure he gave them both a long hug and said nice things about how he loved them both (which was true) before they disappeared into the misty and dark night…
The Vax dialogues (Blog #27) May 21 2021
chapter 3 An Art exhibition and Erik and Sheree talk about sources
“Fuck!” Well, that’s the word Erik had in his head along with the slightly softer fy faen – he had picked up that Norwegian expression from watching Skam and the eponymous song. He hadn’t needed sub-titles…
Erik was standing in the Te Uru gallery (not Te Ure - thanks, Tāne, Erik had thought and said to Tāne, as he entered) set in the verdant foothills in Titirangi looking out on some massive native Kauri trees and the not too distant waters of the Manukau harbour. But Erik wasn’t looking out the window. In front of him was a painting in Sheree’s exhibition, Vulnerable. The painting was titled VM1. That morning Erik had woken to a nightmare where he kept being tackled playing rugby; and each time he had that horrible pain in his testicles which had been squashed. He realised he needed to get some more 3B Action cream [not a sponsor placement - ed] next time he set out for a two hour run in the rain. And now, coincidentally VM1 depicted a man in pain with blood on his penis. Fy faen, fy faen! Went through Erik’s head…and the nightmare vision of a penis not likely to ever be very good at samleie.
After the busy opening, Erik ducked into the new shop in the new modern grey building next door called Refill Nation. He was keen to reduce our plastic waste exports to Malaysia. He thought of talking to Pippa about that. Maybe she could do a story on that next. Then he went back towards the Gallery to join Sheree and a dozen of her friends, work colleagues and family, who filled up a long table in DECO – the art deco restaurant that featured Turkish round Copper tables and Italian and Turkish food.
Sheree was now content to let her friends all talk to one another. She was sitting at one end with Eric and Pippa on either side of her. After a while, Pippa turned to Tāne and started discussing recent events in Samoa. Erik only had a passing interest, and dimly perceived some words he didn’t even understand and some he did…matai, chauvinistic, fa’afafine, Fast Party (were they moving too fast?), malo! constitution, Barbara Dreaver, those bills did it, Auntie Tasi, human rights NOT protection party, ASSASSINATION attempts, nepotism, looking like a banana republic?…Erik’s interests increased a little at some of these words.
“So how did you feel about the show?” asked Sheree of Eric
“I liked your short artist statement. I think I can remember it all…Vulnerable. All of us. Everything, Wabi Sabi. Nice. Say no more! “
“Say something else. Did it evoke any feelings?”
Eric felt a little awkward. His professional salesman skills told him it would be nice to start with something in common; something not too emotive. He really didn’t know Sheree.
Sheree stayed silent. She wanted to know. Erik knew he didn’t want to talk about his penis.
“It did stir up a few feelings, Sheree. Other people looked excited, too. I think you really connected.”
Aha! nice, thought Erik. Always start positive! He had been genuinely impressed, but also he felt somehow defensive, as though Sheree had suddenly invaded his deepest personal world, as though she had triggering things he might not even feel comfortable talking to a friend about. Maybe not even appropriate…
“Any specific feelings or experiences?”
“OK. The women with those spots of blood…(oh shit! thought Erik…FY FAEN!)
…I felt protective; like maybe they needed some …empathy….maybe help from someone…so I felt I wanted to understand more and empathise…same with the men and those figures that looked like they could be men or women…But I also thought, should I even be looking at them? I feel bad if I think I am intruding…”
“Nice, Erik. Thanks for that. I am always happy when people relate to my works. There is no right way to feel about art”.
After ordering, Erik was keen to get back to the vexed vax questions.
“Well. The World Health Organisation does have a lot of experts, but they might not be so reliable in saying it can’t have come from the Wuhan laboratory. He opened a note on his phone…here’s why: 1. Fauci is no longer confident the virus did not come from a laboratory 2. The Chinese are saying to have such a hypothesis is “anti-science”. Why the big push back from a totalitarian state that lies and locks up their dissenters? 3. Staff at the Wuhan laboratory got sick very early on. They didn’t allow WHO inspectors full access. And wasn't that laboratory developing bad versions of viruses?
“Wait a minute the director general of WHO said a couple of months back that they hadn’t checked out the lab hypothesis enough. Anyway, we are being side-tracked. It is still the same virus either way. What about the evidence that our Pfizer vaccine works, and the side effects?”
“Well WHO says it is safe but doesn’t say how many people it was tested on. They have 7,000 staff, but not all are doctors.” So I wasn’t all that convinced by your link. Those staff are doing a lot of other stuff as well.”
“So did it make any difference to your confidence it is not a good idea?”
“Yes, the only bit that impressed me was how they had details on who might be better not having the vaccine. Like those with immunity problems. I’m down to 80% sure it isn’t so great.”
“Well, I went to Henderson and they had plenty of spare vaccines later in the afternoon, so I had my first shot. I didn’t get any side effects except a slightly sore arm for a day. They asked a lot of questions and do screen out some people. The staff were really friendly, too. It felt like a big party…I did read your article.”
“…and…I am thinking you found the Journal of Natural Medicine to be written by a bunch of conspiracy theorists?”
“Well the publisher is said to have stood by a picture he published saying it was an alien, when it actually came from a Movie…”
“But that was his other magazine, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. I can see why you thought it looks like real science. The graphs and charts are well presented, They say they are skeptical and provide reliable information, etc…But I found some references that were just to blogs, websites, or short opinion pieces that are not studies in some scientific journals. Pippa as you know looked at the publisher, and the so called journal. She says the little good science referred to is mis-interpreted…” Pippa was at that moment engrossed in talking to the editor about how a spy like a Netflix character called Carrie Mathison should be brought in to deal with the hospital hackers who demanded a ransom…
So Sheree carried on quoting Pippa as saying she had consulted some respected scientists who called the magazine a journal of “Natural nuttiness” that promoted no end of conspiracy theories and woo: homeopathy as a cure for cancer? Covid not as bad as influenza? Colloidal silver…”
“Yes – broke in Erik – I have read Pippa’s story and checked some of it out. I don’t think I said I rely on everything in that journal, did I? I have changed my mind a bit; it is not always reliable; but it would take an evil genius to be wrong every time, wouldn’t it?”
“What do you mean?…oh I see, to choose the wrong answer every time would mean you must know the right answers, and be deliberately avoiding them?”
...Do you agree with the Journal and Plan B scientists saying, 'Looks Like Sweden was right after all?' ”
“Um…I used to think so…I’m not so sure it worked out so well with a lot of deaths.”
“I am sorry, I thought I’d find the online version of that Journal would have anti covid vax stories, but I couldn’t find much. The Facebook page didn’t seem to quote much real research either – just a lot of opinion, and not much of it coming from experts. We aren’t really getting very far, are we, because that WHO link had no detailed survey of the numbers of scientists behind the vaccines, and the number who don’t agree.”
“How do you decide, then?”
“I trust our mainstream media to be able to self-correct if they have something wrong. They have been telling us the vaccine is safe, saves a lot of lives, and has very few serious side effects for quite a while now.”
“Ah, but what if they are all just going along with the herd, and the original data isn’t there?”
“That is possible, but surely unlikely. Most scientists check out a plausible challenge, and can take on board new information…I believe that tens of thousands were involved in double blind studies, and the results were clear.”
“How do you know? The World Health Organisation didn’t seem to tell us!”
Alright, so for you, the truth matters, right?”
“Yes.”
“And are you more interested in knowing the truth or being right?”
“I suppose so. My mum, my auntie and my naturopath are all great, reliable, loving, caring people. I trust them. They never lie to me.”
“OK, so you must be a little afraid of upsetting them? Maybe them being right matters a lot to you?”
“No, I just trust them.”
“That’s nice, but does that prove they are right? Don’t you think sympathetic, nice people can be misguided sometimes?”
“O.K. I think I’ll have a look at what the doctors and experts say, and how they know. I have a start with Michael Baker, Siouxsie Wiles, and Des Gorman. Then that plan B maverick.”
“Sounds good. Where will you look? Our Ministry of Health? Some association of epidemiologists? Or an association of naturopaths?”
“Maybe all of them. I do want to know if we have it right…But I am still sure seeing I exercise, sleep well and have a good diet, I am not likely to get it, or if I do I’ll be O.K.”
“Do you think that assuming it works, you should think about protecting others?”
“Yeah, I guess. Lets talk about it again when we actually have some useful facts.”
“Accha. It’s getting late, so I’m off. I have a long run through the pine forest then we have our Orienteering club picnic tomorrow. Great show. See you later.”
“Ciao”
The Vax dialogues (Blog #27) May 21 2021
chapter 2 Erik and Sheree talk about sources
This Friday’s after work gathering at Win-Win was upbeat and buzzing. Erik came upon Sheree talking with a journalist, Pippa, who had just published a story on serious violent ructions between two groups in a coalition of the more conspicuous conspiracy theorists.
“So does it matter if they turned nasty? Why even report that?” asked Sheree of Pippa.
“It matters because half of our population still have some religious affiliation…it’s shrinking I know, but it’s getting more diverse. So plenty of Kiwis think they are all compatible. You know all points of view are equally valid and true!? They are not.”
“ Wasn’t it mostly about the dodgy financial dealings and dishonesty?”
“Does that matter then? Who cares?” asked Sheree.
“ How do you know that money was stolen, anyway, and who cares about that?”
“ I know because they hate one another, they incriminated each other. Showed me their phones and bank statements…”
“Well, does the truth even matter?” butted in Erik.
Pippa - “OK, Erik. Let’s say you were just charged $1,000 for your beer. I can see the price on the wall there…Walla Walla Wheat Wine $13. That wouldn’t matter to you, would it, Erik?”
“Um…yeah. OK sometimes truth matters.“
Pippa’s phone rang. “Oh cool, thanks, Talofalava! Malo! So glad you rang, I really appreciate that! Fa’afetai tele…” She went off to the back of the bar with her call…
So, hva skjer, Erik?” Sheree smiled.
“What?
“Have I got that right? Hva skjer…”
“Ja, Yes. I didn’t expect you to be using a Norwegian word…Anyway, I’m all good and…”
The interruption had allowed Erik to remember he had a bad habit of talking about himself and then learning nothing about the person he was supposedly conversing with.
He had been a little disturbed by her beautifully coloured sketch of ethereal warring floating spiritual beings for Pippa’s cover story. he felt those colours and the vibe should be relaxing and peaceful…so Erik decided not to mention that….
“So, did you do any research on whether the covid jab is likely to have benefits?” Sheree inserted into the pause …
“Not really, but I came across a copy of the NZ Journal of Natural Medicine with a lot of scientific articles on covid in the library. The stories had lots of scientific references at the end and graphs. Looks ike Covid isn’t as bad as they say, and we might be best to boost our natural immunity…”
“So…how do you decide on what is true, Erik?”
“ I have some trust in my naturopath, and some in my doctor, and evidence – well there seems to be enough evidence in the Journal…Too many questions not answered, too many doubts…”
“ So who are the experts, do you think, Erik about vaccines?”
“Well, doctors and people who treat illnesses.”
“So how about a consensus of doctors who specialise in epidemiology and contagious diseases?” Like the WHO report on covid. That’s where I look, btw…So how about over next week, you read the WHO report, and I’ll read your Journal of Natural Medicine? We will see what expertise is there, if they are reliable sources…”
“Um Gottes willen, Erik! Didn’t you read my story?!” Pippa seemed to have suddenly materialized before them and both jumped.
“What do you mean and what does um gotte mean?”
“ Swearing in Germasn is less offensive, Erik…do you do it in Norwegian?”
“Fy faen…sometimes, yes…”
“I guess you haven’t made the connection between Real News and Natural Medicine, Erik. And – her tone became more serious – I hope you are not talking to those people and the wellness woo peddlers about putting ads in Epistemology. The editor needs advertising of course, but not from people who attract Advertising Standards Authority and readers’ complaints. Not people who make false claims and mislead our readers!
So, good luck with finding Natural Medicine a reliable source, haha Erik!” and with that, she floated away rather like Sheree’s picture; it seemed Pippa had deliberately dressed in colourful hippyish pastel tones with her long silk scarf trailing colourfully in her wake…Her long blond hair seemed a natural part of her total couture and bearing…even her perfume had an earthy, floral, verdant touch…
[Thanks Linden for your suggestion to mention Real News. Did that! ]
The Vax dialogues (Blog #26) May 14 2021
Chapter 1 In which we meet Erik and Sheree
Erik and Sheree started talking covid vax spontaneously late one afternoon in May after work. They work at a magazine specialising in hard core investigative journalism. But neither is a journalist. Sheree does the original concept art and Erik sells advertising.
This Friday afternoon they meet with other staff at Win-Win and they are all down the “rabbit hole” – decorated with swirling artificial plants and colour - drinking an ‘Alice’ cocktail served by a man in a top hat. A musician is quietly crooning in the corner. But thery are both young so can hear one another above the bubble and hum.
“So are you all good for the covid jab?” asks Sheree.
“I’m not sure”, replies Erik, “I have heard your arm gets really sore, and I have never had the f’lu; so I think my risk of getting covid is really low, and if I did, I’d recover quickly. I went out and ran right around Arthur Lydiard’s Waiatarua circuit last Sunday!”
“Explain yourself, Erik. Not everyone has heard of Arthur Lydiard or the Waitarua. I haven’t!”
“LSS It is almost a marathon distance.”
“OK but what is LSS - a new drug?”
“Long story short. I have a tendency towards long explanations.”
“O.K. Accha. So what is your cost benefit analysis on the covid jab?”
“Not sure. Probably costs outweigh benefits.”
“I think I’ll take it (Sheree). Now on a scale from one to a hundred, given what you think you know now, how sure are you of that?”
“I’m 80 percent. My fitness and natural health. My body recovers well on its own. I have good genes, so I probably don’t need it. I also give some weight to some things I have heard medsafe have some concerns, and what about earlier vaccines? Have they caused any illnesses? This one is new. And isn’t there so much fear and hysteria about that the real risks are exaggerated?”
“Do you have a naturopath?”
“Not really. But I visited one last month. I got a discounted half hour that lasted for fifty minutes for just $50. She was really nice and discussed my diet, athletics, healthy habits and how I talk to myself. So not too bad for $50. My doctor gives me about ten minutes, he’s more per minute…So what is your confidence in the vaccine”
“I’m 95 percent sure the benefits outweigh the risks for healthy people like you and me.
O.K. (Sheree). How about we both do a little homework and talk about the best ways to find the truth next week?” Meantime, do you think Judith Collins is racist?”
“Well, perhaps; she seems to be playing the Brash book racist card anyway...This Alice is interesting. I think I need a craft beer. Or maybe a Ringnes. Bit hard to find, that one…Can I buy you something? What do you usually drink?”
“Rekorderlig. I’ll get them. Let’s see what they have.”
….to be continued. Part 2 next week talking epistemology.
FEEDBACK please to [email protected]
Covid the real hotspots
(other than India)
- Friday 7 May 2021 blog #25
India is in the covid-19 news a lot because it is a country with the highest number of covid-19 infections and deaths every day. I am so sad for them and worried about the new variants that will come out of all this.
But the average chance of being infected by covid-19 in India is probably nowhere near the worst in the world. The New York Times published a map showing where these covid hot spots are.
On this map, India is coloured in a dark red with 28 new cases every day for every 100,000 people. That’s bad.
But, wait a minute! Some countries are coloured in purple, and worse!
Sweden at 49 cases per 100,000. That is a lot worse; you are one and a half times more likely to pick up covid in Sweden than if you are living in India.
Also in the pandemic purple super dangerous zone are:
Argentina 53 (a little worse than Sweden) and
Lithuania at 42
The next bad group (still worse than India) includes:
Turkey and Mongolia on 35, and France on 30
…but the horrible black hole for Covid in the world is coloured black on the map.
That booby prize belongs to Uruguay with 70 new cases pert 100,000 every day.
So what is the problem with Uruguay? You can still find slightly dated news stories telling you the place is virtually covid free and it is totally under control!
I think some of our experts like Michael Baker have already warned us against being complacent.
I think India is under-reporting. But that still isn't likely to get them way up with Uruguay; and Uruguay is also likely to be under-reporting. I find it very hard to find out much about what is happening there apart from the devastating infection rate.
Sadly, it is not easy to find much material on this important question.
One source I found was Journalist Gabriela Vaz writing for the Agence France Presse on 17 April. She reported,
"Overconfidence and a loss of risk awareness were the two main factors that caused Uruguay to lose its best-in-class status,"
virologist Santiago Mirazo of the University of the Republic told AFP.
During 2020, he explains, the government was quick to isolate outbreak pockets with effective testing and contact tracing.
But over time, a false sense of security took hold and the population became ever more lax with masks and social distancing.
Today, at the height of the pandemic, bars and restaurants are open, though schools and some non-essential government offices were recently closed, and festivals and concerts cancelled.
A major contributor to Uruguay's fast-spreading outbreak has been its proximity to northern neighbor Brazil, which has been battered for months by a new infection wave fueled by a new virus variant, P1, deemed more contagious.”
So there you are. I’d love to investigate further –
- Talk with someone in Uruguay (I am fluent in Spanish)
- Double check the very latest nerws reports and data
- Ask Michael Baker for comment (I have met him and discussed his work).
- Tell you more about that amazing planned Uruguayan Covid memorial in the picture above.
but I have to pay some bills and my paid journalism work has of late dried right up. I’m doing a few more concerts, and my ongoing voluntary work for NZ Skeptics and the Society for Science Based Medicine. Mostly in Retirement Villages (only while we are on level one). Mind you, I did really enjoy my recent concert for the Christchurch Folk Club with local singer Kristina anne Godfrey
COMMENT
- Jonathan, thank you for this important note. However, and for no fault of yours, the analysis will not be correct because the official figures from India are being challenged by all.
Some journalists are pointing out that while there are over a hundred bodies being cremated and funeral pyres have been photographed as well as proof, the official figures say only 11 or 12 have died. This is just on one day in one of several crematoria in one city. Uruguay to India, hope all societies will come out of it with the least damage. - Babu Gogineni (whom I respect very much, as he is a prominent Indian Skeptic and Humanist who has done much good in the world) See the Wikipedia entry in him.
Many thanks, Babu I have since modified this at least to some extent accordingly.. - Jonathon
Getting Yourself Fit
- Friday 30 April 2021 blog #24
Recently I shared a few thoughts about athletics training with clubmate Simon Keller for my running club’s podcast series (Wellington Scottish ON THE RUN).
You can hear about my evidence based approach there. So what does it mean to anyone and everyone who might want to know more about being physically fit?
I am focused on aerobic fitness, and also interested in strength and balance. I think we can now say unless you are already very sick, your life will be better in some ways if you can achieve and maintain a good level of aerobic fitness. The studies I have seen show that within the moderate limits, you will live longer, be more mobile in your 80s, and be less likely to develop a long list of illnesses. Because your heart becomes stronger, you will have more energy and tire less easily. That is particularly obvious walking up steps or running uphill.
The Mayo Clinic in the USA, for example summarises the top ten benefits, which include improving your mood. That’s one reason I have spent a lot of time hanging around with athletes. Coaching bright, talented, fit young runners has been a privilege and joy for me. Just hearing them laughing and chatting exuberantly as we ran along some magical bush trails is a memory I treasure.
So it matters whether you use effective ways to get fit. In the podcast I mention a man I met who believed the wheels used on the Mars rover Perseverance were made according to a plan found in the bible. Yes, that is so unlikely I don’t even plan to waste time looking it up. However, there are similar unproven and unlikely superstitions that are followed by some world class athletes – including Olympic medalists and their coaches. Painting your fingernails a certain way (the Molly Huddle products), receiving a special prayer, a chiropractic tap, wearing lucky charms, kissing the ground, are all examples I have come across that I don’t think would pass a skeptical examination for logic and evidence.
Top coaches of course don’t spend too much time on useless superstitions; and most of them are not harmful. But I think some athletes who don’t understand how to check out claims are wasting a lot of time that could be better spent on activities that really do make you fit. And many top coaches do include some things that have about zero chance of helping their athletes.
For more on skepticism, I have dealt with cognitive biases in The Press newspaper, and I have developed a list of logical fallacies. For ways to assess science, one good source is our NZ Science educator Alison Campbell’s sciblog. There is a good guest blog there on pseudo-scientific spin that can lead you astray.
WHAT REALLY WORKS?
You can find more detail in regard to serious training if you are interested by clicking on my Athletics tab.
For anyone wanting to sample some of the many benefits:
1 Get out at least twice a week running, cycling, rowing, swimming or any activity that raises your heart rate and breathing. You really need at least one session to last half an hour. However, if you are not fit, start off running between two lamp posts (or about 20 meters) then walking the same distance two or three times. Start really small if you are not fit. Build very slowly. It might take two months to get to 20mins non-stop.
2 Allow and monitor your recovery. If you are not used to exercise, you may need up to ten days between sessions to recover to start with. For elite athletes, recovery is crucial. All too often, after a session that was over-cooked, they fail to take the next day off, and get injured or sick, or the progress stops as a result. While I’m on a cautious note, being fit requires good sleep habits and a reasonable diet, and it is not a magical panacea. It is just one of many things that contribute to good health. Genetics is another we can’t control much, so while you are healthy, make the most of every day! Be compassionate towards those who cannot train very much or not at all.
3 Don’t train if you are unwell or feel really uncomfortable when exercising. If you are totally new to it, have a medical check up right at the start. If you start out and feel really uncomfortable, go home and make a cup of tea or your favourite drink. Try again the next day. This balance is tricky and crucial to success. Just feeling flat is no reason not to give it a go. But if you still feel worse than usual after five minutes, apply that cup of tea rule.
4 Always make it fun and enjoyable. No, no, no; it is not about pain. Just pushing gently. Rushing out expecting to immediately run like a champion could take you straight to hospital. I know two or three Olympic runners who discovered when they joined an elite squad, that they had previously been pushing too hard. Run, cycle, row or swim, etc in places you love being in. Personally, I love to use botanical gardens and scenic parks and trails for my own and my athletic squads’ training.
Oh, and eat a variety of healthy foods, not too much rubbish (don't waste money on supplements), and get plenty of sleep.
That’s enough for today.
Check out those benefits and go to it!
Divorce for Men
- Friday 23 April 2021 blog #23
Nurit Zubery is an Auckland based Masters graduate in Law and an independent Mediator. She spoke recently (12 April 2021 on National Radio) about her and others’ research on the effects of divorce on fathers. As a feminist, she expressed surprise at what she found:
“The system sees them [men] as bad, even when they are not.
[Men experience a] strong grief reaction. Much stronger than women.
Almost five times as many men as women commit suicide following a divorce.
[I doubled checked this. The study I found in the BMJ said eight times]
Nine times as many are admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
They develop health problems like: cancer, heart attacks. and diabetes more than women…
Women initiate about seventy percent of divorce.
[my double checking revealed a figure of 80%]
Fathers following divorce [often] disappear from their children's life….The absent fathers were the ones closest to their children during the marriage. The transition from full-time father to part-time just broke their heart, and the pain was too strong to endure; and that is why they disengaged. ”
Her words resonated strongly with my memories of my divorce as a young father some thirty seven years ago. I think I can rightly say after so many years that it should be OK for me to talk about how I felt at the time. My diaries from that time and since are full of practical ideas and soul searching on how I might do better in my personal relationships. There is a small proportion on how I might heal myself… While we can attack, criticise, nudge, nurture, or abuse others, we can only direct and change our own behaviour.
It is hard to express strong emotions in their purest form, because how we feel is affected by what we think. I will probably resort to poetry somewhere in this…But I think (and I could be wrong as always) that pure and real emotions can be value and blame free. So…here’s what it felt like for me all those years ago. Plenty of the faults that caused the anguish were my own.
Bang!
A ten tonne truck
hits me from behind
going the wrong way.
Blood on the road.
Smashed and mashed my guts
Nobody calls an ambulance.
I drag myself off the road.
I can’t go home.
My replacement is there
I call a few friends.
I crawl about the streets blindly
dazed and disorientated
until I find
Finally the house of a friend.
He is good.
He is right to say
Only I can heal myself.
But he is kind
shares his cool Chinese cooking
even a beer
One day I can walk,
but every morning
the pain is still there
everywhere
..........in the street
as I run it eases
everywhere
..........in the park
The pain lurks
reflects back in beauty
within the iridescence
of the flowers
…to be continued…
LSS…I am wiser now.
I stayed strong.
There were other storms
Everyone has them
But this was my worst
By a large margin.
==============================
Talking False Beliefs
- Viernes 16 de abril 2021 blog #22
I know plenty of people with whom I feel a great sympathy, closeness, and empathy. They are nice people who generally wish everyone well. Two of them told me recently that vaccinations against Covid 19 will do little good and we would all be better off without them. While many regard this as a false belief, let's go to a more obvious example.
There are quite few who truly believe the world is actually a flat plane, and you could fall off the edge. I have a friend (Robin Bodley) who talks with Flat Earthers here in New Zealand. Some or perhaps most of them have to dream up a conspiracy of airline pilots who have seen the edge of the world. Doesn’t seem so likely, does it? Surprisingly once we go into the details, many of us (and I) don’t understand a lot of the data, obserbvations, and science that proves we live on a globe. Robin showed me a photo of a wall in Petone that vanishes when photographed from I think it was Oriental Bay, quite a few km away. The wall can’t be seen in that photo due to the curvature of the earth. Or is there another explanation? The Flat Earthers assure Robin they have one. They say it is refraction of light similar to how mirages appear. So Robin went right into the science of all that. He is still working on convincing the Flat Earthers that they could be wrong. No, it is not a game. They sincerely believe, Robin assures me. They had a national conference in 2019…There is a National Organisation, Flat Earth NZ
So already we have one useful principle in talking to holders of false beliefs. Realize that we don’t all know the science that proves many things. I thought I understood exactly how aeroplanes fly until I went right into the science. Firstly, I was wrong. Secondly, I’m still not so sure I understand aerodynamics. They don’t always stay up there, either as I discovered flying over the Italian alps. We suddenly lost about 1km of height in a nasty downdraft that had brought down a plane just a few weeks before we flew…Holders of false beliefs often have doubts that many of us who are not experts cannot answer easily.
Words really matter. I can’t even find the perfect word for a belief that is without any good foundation in logic or reliable evidence. ‘False Belief’ is well illustrated in Cathy’s painting above. It used to mean heresy. Heresies were thought to come from the devil! And ‘Bunkum’ which I used to like is of recent origin referring to a fluffy political speech made in Buncombe, North Carolina. I will search in other languages for a better term. Maori has given us ‘ia’ to refer to one person without reference to gender, German has given us cool words like ‘schadenfreude’ and Hindi provided a number of new official English words this year like ‘accha’ (which I use a lot now because it is so useful). So all suggestions for a better word than 'false belief' will be most welcome!
There are many tools I use to speak with others who have false beliefs. A better list will have to await a few more blogs, or for someone like North and South or The Spinoff to commission another investigative piece from me.
Meantime, remember we all have cherished false beliefs. I have come clean in a previous blog about one of mine (#2 my crackpot hypothesis no1). I’m sure I will find a few more over the next couple of years. When I do, I’ll write about them.
So knowing we are all idiots at least occasionally should generate the all important humility and empathy you need when talking false beliefs. That's a good start.
True Conspiracies
- Friday 9 April 2021 blog #21
I have a book back in Wellington that describes many rather big conspiracies. In some cases thousands of people died. They may not have died had the conspiracy been exposed earlier.
Now we have number of people also describing conspiracies. People like followers of Qanon, Billy Te Kaika, Jamie Lee-Ross, and Vinnie Eastwood.
I think there is a difference between the two sets of conspiracy descriptions. But first, lets clarify a few words.
According to the Oxford Learners’ Dictionary
A conspiracy is “a secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal.”
A theory is “a formal set of ideas that is intended to explain why something happens or exists.”
A conspiracy theory is “The belief that a secret but powerful organization is responsible for an event.”
I never liked the term conspiracy theory because I think the colloquial use of ‘theory’ to mean any old explanation someone might dream up could be confused with the scientific meaning as in ‘the Theory of Evolution.’ I even tried to make up an alternative term for ‘conspiracy theory’. But I guess many words have more then one meaning, and I don’t want to create more confusion.
Secondly, I notice the definition does not say the theory is likely to be false, yet when we call a belief a conspiracy theory, we usually think it is false.
So what do we call The US government’s plot to kill Fidel Castro? There can be little doubt it happened as the official records now reveal the plot. The list of real conspiracies is very long.
I propose the term true conspiracy theory. It is probably imperfect, but maybe it will do. WDYT? (that means what do you think?)
I am collecting a list of conspiracies.
That businessman in Auckland who conspired to silence a young man he had sexually abused is one. He was convicted recently, but still has name suppression.
I will do another blog soon on how we might be able to spot the differences between unlikely conspiracy theories and true conspiracy theories.
On Being a Skeptic
- Friday 2 April 2021 blog #20
I am about to present my third public talk on skepticism next week in Christchurch.
Thursday 8th April from 6-7pm at
The Pegasus Arms Christchurch
I have been involved with the NZ Skeptics on and off for almost half a century, and am currently on the committee. My talk is the result of a group effort with fellow committee members and input from those who attended my first two presentations in Wanaka and Invercargill. Of course NZ Skeptics do not necessarily officially agree with everything I have to say. I just hope I reflect reasonably well and in general how we think.
Skeptics are on a roll these days (see the slide from my show above). NB I am not claiming any kind of endorsement from Vicki or Siouxsie. I am pointing to them as great examples of what can be achieved a by good empathetic, patient and intelligent skeptics. I think they are both great role models. We can all try to be a bit more like them.
With the current rise of misinformation we now face increasing dangers from false beliefs in need of thorough debunking:
“Extreme views and conspiracy theories…
can lead some people ‘down a rabbit hole’
Towards… violent views.”
We also need to avoid the doubling down and aggressive responses in talking with people with unsupported beliefs. I think we all have a cherished belief or two that is not true. That’s another reason why skeptics’ skills, experience, and expertise is now sorely needed. I present a number of tips for engaging with those benighted individuals who may harbour misinformed ideas.
I think two all too common myths about skeptics are:
1 That skeptics are too negative and cynical. Skeptics actually have a good sense of humour and are very positive and enthusiastic about the many wonderful things and knowledge we have based on good evidence.
2 Skeptics always doubt everything? We don't have a lot of confidence in things like quack medicines and scams because consider whether any claim is backed by evidence and reason. But we don't continually keep revising our views about things that have passed our tests until or unless some crucial new evidence or argument comes along.
So I do feel disappointed when I read loose expressions that are easily misinterpreted like:
“vaccine skeptics” – who have nothing in common with skeptics. Vaccines are something skeptics are enthusiastic about.
“climate deniers” – skeptics are concerned about global warming and agree with the IPCC’s findings. I personally just doesn’t like the poor illogical use of the term “denier” with the false implication that denying a claim is automatically wrong. Skeptics deny many things like: the idea the earth is flat. That doesn’t make us wrong.
Am I Talking Too Much?
- Viernes 26 March 2021 blog #19
Do men dominate conversations with women? Let’s just cut to the clear answer. It is yes; and to a significant degree. Mansplaining is not just a trendy new word. It is a common phenomenon. Stuff journalist Adam Dudding covered the evidence well back in 2017. In 1992 Janet Holmes at the University of Victoria published a paper reporting that New Zealand women are “ideal speaker-hearers”.
If you aren’t aware of just how serious this problem is, then you may need to have these terms explained to you:
Mansplaining: Men “explaining” an idea to a woman who got it ages ago.
Bropropriation: a man stealing a woman’s idea
Manspreading: easy enough to figure out what this means
Do you own simple research with this ap It can be used on your phone or computer and is very elegant and simple. It has two buttons. Dude and not a dude (speaking). It then adds up the total time for each. It assumes there is one male and one female, or an equal number; but of course even with say five women and two men, the dudes could still dominate.
If you are a big talker and prone to interrupting, it could be due to a lack of empathy. You can also test your empathy quotient her. Being empathetic may help you get more out of your conversations with anyone. You probably are not interested, but mine was 50 out of 80. I don't want to become any more empathetic, because I think I do too many unpaid voluntary things for others. Like this blog.
I am gathering feedback on this. If you have used the ap, please let me know your results and I can publish them here.
So, What to do about it?
Last year (2020), US researcher Joanna Wolfe claimed that a good strategy for men and women to use when they are being interrupted or ignored is what she calls, “positive future focus”. It involves starting with a positive statement (I think this is great to avoid triggering defences and then doubling down). Then, she suggests mentioning shared goals, and
"The person could say 'we could be having a better discussion. Let's take care not to interrupt or share thoughts until everyone has had a chance to speak."
It may also be practical to recognise that while it is rarer, some women can adopt aggressive communication styles, Erynn Brook writing in the Guardian (6 June 2018) uses the gender neutral terms: competition style and cooperation style. She sees a problem when,
“…if we have a person whose primary style is connection, speaking to a person whose primary style is competition, they may pass the mic and then never get it back. What we have, much of the time, is two vastly different communication styles colliding, which overwhelmingly favour competition style, because as long as someone in the equation sees talking longest and loudest as winning, the other person has no chance of connecting.”
A fix for that was described to me by a woman at my last Practical Psychology workshop. At a meeting, the chair could place a pen (or any marker) on the table. At regular short intervals, that pen moves to the next person who can then speak uninterrupted. She said she has seen it working well.
{…to be continued. If any publication would like me to do an in depth analysis, I am ready to go. I am about to workshop some of these ideas in my next Practical Psychology workshop in Auckland.}
Reiki and Poetic connections
- Freitag 19 March 2021 blog #18
I think poets are all a bit apophenic. They love to make all sorts of connections which do not have to be an accurate image of reality.
What is real, is that there are Reiki "healers" in New Zealand who offer distance healing. You send them some money, and they stay in their studio/therapy room and do Reiki. That involves using their hands to redirect mysterious energy flows.
So my poem is below. It had its first public reading last weekend at the Titirangi Poets group. Seemed to be very well received.
Nowhere Woman
You could be anyone
One of the ones who said.
“We all need to eat:
musicians, artists,…the royal families tell us too,
We all need to eat”,
They, someone,
I think you
Probably said
Something like that.
So you studied the way
The myriad ways
The arcane secrets
The ones I never understood
Of private enterprise
Of sizzling start-ups
It’s called business studies
So you started up
Built your boat
Like Team Emirates
The Kiwi dream team
So beautiful, so sleek, so fast
So clean a dream
It can race and win
I didn’t see you at the start line
Remote control Reiki
Drove your new boat
Like a cargo cult
You travel light
In the magic light
I see your money trails
Your boat is becalmed
You sing a lullaby
from a fantasy fable...
But the beautiful boat
drifts…in circles
You didn’t think of navigation...
You never had a destination…
But
“We all need to eat”.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DID YOU GET MY NAME?- Friday 12 March 2021 blog #17
So, what did you say your name was, again?
Except since she told me her name a couple of years ago, I’ve met and talked with her at least half a dozen times, and she is my neighbour. She has always used my name. What do I do now? And what should I have done in the first place? Does that sound kind of familiar? I’ve been there.
Memorising names is a topic I workshop in my Practical Psychology course. This is not a plug, btw, because I won’t be doing that unit on memory again for a while. Another question came up last night at the workshop. Why bother anyway? After all, you may never see the gas station attendant again.
So back to the beginning. When is it a good idea to ut in the time and effort to memorise someone’s name? I (and we at the workshop collectively) don’t see that it is worth memorising every name you come across. However during an extended maybe one-off conversation, you should be able to hold the name in your short term memory just by getting it right then using it a lot.
My answer to the why bother question last night was pretty poor. I appealed to self-interest. People will be more likely to do things for you and be more friendly and trusting when you use their names. Unless of course you overdo it insincerely, as some desperate and not so successful salespeople do sometimes.
It has more to do with social values for me, rather than the personal benefits. I wrote down most of the values I cherish. I found slightly more of them are social ones. Those that might lead you to memorising names could include:
OK a few tips:
MAGNESIUM SUPPLEMENTS - Friday 5 March 2021 blog #16
I saw someone buying magnesium tablets in the hope it would help her relax and sleep better. I don’t think the label on the tablets make such a strong therapeutic claim. But there was a smaller claim they could "help or assist" the body to relax. It is easy to assume they mean the tablets can sort your sleep problem from this. That might be just what the sellers do want you to think. If so, this is dishonest rhetoric. "Helps, supports, assists the body" are weasel words meaning,
"We have no evidence for our claims,
but please buy our product anyway."
When sellers of supplements make strong therapeutic claims, the Advertising Complaints Authority on receiving a complaint will ask for good evidence. Usually the sellers are unable to substantiate their claims and they are withdrawn. That's when the weasel words appear.
Like the other hundreds of substances we need to get in our diet, magnesium is used by our bodies in many interesting and useful ways to maintain our health.
So does that mean we should try taking magnesium if we are having problem sleeping?
It seems to me that first off, if it is serious and not just a result of some obvious temporary stress, then it might be a good idea to see your doctor.
I am not a doctor, but I have talked with some medical people, and my friends within the NZ Society for Science Based Healthcare about where to look for reliable advice on these matters.
The Medical School at Harvard University in the USA has a good reputation and has a special centre for giving general advice on medical matters. So I started with them…
“Dr. Bruce Bistrian, chief of clinical nutrition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says magnesium deficiency in otherwise healthy individuals eating a balanced diet is rare. "The kidney has an extraordinary ability to reduce magnesium loss in urine, and thus achieve magnesium balance on a wide variety of intakes," he explains...
In [some] situations, magnesium supplements may be necessary, but taking too much can cause or worsen diarrhoea. People with chronic kidney disease should not take supplements unless prescribed by their doctor.
Magnesium supplements are sometimes marketed as "super-pills" that can fix a long list of ailments such as muscle tension, low energy, and trouble sleeping in people with adequate total body magnesium. The evidence to support the claims just isn't there.
If you're concerned about low magnesium, ask your doctor for a blood test. To maintain a healthy magnesium level, it's best to get this mineral from food, especially high fibre foods such as dark green leafy vegetables, unrefined grains, and beans. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of magnesium for adults is 420 milligrams (mg) per day.”
[Harvard Health 2021]
The National Health Service (NHS) in England is another good source
Their website echoes Harvard and says,
“You should be able to get all the magnesium you need by eating a varied and balanced diet.
If you take magnesium supplements, do not take too much as this could be harmful.”
I have this book (sold by Titirangi Library) it is excellent.
SPORTS SUPPLEMENTS by Anita Bean 2nd edition 2015
She rejects most supplements, but beetroot juice and probiotics may be of some use for athletes (not the rest of you).
Bush Remedies in Titirangi 22 January #15
- written late in 2020 after visiting the Titirangi Fair which is set up by and for the benefit of the local Rudolf Steiner school. I am grateful to Mike Bradstock for his suggestions. I pitched this story to half a dozen newspapers and magazines but received no replies.
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The Titirangi fair is not bad fare as far as fairs go. It is away from the road, and surrounded by Kauri and other native trees. The local town hall on the site provides a nice warm and dry food hall atmosphere that includes some excellent live music.
I decided to have a chat with a seller of a local Native tree version Bach Flower products (aka “remedies”) that were made from as I understand it, dew or water collected from the flowers of the NZ native trees mixed with brandy. I enjoy these conversations, and I try hard not to offend or annoy the sellers. I am just interested in the usually weird and wacky explanations of how they are supposed to work, and the strange epistemologies (ways of knowing) they use.
To begin, I was surprised to learn the founder of the flower products was a real medical doctor, Edward Bach, who also used homeopathic products (founded by another real doctor) in England back in the 1930s.
The seller of Bach flower products (let’s call him Bruce – uncharacteristically for me, I neglected to get his name) agreed to give me his explanation of what the product was and how it was supposed to work.
His first point was that we all have a physical and spiritual being. We all give off an aura, he said from our spirit. I asked him how he knew about auras, and his answer was that they show up in Kirlian photography. Just how a halo effect in a photo proves anything about auras is beyond me, as it is obtained by exposing the photographic plate to high voltage electricity. I have a philosophical problem with claimed interactions between non-material and spirit non-material things. A model of something we can’t see (like black holes, the Higgs boson, or tiny viruses) is dependent of special observations (looking at the virus under a microscope) or sensible (as distinct from far fetched Kirlian) deductions from things we can see or measure.
So I told Bruce I am an atheist in regard to his spirit world; meaning I am yet to be convinced it exists; and I don’t see the need to bring spirits into any models of the universe. I like Occam’s razor…
Bruce didn’t like my stance at all. It seemed any sale he might make to me depended on the spirit thing. I suggested we assume the spirit world idea to be true and see where it leads us. He didn’t much like that (I thought generous and reasonable) suggestion either.
This took us down some strange paths and what felt like rabbit holes. Every emotion has a vibrational frequency, he told me. He knew and quoted the 5G one. So I asked about the frequency of anger. His frustration with me grew, as he said I was ignorant, and needed to do some study on the topic. But he still couldn't answer the question. It seems the product he was selling is made from mixing dew or water that has been sitting on native tree flowers, mixed with brandy.
Bruce told me our emotions are responsible for our physical health. My aura could be out of balance, and contain some bad (5G like) vibrations. Taking the appropriate Bach product could reset my balance. This would lead to me feeling calmer and more and positive, which should result in better physical health. So he was probably touting a curative and preventative medicine. However, he would not name any condition that his product could either prevent or cure.
Some people find my skeptical approach and curiosity about everything irritation. When I asked Bruce for more detail on exactly how the vibrations of the product cancel out the bad vibrations from my aura, he became very anxious and he walked off, abandoning his stall.
At that point, regrettably, I quietly suggested to him that he might like to consider one of his own products to counteract his agitation. I didn’t share his upset, and remembered I was supposed to be buying some lunch for myself and my wife. I went on to have a nice conversation in Spanish with the Mexican woman who most cheerfully sold me an empanada. By that time, Cathy had given up on me and had settled in to listen to the singer guitarist in the hall with warm food and a hot cup of tea (it had been raining outside wherew I had been). A much better idea!
Postscript:
I looked up the Bach flower “remedies”
I think Bruce needed the Matai flower Bach “remedy” because it deals with
“Reactive emotional responses” and replaces them via the sacral chakra adjustment with
“Emotional balance, flexibility and…ease”
I think I was probably in need of some of the Maire product to tone down my
“too much talking…[and] unkind speech” and via the throat chakra teach me to
“know when to speak, and when to be silent”
See these websites:
Science Based Medicine site on Bach Flower Remedy. Do Bach Flower products have any use apart from as a form of entertainment? You be the well-informed judge!
Skeptics dictionary Kirlian photography
First Light Flower Essences of New Zealand. The business has a Titirangi Post Office box number.
ASA Advertising Standards Authority
- Therapeutic and Health advertising code
- How to Complain
Flowers...https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/bach-flower-remedies/
feedback please....send to
[email protected]
FEEDBACK
-none as at 23 Jan 2021. That means I will post the first non-abusive feedback I receive here. Being the first ever, I will appreciate the acknowledgement no matter how ill conceived it may seem to me.
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self-esteem update - the benefits for many in lowering it
4 March 2021 V3.0 update 26 March #14
NB a fuller version of this is to be found by clicking onto my Practical Psychology tab.
What level of self-esteem do you think chauvinists, racists, con-artists, criminals, and psychopaths might have? The research has been done (references below) and the answer is...well consider
John Banks who was probably removed permanently in Jan 2021 from Magic Talk radio for making racist comments. Banks said, "I am not racist..." and had earlier called his show "truth radio" . Banks seems to think he is the media messiah, "The ‘left’ media control New Zealand thinking. When you’re tuned to Magic Talk Mornings and I’m filling in, it’s Truth Radio. It’s factual, it’s very educational and it’s unbiased,” he said. [Colin Peacock National Radio Jan 2021]
Tennis player Novak Djokovic made what seem to me to be over-entitled arrogant complaints about quarantine in Australia. A sports psychologist calls this the pedestal syndrome, which I think rightly points to our over-indulgence of celebrities who then begin to live in their own over-privileged, indulgent, unreal bubble.
...and Eric Watson has shown little desire to repay his creditors, and yet he still seems to have a lavish entitled lifestyle. He seems to me to have thought "this is not happening" when he was led away to his prison cell in handcuffs.
I do not advocate having low self-esteem. Those people are humble, do not offend anyone, are usually very likeable and non-threatening, and don't expect much from the world. But they are also prone to depression and being bullied. The depression may be due to having a more accurate view of the world than the rest of us.
What most people seem to fail to recognise, however, is the epidemic of thinking too much of ourselves (see the references below and the book, The Narcissism Epidemic for example). Surveys of driving skills and many more useful skills show that the vast majority of us think we are a lot better than average. Do the maths! Check out the Dunning-Kruger effect. Yes, narcissism does relate to high self-esteem. Sorry. There are many popular misconceptions like this. Another is the styles of learning idea; but let's stick to self-esteem.
I practice two things that have lowered my self-esteem and made my life so much better.
- Making and later reading notes of my mistakes, and
- Thinking about people to whom I feel grateful. That leads me to thanking people. I should do that more often...
(and taking more seriously what trusted family and friends tell me.)
So if you are like me, and tend towards thinking a little too much of yourself, and that you are entitled to all sorts of things that you are not entitled to (like parking without paying), here are the many benefits of bringing your self-esteem level back down to a safer moderate setting.
This list may even be of help to those rare individuals with abnormally low self-esteem. That is because this list is a description of a sensible moderate level, not a low one. And those with low self-esteem need to know what they are up against...
I am assuming you value having a cooperative society and things like: empathy, honesty, humility, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding, responsibility, fairness, equality, trustworthiness, and patience...so bear with me...
If you can ensure your self-esteem levels are moderate or even slightly lower than that, I think you will be likely to experience these twenty benefits:
1. OTHERS WILL APPRECIATE YOU. Because you will now have more room to esteem other people, and have better manners towards them.
2. FEWER FINES That lowered sense of entitlement means you will commit fewer misdemeanours and crimes like parking and traffic offences.
3. TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. This always feels grown-up because it is. Accepting our mistakes is easier when you have less to lose from being wrong.
4. KNOWLEDGE Because moderated self-esteem allows you to realise that even in the areas of life where you have achieved much through talent and hard work, you know there is still a lot more to learn.
5. MORE TRUST Others will trust you more. That always feels nice, because you feel useful in the world and genuinely valued. When you value the opinions of qualified experts, this leaves less room for your own less well-qualified opinions.
6. SAFETY You will become less inclined to take extreme and foolish risks because you will be more aware of your own limits. The research by Dr Nicholas Emler for the Rountree Foundation showed high levels of car smashes, drug taking and unwanted pregnancies amongst youth with high self-esteem scores.
7. REAL HOPE rather than false hope will guide you better to make more realistic plans and goals; and so avoid the disappointments that result from failing to reach unrealistic goals. That means less disappointment.
8. BETTER PERFORMANCES You are likely to raise your own performances because you will be more aware of your mistakes; thereby being more likely to correct them. You will listen to experts who criticise you.
9. PEACE OF MIND You won’t try to do too much every day then fail. So...more chilled you. You won't be so inclined to keep banging your head against brick walls, like those with very high self esteem. Reality won't suddenly and unexpectedly bit into your fantasy world. That's because you will be more able to doubt yourself, and have less to lose if your cherished plan turns out to be plain wrong or even stupid.
10. REALITY AWARENESS will improve because you now have a realistic view of yourself. You can now escape from callow fantasies to reality. That’s a much saner and safer place to live. As they say at the start of every Skeptics Guide To The Universe, this might be "Your escape to...reality!" Isn't it nice to know the difference between fantasy and reality in general for its own sake? Surely, you would like to know how the world really works, and how best to guess how others may behave. People who have completely lost touch are truly psychotic.
11 FEWER FALLS into GULLIBILITY TRAPS We know that inflated self-esteem involves delusions about one’s real importance, status and abilities; and a blindness to one’s own errors.
12 LESS idiotic CONFABULATION. It is nice not to be too often making a dick of yourself. Remember Trump's confabulation about injecting yourself with bleach? That could kill you.
13 PUNCTUALITY You should make appointments more often because you will allow more time to get to places, allowing for your taking wrong turnings, unforeseen events (I can’t tell you what they are as I am not prescient)…
14. FEWER MISTAKES when SUPERPOWER FREE No, you probably don’t have superpowers like: Superman, Superwoman, Draupadi (Indian female hero), James Bond, Psychics with their ESP powers: telepathy, fortune telling (aka precognition), astral projection, telekinesis, etc. So you will make fewer mistakes when you bear that in mind, and be guided by real world information...It works better than the “spirit world” for real things.
15 TEAM BENEFITS You will join teams that are socially useful and work better with others. This is as a result of valuing others. So groups that exploit others like KKK, Trump supporters, and QAnon will be shunned. Within your group, you will gain more cooperation from other members.
16. SATISFACTION through knowing your limits and the sacrifices neede to achieve some things like becoming a doctor. You will not subscribe to the dangerous notion that more is always better; so will be also skeptical that having extreme amounts of: will-power, resilience, emotional intelligence, etc can also lead to error..
17. OTHERS CAUSE YOU LESS GRIEF. It is unpleasant when other people continually upset you. This is most likely because you are too easily offended. Being easily offended is usually the result of excessive self-esteem. When high self-esteem is threatened, offended people tend to become aggressive and create even more grief. When very high self-esteemers go into battle aggressively or literally get into a fight; they often take on battles against stronger opponents (thinking falsely they themselves are better), so they lose. Even more grief!
18. MORE SELF CONTROL and willpower, as you might move your focus sideways away from what a wonderful person you think you are to more useful attributes. Not only self-control (higher self-esteemers have less) and willpower, but other virtues like recognising human rights and self-respect. Most of these traits can be useful in countering bullying and dealing with totalitarian liars like Donald Trump and his mob.
19. DEEP SATISFACTION is preferable to the lollypop temporary high from high self-esteem. Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman and his close collaborator Amos Tversky have written much about this. I have read many of their books, and even have a book about them. If you'd like to know more, I suggest you read one of them.
20. HAPPINESS WITH LIFE The whole WORLD will seem like a place where many others are doing their best to make it a great place for all. But because you are not extreme in that view, you will also exercise judicious caution when you meet a narcissistic psychopath like Donald Trump. So you will live in a real that can be absolutely wonderful and affirming; but as I say with some sensible cautions and care.
REFERENCES
Baumeister, R.F. (2001) Violent Pride Scientific American April issue
Baumeister, R.F. et al (2003) Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success,
happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science In The Public Interest 4 1-44.
Baumeister, R.F. et al (2005) Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth Scientific American January issue.
ARTICLES in the media (mostly by journalists)
Dalrymple, Theodore (a nome de plume) (1999) Psychobabble that shields the seriously selfish
New Statesman Monday 16th August
Theodore Dalrymple is probably best known for his weekly columns in The Spectator and his essays in the American quarterly City Journal. He is a psychiatric doctor working in an inner city area in Britain where he is attached to a large hospital and a prison. His columns report on the lifestyles and ways of thinking of Britain’s growing underclass, and in his latest book, Life at the Bottom.
Greenberg, Paul (2007) Down With Self-Esteem. Posted on townhall.com Monday, February 05, 2007. Greenberg appears to be a newspaper columnist. This may have been originally published in the Washington Times.
Hanscomb, David (2020) see Psychology Today online Jan 17
Milstone Carol (1999) "When Bad Kids Think They're Great." National Post, (Canada) 23, March
Salerno, Steve (2006) Self-help's big lie. Published in the L.A. Times January 1 and available online (there is a link on the Illinois loop site).
BOOKS
Emler Nicholas (2001) book published based on his research for the Rountree Foundation
Sanchez-Jankowski, Martin a Sociology professor spent 10 years living with various gangs. He reports this in his book, Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society (1991). He, like many other researchers, tried and failed to find any sign of a soft inner core among violent people
Twenge, Jean (2006) The Narcissism Epidemic
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Whitebaiters #13
My email sent on 24 Feb...
The president,
NZ Fish and Game,
I suggest you sanction one of your councillors (Ken Cochrane) for his sexist comment about scientists.
Furthermore, the reports I have seen on this whitebaiting issue suggest your organisation, might benefit from
the application of a reliable epistemology.
If you reject science, then on what do you base the apparent assertion that there is no need for serious and significant restrictions on whitebaiting?
The religion of whitebaiting? Does your holy text assert that whitebaiting is a sacred ritual that must never be questioned? Do you rely on faith? A famous modern philosophy professor Peter Boghossian thinks that faith can be defined well as “pretending to know things you don’t”. [The Manual for Creating Atheists 2013]
It seems to be you are simply tangling yourselves up in your own whitebait nets.
And in the process alienating your beautiful region from the rest of NZ.
#12 dealing with silly beliefs pt 1 "It worked for me"
This is a copy of a post I made in reply to a supportive doctor after a Newstalk ZB radio interview I gave following up on my North and South piece on funding for a Homeopathy College was published in Feb issue of North and South. I figured others may be interested. See also the Silly Beliefs website which has some interesting similar things to say on the topic. Link to that here. Also you can check Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking fast and slow. I have read several of his books and research papers.
I do worry when I try to get these things across. For example I wish I'd talked more about "It works for me" I wasn't on air but listened to the talkback section where this came up and was pretty much unchallenged my the hosts.
However (as my daughter had advised me just beforehand - and I do listen to her, and my wife) that point about not abandoning real medicine did get out there. Simon, the Christian, said he thinks God gave us useful doctors. Not sure as an atheist if I want to encourage that idea, but it definitely has a lot more merit than the hostility of many homeopaths towards "allopathic" medicine.
I am still thinking about and discussing that "it works for me" idea. i.e.
- is this a good approach to things like plumbing? I replaced sections of broken mains water pipes three times on our old property. I am well below average as a plumber. But I only had to make a basic mistake once, linking the new pipe in, and having to dig it all up again. Once I followed the right procedure, it worked for me! Got me thinking about the differences between plumbing and medicine.
I want to learn more on what biases are in play with belief in useless remedies?
- Positivity bias (forgetting failures),
- misuse of fast system I thinking?
- I am thinking of doing some preliminary research to see if those most resistant to reconsidering silly beliefs have inflated self-esteem and a high latency between being obviously wrong and admitting they were wrong. I am thinking of devising a cunning psychology expt where the subjects don't know what I am testing...
How does one best put across the difference between big data and anecdote? I think personal stories or even anecdotes are very good as explanatory devices (not proof!!)
Visual things stick in our memories better. I have used the history of bloodletting as a cautionary tale, and still will bring it up, but people often don't get it. They think it proves doctors don't know what they are doing. (wrong verb!!! didn't it should be, and of course the truth is always complicated) It is tricky...
I always want woo enthusiasts (and religious people) to know I understand how they feel; I have the same experiences. But slow logical and evidence based thinking leads me to better epistemological reliability and thus to a better life....
#11 me too Jan 2019
There is a very good column in today's Dompost by Verity Johnson on this. She has discovered that some women make false accusations. About time we cleared up the Peter Ellis case, isn't it? You can lobby your MP to have him pardoned if the Supreme Court abandons the case. Three short thoughts:
1 By acknowledging that sometimes false accusations are made (for any crime, too) we can engender more confidence in our justice system. Not admitting mistakes is a Russian totalitarian approach, isn't it?
2 of course many men are bastards. I want as many as possible to be challenged and prosecuted. But remember, an accusation is nit a conviction, and while we all want the guilty to be found out, we can't be too sure they are until due process has been observed.
3 so bearing that in mind, let's hold off a wee bit on Weinstein. He hasn't stood trial, yet. The preliminary hearing is only just taking place. Given what I have read, I'd say he is very likely to be found guilty. In NZ we have the presumption if innocence and frown on trial by media. Public comment is not allowed under sub judice rules for good reason. We are of course legally (but perhaps not morally) free to comment on a US case...It feels to me that Weinstein is about to die, and was found guilty long ago. But I don't like kangaroo courts or lynch mobs even for horrible people.
Here is what the Washington Post found last year...Very similar to what my research revealed here in NZ.
#10 E Scooters Jan 2019
Update May 2021. ACC is now spending $7.5million a year on patching up e-scooter injuries. Can't we live without them? I've never used one.
I heard today on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (your escape to reality) podcast that there are a lot of head injuries with e scooters. Worse than bikes. I suggest you ask your MP to push forward legislation to make helmets compulsory. We are paying a lot of money as tax payers on hospital bills and lost productivity.
#9 PROLIX Nov 2019
I will make this into an original meme. Still editing it.
( I noticed I had trouble remembering the difference between epenthesis and pleonasm (both useful words about words)...
It goes something like this...
...Why would you use an awful lot of unnecessary words (or syllables) to explain something when only a few words would suffice? And instead of all these words, I could use just one concise, terse or even curt word (without descending into brachylogy) to describe what I mean...Just one word, like: prolix, epenthesis, or pleonasm or verbose.
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#8 'Ia' (he/she) is better than 'they'
Useful Māori kupu (words)
I delight in languages. So I enjoyed the article by Thomas Manch, The Māori words that English Misses (Dominion Post 10 September).
I use an English word borrowed from Latin, mumpsimus, with an interesting back story. Mumpsimus means the same as pōhēhē, so it is nice to have another local option to describe obstinate idiots who cannot be corrected.
I have been regularly using a Mâori word in my English writing and speech alluded to by Manch. I find it the most useful word I have ever found to solve an ambiguity in English. I am often confused when I read of them driving a car, or they having robbed someone on the street. More confusingly, I saw a report about a schoolteacher and ia's class who may not have been vaccinated. "They may have been contagious" could have referred to the children or the teacher. I never found out. Had the reporter said, "Ia may have been contagious" I would have known.
A second reason to use 'ia' may occur in the above examples. We simply didn't get a good look at the driver or mugger, so we don't know whether it was a he or she.
A third useful situation for using 'ia' is when the person being referred to does not want to be identified or simply does not identify with either gender or sex. In Sweden, they invented a new word 'hen' which translates perfectly as 'ia' for this purpose. I understand it spread to other Scandinavian countries. I don't think it works too well in English!
Fourthly, I may know the sex or gender of someone, but still do not want to reveal it. I guess this is similar to how Ms does not reveal the marital status of a woman. And perhaps fifthly and confusingly for me, anyway, I am told sex is very different from gender. The two sometimes do not correlate. One can cause offence unwittingly it seems to me; so by using 'ia' judiciously, some (but probably not all) of this kind of offence might be avoided...
So I think 'ia' may catch on if some other people promote the idea.
I use it anyway in both speech and writing. I add (he/she) the first time I use it. My friends no longer need the translation as it does catch on quickly.
We already borrow directly from scores of languages. I don’t think English is really a language, as estimates of loan words in English are as high as 80per cent! Here are some:
ballet (French)
avatar (Sanskrit)
hoi Polloi (Greek)
khaki (Persian)
mosquito (Spanish)
doppelgänger (German)
aroha (Māori)
Postscript
The late journalist Frank Haden wrestled I think unsuccessfully with the problem of 'their' being ambiguous. I asked a well-known columnist what he thinks (July 2022). He felt ok with 'ia', although he was not confident it will catch on.
A solution some use in their writing is to use she for a page then change it to he for the next page, and so on.
#7 Fake fronts for fake facts Sept 2019
The next time you read a piece by someone from an organisation that sounds like a legitimate scientific research group, just check it out if you are not sure who they are.
International Life Sciences Institute X according to the New York Times (18 Sept 2019) this group are "almost entirely funded by Goliaths of the agribusiness, food and pharmaceutical industries...[and] championed tobacco interests during the 1980s and 1990s in Europe and the United States..."
There are many more...I will add to this list...do you know any?
Let me know [email protected]
#6 Mentalese Aug 2019
This is a very abridged version of the article I am in the process of submitting for publication. If you would like a copy of the full article, I can email you ac copy. The question here is: how does thought originate in our brains? I look at evidence that there is a fundamental process of thought, where are ideas are generated independently of language. Psychology professor Steven Pinker calls this primeval language of thought mentalese. It seems we think first in images and feelings (or an unfathomable perhaps ineffable process) that are then somehow then translated into words. We obtain glimpses of this process in dreams, during the hypnagogic transition between sleep and wakefulness, and a number of other situations.
#5 PETER ELLIS July 2019
I am so sad to hear about what is going on...I feel so disappointed for Peter.
I wrote a book on the evidence from the scientific viewpoint of someone qualified and experienced as a teacher, social worker and psychologist. I was ably assisted by my friend Richard Christie who is an excellent editor.
Phil Goff, various MPs and some key Ministry of Justice officials refused to read this. Most also refused to read Lynley Hood's epic and authoritative book on the case.
There is really no need left now for debate on what the science says.
Read for yourself here (my Book)
or see A CITY Possessed by Lynley Hood. Your library will have a copy
#4 AM I A PAKEHA? June 2019
This one needs more references and if I receive any feedback I might improve the content.
Most of my grandparents (and probably half of my great grandparents) were born in NZ. Before that, as far as I can tell, most were English or Scottish. I am very comfortable with calling myself pakeha; also Ukranian or Caucasian (see my second blog entitled MY CRACKPOT THEORY)
I speak Māori and I haven’t heard Pākeha being used by any of my Māori friends and acquaintances in a derogatory mood. The only people I have seen take offense at Pakeha, are those with a slightly racist and right wing bent. If that is the usual trend, I wonder why that is so.
Pākeha I argue is useful because it makes clear you are of European (and probably mostly English) descent and you live in NZ, as probably did your parents. Nothing is perfectly precise, but for me it does well. Any term can be used in a derogatory manner, but I don’t think Pakeha is a derogatory word.
European seems a little weird for me because my family have been here son long. As I say in my song, Song of a Pakeha, “We left mother England so long ago, I am an Islander, a Pakeha now…” Pakeha are Pacific Islanders.
Taonui *(2019) suggests…
“Inspired by historian Michael King, Pākehā changed in meaning from ‘New Zealanders of European descent’ to ‘all non-Māori New Zealanders’. This is now reversing, as new ethnic groups assert stronger identities.”
Māori seem to have come here from other places, probably originating in Taiwan. English from various European places including around the Caucasion mountains.
References
NEW SCIENTIST 10 March 2019 Describes how theoriginal Britons pretty much died out to be replaced largely by invaders from the Caucasian region.
RAWIRI TAONUI 9May 2019 Stuff opinion
ON BEING PAKEHA Stephen Kin
#3 WHERE ARE YOU FROM? May 2019
Sometimes you can get into unnecessary trouble when you ask a stranger, “Where are you from?” I can’t remember getting into such difficulties myself, but here is a good starting point for thinking about this issue..it is only two minutes long and I think quite funny…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crAv5ttax2I
So, maybe this guy’s main (and first) mistake was simply to give insufficient weight to the lack of accent of the woman he met? That was always my take on the point to this sketch. The way she spoke told him she was American. Of course what may be driving this could be a racist alt right kind of attitude.
So would he have been better to ask where she lives now; and/or where did she spend most of her childhood…Might he have struck up a better conversation that way?
So what about the opposite situation? i.e. she looked American, but spoke with a strong foreign accent?
Personally, I really enjoy speaking to people from other cultures, especially if I can talk with them in Spanish, Italian, Máori, or (a little in) German, French or Greek.
So my response with them is to ask, “hablas Español? , “Parla Italiano?” or “Kia kōrero a koe i te reo Māori?
Especially if I am talking with a Māori, if I ask “Where are you from?” I would mean (or add), “your turanga waewae?” to Iwi? Maunga? Te wai?
But we could be talking with someone who is one of us as Jacinda Ardern might say. Someone with a strong foreign accent, but is a NZ citizen, identifies strongly with NZ and could have been living here for 20 years. Like a very interesting and well-informed intelligent originally German Kiwi man I very recently met. After we had been talking for a bit, I asked him, “Bist du aus Deutschland?” I was pretty sure I was richtig, so no problem, we went on to a discussion of flugscham and other interesting German concepts…
NEW PARAGRAPH (Jan 2021)
Or, as I didn't discover until 2021, someone with a strong foreign accent may still have been born here. The accent could come from family and friends. I met a women whose family are from Goa in India, but who speaks little Hindi herself. Although she was born in Goa, there her family mostly spoke in English. Had she been born here, her accent would have I think been the same. I was interested to learn just after that of how the Oxford dictionary of English has just added a number of Hindi words that are very commonly used in England. Words do not respect national boundaries. Neither sometimes do accents. There may be more Indians speaking English than English speaking english...
But I occasionally get it wrong and the reply to “Parla Italiano” is “What? Sorry, no…” So far those conversations have also gone well, maybe because I then admit I am not as good as I thought at picking accents, and so we go on to discussing life in Poland or Romania because I am interested.
The only new arrivals from overseas whom I have found who don’t like discussing their homeland so far are from Syria (I often go to a barber in Newtown where the person cutting my hair always seems to be from Syria). That might also apply to refugees from Saudi Arabia. One very recent female refugee seems to have escaped from a frightful family by any standards of decency. Given what happened to Khashoggi, I would now also be very cautious discussing life back home with a Saudi...
I think the key here is treating others with respect and genuine interest.
I think I can probably improve some of my questions a little. I’m interested to hear some others’ take and experience with this…
My family are (in most branches) third to fifth generation Kiwis; but I have recently discovered my English and Scottish ancestors probably mostly hailed from near the Caucasian mountains after the original Britons suffered a massive plague or were killed. So I sometimes call myself an ethnic Ukranian (see blog #2)…
And if I get it wrong somehow, I remember what Renee Taylor said in her blog (April 10 2019)
"...Some people don’t know how to apologise, or what an apology means. They say things like, ‘If anything I said caused offence then that was not my intention.’
What a cop-out.
What should have been said was, ‘I’m sorry I used that expression, those words, that threat. I was wrong and I apologise. I won’t do it again. I hope you’ll forgive me.’"
I like that. Thank you Renee. He whakaaro nui koe.
Blog #2 My Crackpot Hypotheses March 2019
- no 1 are English people Latin?
I have long maintained we all have cherished beliefs and memories of things that do not dwell in the real world. Reality trucks along following its own course, caring nothng at all about our fond fancies about reality.
Our false beliefs are perhaps just less extreme forms of overvalued ideas that are said to drive the crazed behaviour of terrorists, crackpot politicians and tyrannical despots. I think usually our good moral values will constrain our most idiotic ideas before they become so over=valued we cannot give them up..
…or a discussion with an honest friend may help knock a silly idea on the head. The other day, I went to the Kelburn Village pub to watch a friend perform with his band of brothers. I had often played there before myself a few years ago. So I asked if they had managed to source some beer from Kelburn in Scotland, as the owner was (or had been) Scottish and the suburb of Kelburn was named after Kelburn in Scotland. But it turned out the barmaid was English, and the Scottish owner had left some time back.
I regard the people of any country as being a mixture of their ethnic and cultural roots. Here in NZ we most certainly have Polynesian, English and Celtic blood along with some Chinese, South American and many other nationalities in the mix. Stats NZ has more detail if anyone is interested.
But I digress, so back to the English barmaid at the pub…I used to cherish the notion that my mostly English heritage included quite a bit of Latin blood. We have a family story about a sea captain ancestor and a Portuguese barmaid. I have always liked that story, despite there being no evidence for it. Because I love speaking Spanish and performing Latin music with friends from South America, I feel a special affinity to that story, because my Pakeha ancestry is mostly English.
So I suggested to the barmaid that she may have Latin blood, being English. Maybe, she was from Cornwall and some Spanish sailor washed up there from the Spanish Armada, or some Spanish smugglers settled there?
Or, maybe back when Britannia was part of the Roman Empire some Italian blood crept in? Or French after the Norman invasion?
I was taken aback to discover that not only did the barmaid categorically deny this, but she did not seem to share my interest in Latin culture and origins.
I sat down with my English beer, while the Prowse Brothers Band sang a very catchy song they had written about the virtues of ordinary Kiwi beer such as Lion Brown...
I shared the above encounter and theories with a friend. He also surprised me with his comment (for which I took no offence).
“Jonathon”, he said, looking at my phone, “That theory is as cracked as your phone!”. And because he wasn’t feeling well (and perhaps was not feeling partial to discussing crackpot ideas in those circumstances), he promptly walked out of the pub.
So I checked it out on my cracked phone. I was quite quite wrong...The French people are not really Latin although the language is, and England was settled first by Celts from across the channel, then the Germanic Anglo-Saxons. I couldn’t find any evidence for any Latin blood…In fact after reading a current edition of New Scientist I now like to inform people that most of my heritage both cultural and genetic may be Ukranian…or at least originating near or in the Caucasian mountains near or in where Ukraine is situated today….and maybe a little Norse or Scandinavian, even a tiny bit Arab and African.
But not Latin.
REFERENCES
The Tribe That Rewrote History Colin Barras New Scientist March 2019 no3223. cover story
Lone Wolf Killers: A Perspective on Overvalued Ideas Matthew H. Logan Ph.D. Violence and Gender. December 2014, 1(4): 159-160
Blog #1 CHIROPRACTIC March 2019
Chiropractic Treatment Summary
research compiled by Jonathon Harper (M.A. Dip Tchg) Version 1.1 updated on 13 Mar 2019
e-mail: [email protected]
If you come across any new reliable information, please let me know.
In the year 2000 a doctor in Newport, England was driven out of her home by a benighted vigilante group who thought her medical specialist title meant she liked to sexually abuse children.
So it just might pay to be able to recognise real medical specialist disciplines that require about a decade (at least) of serious study: reading endless long scientific text-books attending hundreds of university lectures and workshops and passing many difficult written and practical exams.
Can you distinguish the real specialist doctors in this list? Test yourself with a pen and paper before you look up the answers at the bottom of the page.
Naturopath, homeopath, oncologist, pathologist, neurologist, gastro-enterologist, acupuncturist, chiropractor, osteopath, orthopaedic surgeon. (I need to add to this list!)
So if you are considering taking an alternative to scientific medicine, why not first consider a new as yet unproven treatment within the medical profession? What other alternatives are there? A thousand years ago, there were plenty of ideas abut what worked. Drilling holes in skulls (perhaps to release evil spirits), bloodletting (that must have killed millions), and a few sensible ideas like exercise and avoiding over-eating. Since those days, all the ideas have been thoroughly tested by scientists using double blind experiments to avoid biases like the powerful bias we all have towards distorting our sensations and especially perceptions to see what we expect, and then to ignore evidence that proves our cherished beliefs wrong.
Do you wish to use and pay for treatments that have consistently failed those tests over hundreds of years of testing?
Would you agree that bloodletting is essential to provide a balance of the humours in your body? What of other equally ridiculous claims by other non-medical practitioners?
Would you take a small risk of serious or even minor side effects for a “treatment” that is unlikely to provide any improvement?
If an increase in ice-block consumption correlates perfectly with drownings at beaches (it often does); would you avoid buying an ice block to be safe in the water? Uh-huh! Correlation does not prove causation! So if you got better just after a bloodletting, would you say the bloodletting cured you? And “It worked for me!”?
So! Would you rather then that a “treatment” is tested on a lot of people, has a plausible theory as to how it works, and is tested many times by different teams of properly trained scientists?
So bearing all that in mind, let’s have a look at Chiropractic.
Is it a medical discipline?
…well no. It is not taught as a therapy in any reputable medical school. It may be mentioned (negatively) in a course on the history of medicine.
Scientific double blind studies?
…A real Doctor, Simon Singh claimed, “There is not a jot of evidence Chiropractic works.”
Rather than provide such evidence, he was sued by a group of Chiropractors in England. He won the case. Chiropractic therapy has very little proven effectiveness beyond the placebo effect.
Controlled studies have shown the only effectiveness of Chiropractic is for lower back pain (NZ Medical Journal April 2010) – not the myriad of other conditions “treated” by chiropractors (Singh and Ernst 2008). The very small effect for some back problems could be no more than a chance effect, and of less therapeutic value than random manipulations or exercises.
What about the theory behind it?
Chiropractors generally follow the “teachings” of the founder David Palmer who was born in Ontario in 1845, and came to Iowa in the U.S. He became a grocer and beekeeper with an interest in ‘magnetic healing’ and spiritualism, who called himself ‘Doctor’ despite a lack of any medical education. The idea of Chiropractic came to him as ‘received wisdom’ at a séance in 1885. Chiropractic is one of a number of strange fringe belief systems that originated in the U.S. including: the Mormon religion (they have no black ministers and believe the Indians came from Israel), Christian Science, craniosacral manipulation and applied kinesiology. Bloodletting was mainstream at the time of Palmer’s birth and killed hundreds of thousands of patients.
Palmer believed in a mysterious life energy he called “innate intelligence” despite having no evidence that it even exists. Do real doctors speak about “flows of “innate intelligence” forces within the body? Palmer claimed a blockage of this energy system causes disease.
Different chiropractors do not even agree on what vertebrae have “subluxations” (see Singh and Ernst 2008).
Chiropractors lack of medical knowledge is shown in the fact that many are anti-vaccination.
…and worse as a 2016 report in Forbes here on an official Chiropractors International conference shows.
What about side effects?
The risk may be very small, but it is a big risk…Neck manipulations can lead to stroke (Singh and Ernst 2008 pages 172 -178; Stanford University Stroke Center study 1992).
Kristi Bedenbaugh, a former beauty queen from Little Mountain, South Carolina was proven to have been killed by a chiropractor’s neck manipulation.
Chiropractors use X-rays, which do carry a small risk of causing cancer. Do the proven benefits outweigh this risk?
BOOKS
Singh and Ernst 2008 Trick or Treatment. It is worth noting that one of the authors had been a practitioner and teacher of “alternative” medicine.
Ben Goldacre 2008 Bad Science published by Fourth Estate. Goldacre is a senior medical doctor in England.
GOOD TO GOOGLE
Quackwatch Chiropractors “One patient proven to have been killed by neck manipulation was Kristi A. Bedenbaugh, a medical office administrator and former beauty queen from Little Mountain, South Carolina…
BBC News Chiropractic ”Back treatment 'has few benefits…libel case dropped against Simon Singh…”
Science based medicine chiropractor breaks baby’s neck…2013
ANSWERS to the quizz
REAL Doctors: oncologist (cancer specialist), pathologist, neurologist, gastroenterologist, orthopaedic surgeon (bone specialist).
QUACKS (no proper medical training): Naturopath, homeopath,acupuncturist, chiropractor,
SOMEWHERE IN-BETWEEN osteopaths start off with an ordinary science degree, but then enter their own training establishments outside ordinary medicine. However their training does now include a lot of standard medicine.
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Friday 7 April 2023
Jessie married Claire. A week later Adam goes off with Claire for a few hours and they kiss….
Adam gaslights Jessie. “You have a problem”…
[source Marriage at First Sight Reality TV…]
Despite the church’s good intentions, their solutions lacked the professional and clinical support and insight that were needed to fix underlying childhood trauma. My life could have taken a very different trajectory if the church had simply recognised their own limitations and referred me to appropriate professional support. Instead, for me, their programmes did more harm than good.
Year after year I went into deliverance meetings desperate to be ‘transformed’, but when I failed to experience a ‘faith healing’ it was implied that my heart wasn’t in the right place – I hadn’t spent enough time in prayer or done the necessary preparation for God to heal me.
Year after year, I was left feeling shamed, inadequate, hopeless, and beyond help.
My church context also put a high emphasis on moral ‘purity’, especially in regard to girls’ clothing and body language, and elicited vows to avoid any kind of sexual exploration outside marriage. My entire worldview was tied to the religious belief that sexual purity correlates with worthiness and value. Webworm Megan
https://unfolding.blog/2022/02/08/unfold/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
QUOTE for April S QUOTE ” I couldn’t have written this book ten years ago. I wasn’t wise enough” - Neil deGrasse Tyson CsiCON 2022 in conversation with Richard Dawkins
I HAVE JUST READ ????
MY JOURNALISM ???
WORD for April
Accha
An English word that derives from India (Hindi) this time.
Next time…(FEB)..Hypnopompia
Cryptomnesia cool! Goes with lethologica?
FEEDBACK The schoolgirls in Iran again
Aku iti noa
Jonathon
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.A Falling Pillar (Blog #53)
Friday 3 February 2023
I am running up the Silversky track above Crofton Downs in Wellington. I like the name. I see my long silver locks flowing almost effortlessly and consistently upwards through the regenerating native bush towards the sky. Well nobody sees my hair, nor any part of me, as there is nobody else up here. The air is warm, but not hot, and I like the feel of a moderate sweat as I move across the dappled light shining through the foliage overhead. Bliss. Uh oh! Rhythm broken as I stumble on a tree root. I almost fall.
Now I’m thinking of that big wooden pillar in the corner of our porch. We had almost sold our house amongst our own jungle in Ngaio, when I noticed it was rotten at the base. We love that porch in our 100 year old character house. The sun pours in there in the mornings, and the brick steps and paving I rebuilt there make a perfect place to watch the Tuis, Piwakawaka and Kaka in the big Pohutukawa trees. I think I might be rather like that pillar in the corner. I’ve stood for many decades, but I’m a wee bit weaker, and more prone to failure. Due for replacement? I think I understand the source of that unfounded (great replacement) conspiracy belief…
We homo sapiens evolved with many flaws: an optic nerve in the wrong place across our retinas creates a blind spot, etc, etc. I have several bionic teeth (aka implants) which might improve on nature’s faulty designs. And talking of running, Roger Robinson loves his two new knees (they even have names) that are carrying him to new world class masters running records…He is now over 80 years old…
As I come on to the wider four wheel drive track that leads right up to the skyline ridge, I think about my recent significant failure as a journalist. It is easier to contemplate here, alone with the wider path looking down on the whole city of Wellington. The whole hillside is covered in shrubs and trees. Beside the track I now pass some abandoned failed rusty roofing iron...
My failure was revealed back in Auckland, after my trip to Whangarei with old friend Ken (who lives in Puhoi). I crossed the city many times (across the harbour bridge four times) throughout the whole Gabrielle disaster period. I gave fourteen retirement village concerts. None were cancelled. I decided not to bother buying an umbrella, and only very briefly once (during the strongest deluge) regretted that. I met my son Zeph in Maraetai, and enjoyed a wild run along the beach (one mistake – should have got to him first, as he would have joined me).
At Maraetai the wind was less strong than I have felt in the past up this hill. One day, just a little higher up, I witnessed my fellow club runner Stu being blown off his feet. Stu and the others turned back, but I carried on…
My journalism mistakes. In the midst of Gabrielle’s worst in Auckland, I went to ARE Media headquarters in Kingsland, in a neo-modernist strongly built concrete and steel two-storied building. I don’t think it will fail after a hundred years like our porch pillar. But as I discovered there, although I am younger than our pillar by about three decades (you do the maths!), my feet of rot have already started revealing themselves (apologies to whoever thought up the clay reference).
LSS I hope nobody is saying TLDR. [LSS = Long Story S]
My piece on Religion in our schools won’t be published in the Listener because it has some fatal flaws. I agree with editor Karyn’s assessment. In short, I start vaguely and lamely with “some time ago” and don’t name some people I should have named. I tried unsuccessfully to extract some comment from then Education minister Chris Hipkins when I should have approached the Ministry lower down. In another sentence, the meaning is not clear…
I’m almost done with this, except, as I run past some larger native trees (no Kauri I can see here) I remember the night before I met Karyn. I was staying with my friend poet Ron Riddell and his Colombian wife Saray. Saray took me for a run one morning through Titirangi and its distinctive ancient model kauri trees. We talked partly in Māori and Spanish and noted some recent slips. She and Ron were very supportive of my anguish at the revelations from Karyn at The Listener. I woke up on the morning of meeting Karyn very early, and wrote a poem about how discombobulated I felt, as I have published many investigative pieces in Metro, North and South, NZ Law Journal, The Press and even once, about a year ago, The Listener. I read the poem that afternoon at the Titirangi Poetry Society (founded by Ron many decades ago).
It is titled Unpolished version 7.1 and concludes
IV The Crime Scene within my mind
Discom-bloody-bobulation
Nothing fits and nothing functions
Just a rhythm, just a schism
Sometime, somewhere ¿surely somehow?
I’ll could blend the garbage with the flowers
Sprinkle in my Wabi-Sabi
Wabi-Sabi’s crap reflections
Wabi-Sabi’s prior perfections
Bang¡BANG!
Clickety-click
Swish swish…tick tick
Bad mistakes…
Swish swish tick
Crap computations
Swish, swish, cross,
Crap clackety clunkety
Rickety rackety
Wrung out, spun out
Wobbly writing…
…
¡BANG!
Gate closed
I found at our meeting Karen was very helpful, and understanding. I thanked her sincerely for her patience and time – I will do my best to fix it and try North and South as she suggests.
I just hope I am like that old pillar. It can be made better than when it was first put there for a lot less money than we had anticipated.
I think we will then sell the house and replace it with one about forty years younger and in much better repair in Mairehau, Christchurch (near our grandson and soon to appear granddaughter Mia).
I’m on my way back down the Silversky track now. This is easier. Faster, Exhilarating!
QUOTE for Feb Sometimes things will go wrong and just don’t work out. But you needn’t get stressed when you have done the best you could…[not verbatim]. Our cheerful Intercity Bus Driver from Christchurch to Picton on 28 Feb 2023 Note this – Karyn! ]
I HAVE JUST READ half of two books this month. Roger Robinson’s latest Running Throughout Time is one. Boy can he tell a story well and do his research to get to the truth. He gives plenty of dates and names…
MY JOURNALISM Covered in this month’s blog
WORD for Feb
Wabi-Sabi is a word from Japan. Wikipedia has a nice entry…”is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.” Btw there is a wiki seminar in Wellington coming up. I hope to attend some of it.
FEEDBACK The schoolgirls in Iran thinking they have been poisoned by Nitrogen gas…(I read the report today in the NY Times) Check out how much of the atmosphere is Nitrogen. I call probable mass psychogenic illness. I asked expert Robert Bartholomew who notes it parallels a story he has written on phantom terror attacks in Afghanistan.
https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/mass-hysteria-likely-behind-reports-taliban-poisoning-afghan-schoolgirls-expert
Leaving a Legacy (Blog #52)
January 2023
I and Cathy recently visited my old friend Don King in Christchurch. Now in his early 80s, Don seemed a little frail in the way he walks slowly and carefully, but that is due to an operation that didn’t go perfectly from which he is recovering. Don now lives in a rather new townhouse. Don played us some beautiful sounding music he had arranged for an instrument that looks like a lute, but is not a lute. It has several more strings than a guitar…Despite one eye having some macular degeneration, the score he had hand-written was just as beautiful as the other ones he has generously given me. I still perform them and find my audiences also appreciate them. So Don already has quite a music legacy. His three volumes of guitar tutor books are used by teachers all over New Zealand.
There is no logical imperative as far as I can tell to suggest we must leave a legacy. Perhaps it is just a good idea to simply make the most of our precarious, vulnerable, and often short lives. Carpe Diem. Provided I hear you say, we don’t wreck others’ enjoyment of life…
For me, I’d like to think I will be remembered well as someone who could empathize and work with other people from all walks of life. Someone who had a reasonably reliable grasp of reality (a reliable epistemology), and the human condition (psychology)…and who generally espoused values like honesty, transparency, humility, integrity. …Don has these admirable qualities, as well as being a quiet and kind person.
Cathy has a great legacy of paintings. Some 17 were sold last year. I think they record something of what life is like here. I hope to do the same with some of my music and writings…
We can be gone suddenly. We lost three nephews while they were still young men. I laughed and joked with cousin in law Pete last year, just before he took ill and suddenly died.
But today the sun is shining. As our Roman friends would say, “Il sole splende, il caffè è buono…” I am only 72, and healthy and fit still. Although I run at half the speed of a couple of decades ago, the grass still smells sweet. It is a glorious day! I am off for a bike ride, then a run, and some time in our garden amongst the trees and flowers, piwakawaka and tuis…I think my three grown up children will all feel rather like that today, too! Pete would approve as he always made the most of what he had.
QUOTE for Feb "Before you believe a claim, find out who disagrees with it and why…. Once you have located the opposing arguments you can evaluate which side has the most credible evidence and the fewest logical fallacies. [from the late Skepdoc, Harriet Hall]
I HAVE JUST READ Invasion 2022 Luke Harding. 308pp. Harding reports from Ukraine. Not a lot I didn’t already know, but horrifying, of course. Maybe The Russian Conundrum gives more of an insider’s view.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/05/exiled-russian-calls-on-those-still-in-country-to-sabotage-putins-war
MY JOURNALISM I am looking at an old case that may reveal (or at least allege credibly) that someone now high within the legal system acted with malfeasance a long time ago, and maybe that should be exposed. I will see…Meanwhile I continue with charities and those issues, and await publication of my Listener investigation into religious lessons in schools.
I spoke with a young woman in Titirangi who works for NEOM….helping the Saudi’s build that 270km long wall with no crs to house 9 million people….Sounds great…right (Khashoggi…)?
WORD for Feb
Panglossian means being over-optimistic, like Pollyanna in the eponymous film. Interestingly, there was a fictional naively optimistic Dr Pangloss in Voltaire’s novel Candide from which the word derives.
Btw Please let me know if you have any thoughts to share on my short blog. That includes suggestions for improving it before I put it up next week…or just an update on what you are up to. And let me know if you’d like me to put your comment on the blog in the feedback section…
Aku iti noa
Jonathon
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Information Overload and Updates (Blog #51)
Friday 2 December 2022
There is too much information and noise…so I’m not adding much to it this month.
I had two short poems published recently in the 2022 Titirangi Poets anthology.
This was one…
Last Word (Laingholm August 2020)
I’d rather say
The best word
The kindest one
The wisest word
Than the last
…
...
...
one
So I hope you will all be able to step back from that constant rush of noise and interesting information, and be able to relax and take a break.
Updates
Follow up on Post Modernism
“This is no mere philosophical quibble. The notion of objective truth is what anchors all serious, clear-headed inquiry, and without it the distinction between science and pseudoscience breaks down. And while subjectivism about truth is a rare view among professional philosophers, it is highly influential in other parts of the humanities and social sciences, where, as a consequence, reason and argument have been to a large extent replaced by political ideology.”
Victor Moberger – Free Inquiry website October 2022
QUOTES for December on learning some new skill…
from David, a new addition to my subscribers list. I think this is wise.
“…My old hockey coach used an expanded version of the phrase: "perfect practice produces perfect performance; piss-poor practice produces piss-poor performance", which seems more truthful. Hence, I despise those who simply call for "more education".
And on religion
“You could easily spot any Religion of Peace.
Its extremist members would be extremely peaceful.”
- Ricky Gervais
WORD for December
Apophenia.
“Apophenia, or patternicity, is characterized by seeing patterns in unrelated things. Anyone can experience this, but if you live with schizophrenia, it may be part of a delusion.” [Psych Central website]
A nice Masterclass site essay lists some different kinds of apophenia:
- Gambler’s fallacy,
- Pareidolia (focused on visual information),
- clustering illusion, and
- confirmation bias.
I AM READING Bullets and Opium by Liao Yiwu. I am pretty sure I have met the author. It gives some great insights into what happened during and after the Tiananmen Square protests. Worth a read in light of the current Iranian and Ukrainian protests.
and just finishing Cult Trip by Anke Richter. Rather enlightening on the details of how cults bully, indoctrinate, intimidate, gas light, and importantly coerce their members...It is in three parts: Centre[point (Auckland) a Tantric Yoga cult based in South Asia, and Gloriavale. All seem three are sex cults where serious sexual crimes including rape have been reported and at Centrepoint and Glorivale successfully prosecuted.
MY JOURNALISM My Listener investigation into teaching of religion in our schools should come out next week.
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QUOTE for NOVEMBER
“...for many of you there will come a day when you will be faced with a choice you will have to make: integrity vs. convenience, doing the right thing or justifying the wrong thing. Will you take the brave path and step up, or will you play it safe? Will you blow the whistle on some unethical practice in your company, risking your job, or will you remain silent? Some choices must be made instantly, and sometimes you’ll have a bit longer to think about what you want to do. What choice will you make?” eminent US memory scientist Elizabeth Loftus.
Iranian Protest Wellington (Blog #50)
Friday 4 November 2022
Last Friday I turned up to support the protesters outside the Iranian Embassy in Whataitai (‘Hataitai’ is a spelling mistake), Te Whanganui a Tara (Wellington).
I arrived five minutes early but it had already started. The first thing I saw was an unmarked police car with its red and blue lights flashing. I had to cautiously edge past in order to find a park further down the road.
There was shouting and chanting in English and Persian…”WOMEN, LIFE, FREEDOM!”
It was colourful with huge flags and some music and singing.
I am a curious person. I walked up to the concrete wall beside the steel gates of the embassy. Odd, I thought, two bits of a wooden frame, with some glue in the middle. Messy looking. I felt the edges of the wood…Then I saw a man spit on something on the ground covered in red paint. Slowly (I am never going to be a detective!) I pieced together the connection…under the bloody paint was a brass plaque. It had some Persian script on it…
Then they sang a song I love to sing. Bella Ciao. I joined in. Now I was one of them. Bella Ciao is an Italian song (you may have seen it on Netflix’s Casa de Papel = Money Heist). The current version is about being prepared to die resisting the Nazis during WWII. But the original version was about the terrible working conditions of Italian women working in the rice fields way before…Bella Ciao literally means ‘goodbye to beauty’ – a reference to a prematurely lost youth after working for too many hours, too hard; and being abused in the sun…Io parlo Italiano; abitavamo a Roma per sei mesi…Oh, and that beautiful Iranian hit protest song by Shervin Hajipour, Baraye. The man who played it from his phone to a portable speaker kindly helped me make a note of it on my phone. It is popular with Ukrainians too. I later found a great version in English. The band Coldplay performed it recently in Brazil (Bolsonaro is gone Bravo!)…
The next thing I observed was that a few women were wearing headscarves. At the same time a uniformed policeman was taking an interest in a small bowl shaped metal thing someone was placing near the Embassy. I thought back to Jacinda Ardern wearing a headscarf as a sign of empathy with the Mosque massacre victims. I’d always felt it was OK, but was uneasy about whether it might also be seen as supporting repressive restrictions on Islamic women…make what you will of that; I’m sure you know what happened next. The policeman held the scarves and looked like he might take them away, but then handed them back to be burned.
There were speeches, one from Iranian Green MP Golriz Ghahraman who came here as a refugee aged around nine. One passionate man who told me he had represented Iran in the sport of diving shook his fist at the Embassy walls and shouted that protesters were prepared to die; but he believed they would prevail and the totalitarian regime will inevitably fail…
Then the Iranians all danced. It was uplifting. I saw tears in the eyes of some of the women.
During that emotional time I also spotted a difference between the flags of the protesters and the Embassy flag. Both had the same areas of Red white and Green. I asked one of the women about that, and she told me they had the previous pre-Islamic revolution flag. It had a lion and a sword she felt inspired courage and strength. I later discovered the sun was associated with the ancient Iranian god of light, Mithra.
I had mostly kept to the edges of the protest, but at the end, I was told by several protesters they appreciated my support, and some even gave me a hug; or should that be the other way around? Either way, it felt right.
I had researched a quote from Hafiz, a Persian poet from a long time ago. They encouraged me to make a banner with the poem quote on it…
“Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living
In better conditions.”
COMMENT
Well done on supporting the Iranian protests. I’m just disgusted that in the 21st century we still have men (and women) going to such lengths to keep women submissive. How can anyone fatally shoot young women for simply not wearing a headscarf properly? How does that not make you a monster? How can they believe their religion supports their murderous actions? I did some work in Iran for NEC back in the late 90s, and the Iranian men and women I worked with were just normal, friendly, decent people wanting to live happy lives. Of course I also observed the religious fanatics that you wouldn’t want to cross, but luckily from a distance. The Iranian women in my office (lawyers, accountants, secretaries) all wore the headscarfs and all-encompassing coats, but whenever the Iranian men left the building they would all strip off, revealing skimpy tops and lots of skin and hair. Of course they knew I wasn’t going to be shocked or offended by bare female flesh and that I wouldn’t tell their male associates. They would often say, You have no idea how hot it becomes when you must wear all these coverings all day, in summer! I really felt sorry for them. And this was in the main office in Tehran, it was far worse for women in the rural areas and small towns where most wore the full veil and heavy black hijab. It must have been like being in a bloody sauna! And many Iranian women, especially younger women, are well educated, some have traveled overseas, they all watch (illegal) satellite TV and now of course there is the Internet, so they are well aware what feminism means and what human rights are available in other countries, so it’s no surprise that they want more from life than what their religious male leaders want them to have. Even back in the 90s it was young women that would bravely try and talk with me on the street, eager to talk with an obvious Westerner and hear of the freedoms in the West, and I say bravely because obviously it was dangerous for women to talk with any man, let alone a foreigner. But even back then it was clear that women were seeking change. Unfortunately I have no idea how many will be harmed and even die before that change happens, but I believe change is inevitable, the ever increasing spread of ideas has made the world too small a place for any country to keep its citizens in the dark forever. Of course some countries, like Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and North Korea will not give up power without a fight. Bastards.
- JC from the Silly Beliefs Website
Our Ministry of Justice's Injustices (Blog #49)
A short exposition
Friday 7 October 2022
So after about 28 years our justice system has finally figured out that the evidence against Peter Ellis was very dodgy indeed. The few remaining convictions are now quashed and gone forever, as you will no doubt now know.
I was a small player in the long saga. I suspected some kind of public hysteria was driving it. Robert Bartholomew, an expert on these matters, was probably the first to identify it as a special type of socially transmitted false belief driven by fear known as moral panic.
I may write again a follow-up to my recent Listener story.
I may cover these three things:
1 The general problems with our justice system. It is gradually improving I think. Lawyers seem to me to be pretty poor psychologists, yet seem so over-confident that they can tell when people are telling the truth. That kind of false certainty seems to only get worse with experience.
Within the Ministry, we have had several players who I think should now apologise; particularly Val Sim.
One Minister of Justice at the time of the appeals was Phil Goff. I have a letter signed by him he sent me which I hope he will now repudiate.
UPDATE No wonder the title of this is Ministry of Injustice.
MoJ officials have just planned to pay lawyers more money if their clients plead guilty. Fortunately we do have a Minister of Justice Kiri Allan, who quickly scotched that unjust plan.
2 Those who tried to uncover the flaws. A lot of caring people were able to see something went horribly wrong for Peter Ellis. They did what they could; some worked together (best approach imho); and it was good, even though it was never really effective. Peter refused to meet me, and I was told he thought I was pretty useless. I accept he was right.
A few that come to mind, I personally remember:
Richard Christie who helped me knock this (my concise critique of the Ministry's flawed Eichelbaum report into the case)into shape. Nancy Sutherland helped with my research.
Dr Mike Corballis I knew pretty well, and he supported me and others. He wrote a good piece for the Listener on the case.
https://nz.general.narkive.com/D1ZzvISd/peter-ellis-psychological-evidence-is-on-trial-the-listener
Then the late Brian Robinson who set up the Peter Ellis website. There is probably a mirror of the site somewhere…I am told Winston took the site down.
https://info.scoop.co.nz/PeterEllis.org.nz
Brian persuaded me to change my mind on one or two issues with impeccable reasoning and evidence. For example, I would not give the name of someone guilty of perjury who had admitted and apologised, as this could add unnecessary punishment.
Ross Francis whose articles I think had a lot of apposite and well researched details. He published important details of psychologist Harlene Haynes research into the case in the NZ Law Journal.
Winston Wealleans kept a big shelf of files on the case in his house. He was a good reference person, being married to one of the women originally charged along with Ellis.
Psychologist Barry Parsonson who quite early on allowed me to see his report on the case prepared for one of the appeals.
..that’s just a few..
3 Other Cases The only one I know really similar to Ellis happened just after in Wellington with the same dodgy prosecutor, and expert witness psychiatrist Karen Zelas. That case will have to be reviewed now. and the convicted man hasn’t died.
But there are too many imho where justice was also glacially slow.
Teina Pora
convicted 1992 imprisoned 21 years 2015 convictions quashed by the Privy Council
Compensated $2.5 million
Inappropriate interrogation false confession
2003 - 2012
Rex Haig
convicted 1995 imprisoned 10 years 2006 convictions overturned Court of Appeal
Will not be compensated
Jayden Knight and Phillip Johnstone EW file
convicted 2004 imprisoned 9 months 2006 convictions quashed 2006 and 2007 retrial
compensated
Judge misdirected the jury
Aaron Farmer
convicted 2005 imprisoned 2? years 2007 convictions quashed by Court of Appeal
Awarded $350,000 compensation
Poor eyewitness ID procedure
1993 - 2002
David Dougherty
convicted 1993 imprisoned 3 years 1996 convictions quashed.
Minister of Justice Doug Graham dismissed concerns as “the musings of some cop.”
Compensated
Poor eyewitness ID procedure
2013 - 2022
Alan Hall
convicted 1986 imprisoned 19 years 2022 convictions overturned.
Expected to be the largest ever compensation payment – likely $6 mill. Teina Pora received $3.5 mill in 2017,
The Crown advised that it did not intend to oppose the appeal (2022 Supreme Court),
Inappropriate interrogation lied to by police corruption by police.
Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann at Hall’s acquittal the reason for this miscarriage of justice,
“must either be the result of extreme incompetence or of a deliberate wrongful strategy to secure a conviction.”
QUOTE FOR THIS MONTH
“There is no Shame in being wrong,
only in refusing to admit error.”
- Jonathan Howard a writer for Science Based Medicine.
COMMENTS
1. "This case does not make the Crown look great, especially in light of its reliance on pseudo-expertise. "
-Maryanne Garry - a professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Waikato.
See her Garry Lab website.
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2. "Re Ellis: I think a real hero here is Lawyer Rob Harrison who , as a young lawyer, took the case on in 1991 and has finally taken it through to the final decision after all these years. I have worked with Rob on quite a few cases and I am aware that he has a very good legal brain, now evidenced by his leading the team on this case that has set a legal precedent by finally bringing justice to a dead person.
...I am sorry for the young people who were disappointed by the Supreme Court ruling, but perhaps they should question their parents and their counsellors whose actions in some instances clearly consolidated their belief that the evidence generated by familial and evidence gatherers' questioning, interviewing styles and other forms of contamination had a major role in creating their trauma.
I understand that Peter Ellis jokingly called the paddling pool at the creche 'The Centennial Pool" in a parody of the city's actual swimming and diving complex. In some of their evidence, some children reported being taken to the actual "Centennial Pool" and abused by Peter. One child described Peter as having a pony and trap at his place (he lived in a flat!) and another described Peter's car (he had no driver's licence) while playing with a toy that matched his description of Peter's 'vehicle'. I think I was the first to actually analyse these interviews and point out the improbability of some of the evidence. I could go on, but I can also feel some relief that a senior colleague who called me a "paedophile lover" for my involvement in the case will now have to retract that allegation thanks to the decision of the Court of Appeal!"
an expert psychologist
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TRUTH and JUSTICE.
"It's not about favouring a convicted criminal, it's about favouring the truth, and it's not about ignoring the victims since Peter Ellis was the only victim in this case. And finally a court decided it was time they stopped ignoring justice. If the last few decades have taught us anything it's that the justice system doesn't guarantee justice.
...convictions [can be ] falsely reached due to clear biases due to racist, sexist and homophobic attitudes on the part of witnesses, police and prosecutors. Even religious beliefs can easily sway a jury, especially in the US, where people can be found guilty of belonging to secret Satanic cults simply because most witnesses, jurors, lawyers, judges and police all believe Satan to be real.
... I'm equally appalled that a medieval community like Gloriavale still exists in 2022...
ON OUR ADVERSARIAL SYSTEM
"…Whether they know the truth or not, one team of lawyers is always deliberately trying to mislead us, leading us away from the truth, away from justice.
…In my view most lawyers don't seem to care whether their client is telling the truth or not, they are merely interested in whether they can convince a jury or a judge to believe their client.
no surprise that two appeals and a ministerial inquiry failed when there are many influential players who don’t want their personal reputations sullied, or want it revealed that the justice system could accept such crappy evidence, and consequently make the public question what other trials might have been equally flawed.
TIKANGA MĀORI
"Are we really saying that only Maori feel that a person's reputation, good or bad, can continue to have an effect on family and friends left behind? That non-Maori believe that once a person dies their reputation dies with them, it's forgotten, and no one would ever say, "Hey, aren't you the brother of that fucker who sexually abused little kids? We don't want your sort around here!"
Surely people of every culture would want the opportunity to clear the reputation of a family member, even after they've died, not just Maori
- JC who authors the Silly Beliefs Website (extracts from his email)
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History Repeats (Blog #48)
Friday 9 September 2022
As a 71 year old, I see young writers ‘discovering’ things I’ve seen at least twice before.
So, what’s old?
Q1 Was the recent Parliament Grounds riot a new scary trend in violence?
Protesters in NZ/Aotearoa can turn violent. I protested the visit of US vice president Spiro Agnew in Auckland in 1970. We disagreed with the war in Vietnam (I’m not so sure now given the subsequent history of communism there and in Korea). I didn’t hang around long enough to see it, but it turned violent in the end. As did some anti Springbok tour protests. In one protest, just as at the Parliament riots, pavers were torn up and thrown at police. I did know one of the anti-Springbok tour protesters who had dressed as a clown in Hamilton. He left the protest to visit a private home, where he was followed by police, who hit him so hard with a baton, his eardrum was burst. I think police are generally more restrained these days.
Q2 Is misinformation a lot worse than ever before?
I am skeptical that there is all that much more misinformation around now. I well recall a woman in Te Puke, where I mostly grew up who would breathlessly tell anyone who wanted to listen of the latest scandal from her Truth newspaper…Being against vaccines happened in New York as did resistance to mask wearing way back during the influenza epidemic. New York was pretty bad again this time with Covid. The public again resisted mask wearing and other measurers, resulting in a very high death rate there. Again.
Some misinformation is propaganda…Isn’t that rather an old phenomenon?
Dealing with holders of silly beliefs (aka misinformation believers)
A new study suggests Poll Respondents Lack as much Confidence in their False Beliefs as many of us had thought.
Usually telling anyone ia is wrong will just lead to a doubling down of the false belief. I just read a new study by Ecker et al Jan 2022 which shows quoting a false belief then showing how it is wrong is more effective than just saying it is wrong.
Isn’t this obvious? Well a NZ Skeptics associate not so long ago went on radio telling listeners what products to avoid because they don’t work to improve health. He just read through a longish list. While I agree with the list, he later criticised me for taking a different approach. I talked about how we know something is true (epistemology) on National Radio…”Why didn’t you keep repeating it doesn’t work?” He asked…
- There are small groups who are either plain malicious or incapable of enlightenment. I think we need to consider to what extent such people have psychological or psychiatric impairment, are being duped and controlled by others or are just selfish uncaring and manipulative. And ask, why are they like that? Generally our legal system provides strong sanctions. But I say it must be done as compassionately as possible. The clearing up of the protesters at at the Parliament Grounds is an example. Now many of us consider it was left a bit late, as laws had been broken, and threatening behaviour was left unchecked.
Do you have any more examples, or comments? I’m not always right
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Enemies (Blog #47)
Friday 12 August 2022
UPDATE 16 August
Sherryn Groch writing in the Sydney Morning Herald July 2022 on Psychopaths. I mention some of her findings at the end of this blog.
I think I have been most fortunate in my life to have always enjoyed a warm, supportive, loving family and a great bunch of supportive friends and associates. Perhaps because of this, I have usually been slow to spot those who have decided they are my enemies.
Earlier this year I had one of those rare encounters. There were plenty of clues I had missed. Going back a decade or so and then a few more decades before that, my peace of mind was shattered by encountering one or two people whom I am sure were malicious psychopaths. They are not easy to deal with because can harm you by manipulating and lying to other people who are close to you. Charisma, charm, and confidence can mask evil selfish intentions.
I found some interesting reflections on friends allies and enemies from Larry Stybel writing in Psychology Today - How To Manage Your Enemies
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/platform-success/201303/how-manage-your-enemies
“You can count on [enemies] to work against your interests regardless of your behavior. They wish you out of the organization, and nothing less will satisfy them.
Do not waste scarce time or political capital trying to turn enemies into friends. Enemies tend to remain enemies…enemies provide each other zest, self-definition, and predictability in an unpredictable world.”
He mentions trust as a key to distinguishing enemies from friends, and those inbetween such as allies and buddies. Friends will unconditionally trust us he says, while enemies show unconditional mistrust.
PSYCHOPATHS are now considered to be a sub category of antisocial personality disorder.
The chances of crossing paths with a psychopath are high. About 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. But perhaps some can at least manage their condition to the point that they are of little danger to others.
Sherryn Groch writing in the Sydney Morning Herald (July 2022 reprinted in Stuff) mentions Ray Fallon an expert on psychopathy who tells how he discovered he himself was psychopathic, and how he managed to act in accordance with effective ways of working with others, even though he didn’t feel the empathy the rest of us experience. But he was only a milder case, and there are plenty of warnings that psychopaths usually don’t change.
Fallon told Groch he thinks Putin is likely a "functioning psychopath". Psychopaths may have some evolutionary sources, he says. I guess they are useful in a sense on your side if you are fighting a vicious war; however Fallon points out, what is good for the tribe may not be good for our species. That applies also between family and tribal or loyalties.
Groch emphasizes these key features of psychopaths:
- psychopaths are able to use others' desires and feelings against them
- they treat others as expendable
- they do not experience fear so as a result take risks and act impulsively
- they often exude superficial charm
- they are sexually promiscuous
- they have a parasitic lifestyle
Psychologist Barry Parsonson has confirmed what many of us suspected in a comment to me on the case of Donald Trump...
"Regarding psychopaths (as distinct from cycle paths), one need only follow the behaviour and career of Donald J. Trump for a perfect example! Liar, scammer, thief, bully, and sexual abuser of women, etc., etc. for an example par excellence!!"
HOW TO SPOT A PSYCHOPATH
This looks useful.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/nz/basics/psychopathy
There the senior writers give the revised version of the Robert hare psychopathy checklist as including the following characteristics:
· Glibness/superficial charm
· Grandiose sense of self-worth
· Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
· Pathological lying
· Conning/manipulative
· Lack of remorse or guilt
· Shallow affect (i.e., reduced emotional responses)
· Callous/lack of empathy
· Parasitic lifestyle
· Poor behavioral controls
· Promiscuous sexual behavior
· Early behavioral problems
· Lack of realistic, long-term goals
· Impulsivity
· Irresponsibility
· Failure to accept responsibility for one's own actions
· Many short-term marital relationships
· Juvenile delinquency
· Revocation of conditional release (from prison)
· Criminal versatility (i.e., commits diverse types of crimes)
The one female psychopath I met who attempted to destroy my life met 17 of these 20. I don’t know enough about her early life to know about two. I don’t think she was prosecuted or imprisoned, or ever married, so two negatives. Easily qualified as a psychopath imho. 16 strong hits out of the 20.
Perhaps an excellent easily understood source is psychology professor, author and clinical psychologist Dr Ramani Dervasuda. Her youtube videos are on the Medcircle channel. This one distinguishes between psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists. She says there is not much you can do about psychopaths except keep away, and they would only come to her for therapy if ordered to do so by a court.
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Jesus, I was wrong (Blog #46) Friday 1 July 2022 To be posted 8 July
I used to think probably there was no real Jesus, at best the stories in the bible’s new testament are myths built around maybe several preachers called Jesus.
I was wrong.
Scene 1 Te Puke circa 1962…my epiphany.
As an altar boy in our local Anglican church; I am preparing the sacraments as the sun shines through the stained glass window, illuminating the white cassock of our vicar with a rosy glow. At that moment, I feel the vicar doesn’t believe much of the liturgical set script he is following. Suddenly I have that epiphany, I don’t believe any of it. It was as though God spoke to me, saying he has never existed…(yes, I know, but to quote Douglas Adams (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”)
Scene 2 Waterview, Auckland circa 1969.
I pick up a book, God in the New World, from my parents’ bookshelf written by (now Sir) Lloyd Geering, the famous non-heretic who confirmed my suspicions about Christian theology (we don’t need supernatural explanations)…I eagerly read it from cover to cover. Sir Lloyd is still going strong at a hundred and something. I have a recent report from Paul Morris.
Scene 3 Ngaio 2022…yesterday
I finish reading a book called “Did Jesus Exist” by Bart Ehrman, an author recommended by a philosopher friend (Simon Keller). I am impressed by Ehrman’s scholarship as an historian. I learn there was a Jesus, and he tells me what we can know about him. This changes some of my thoughts about Christianity…Jesus was not big on family values, and really thought the Son of Man would return within his lifetime and establish him and his followers as rulers of the Jewish people. A kingdom of god here on earth would apocalyptically arrive, he wrongly thought.
Epilogue…please write to me with your take on Jesus (or Mohammed maybe for a change). I could be wrong again. I’ve left plenty of space here for you.
I didn’t mind the singing in our Anglican church, and I liked the invocation as the service wound up. It signaled the end of the rather tedious rituals; and imparted in me a sense of comradeship…It went, “May the grace of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit go with you now, and remain with you always.” I no longer believed in any kind of spiritual realm, but if ‘holy spirit’ were to mean just feelings of cooperation and compassion, then I might be happier with it. When I sent out my first draft version to my now 44 friends, relations, psychologists, writers, and philosophers one corrected me when I had addressed the grace prayer to you all. I had wrongly thought of it as something other than a prayer. Personally, I don’t experience it as a prayer! Bugger! What a stubborn self-contradictory idiot I can be!
Following up on blog 42 When to be Kind…and last month #43 cancel culture
Kate Hannah from the Disinformation Project talking on Nat Radio Nine To Noon, 18 May 2022
“…people who are not exactly the same as us, who do not necessarily share the same political or religious beliefs but who we do know we share values [with].. it’s to talk about those shared values…talk about what makes us a shared democracy…what are the things that we celebrate…it’s really important…it’s not something the government can do…or [the] law…
Following up on blog #2 I was wrong
I have caught myself out again twice. I am pleased to report both times I immediately expressed gratitude to the person who corrected me.
ONE After seeing Ricky Gervais’s series on acting Extras, I assumed he is gay without checking. He has been in a long-term relationship (with Jane Fallon) for longer than me (over 30 years). I love his current netflix series, After Life btw.
TWO Then I thought that babies’ hair often looks gold because of all that gold they get from their mothers’ breast milk. They do have a lot more gold (albeit still very small amounts) in their hair than adults. However, I can find no evidence for the idea I had entertained that we can actually see the gold literally…
Humility! A virtue I value…
I feel relaxed in the company of curious people who can be wrong, and don’t beat themselves up (or me) about it.
Abi Gezint
Nāku iti noa
Jonathon
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Cancelling cancel culture (Blog #45)
A three page exposition (next month I'll be briefer)
Friday 3rd June 2022
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I am a long time member of NZ Skeptics. I had a cup of coffee not so long ago with erstwhile Chair-Entity Vicki Hyde in the Christchurch Arts Centre’s Bunsen Café, so named because Ernest Rutherford’s laboratory is still preserved nearby. Vicki gave me a copy of her book Oddzone, which describes her experiences investigating weird and almost certainly false beliefs in psychics, UFOs, homeopathy, psychic’s claims about talking with the dead, precognition, clairvoyance, and much more. We are an odd species! Vicki was often in the public eye, and was able to reproduce many convincing psychic effects like cold reading where those hearing all about themselves are convinced of supernatural powers. The ‘readings’ are mostly positive and flattering, and often generic, so while sounding special can apply to everybody. I remember the rather wonderful public homeopathy overdose demonstration during that era. Vicki was able to build on the work of NZ Skeptics’ founders. NZ Skeptics began its existence in Christchurch in 1986 as the New Zealand Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. The infamous spoon bender Uri Geller had been exposed as a fraud by one of the founders, psychologist David Marks along with Richard Kammann. This was reported in their 2000 book The Psychology of the Psychic. It is still being sold. For her efforts, Vicki was awarded the NZ Order of Merit in 2013. One thing I love about Vicki is that while she may be hard on deliberate fraudsters, she comes across as an empathetic person with a great sense of humour. We had a great lively chat that day!
But I am worried that the current committee of NZ Skeptics appears to me to have a more censorious approach to those whose beliefs seem unfounded and even silly. My ongoing studies in psychology seem to continually confirm that if we were to knock over all the people in Aotearoa harbouring silly beliefs, there would be very few left standing. I think I’d be on the ground, too. I don’t know what false beliefs I have now, but I do know of many past ones. During the height of the pandemic, there was a lot of cancel culture in evidence on both sides. I don’t think it was helpful because it established tribal us/them and good/bad divisions where people were not listening but shouting past one another. We can do better than that as a humane, workable society.
Having worked as a social worker amongst those who constantly make poor decisions (even allowing for the limited options they have); I found some empathy, understanding, and getting alongside my clients was effective. Telling them they were wrong, or cannot change just didn’t work. Rather than trying to get them sacked, we worked hard to get them into employment where that was possible.
The current president of NZ Skeptics examined the Nuremberg website set up by
Daniel Suter, who runs a number of websites promoting belief in unlikely conspiracies (‘conspiracy theories’ if you like – I avoid that term as there are many true conspiracies, and a 'theory' here is being ironic). Netsafe, The Spinoff, and our Science Media Centre were expressing concern at the end of last year about the website. It displays what they say is general misinformation around vaccinations and covid mandates.
The Disinformation Project (Te Puna Matatini) has plenty of good information on how and why false beliefs about covid have been circulating. In recent interviews on Radio NZ (morning report on 18 May for example) te Puni Matatini recommends a move away from deplatforming towards asking questions in community and whanau discussions.
So I am in agreement with my fellow Skeptics and have no doubt the Nuremberg website is seriously misguided, and contains dangerous misinformation. But I question it crosses the line where we should limit free speech. I think I probably disagree as to what is the appropriate response for NZ Skeptics.
Professor Jerry Coyne was recently interviewed on the limits of free speech by Auckland musician and podcaster Michael Goldwater. I think Coyne made a good case that the limits to free speech should only be incitement to violence, defamation, and he talked about creating harassment. I would suggest contacting the employer of someone with whom you disagree with a view to getting that person fired is a likely breach of acceptable limits of free speech.
But I have found I can have amicable conversations with people who think I am bonkers, and who have some ideas I think are bonkers. I think that is an open honest starting point. I like to establish some connection with all those I talk with. We all have more in common than we have differences. Then I find it rewarding to have my ideas challenged, even by so-called ‘idiots’. Often I find the factual and logical basis I had was not as good as I had thought. I learn less after all by speaking with those who are almost clones of myself in terms of social background and opinions. That’s why as often as possible I partially or totally have conversations in other languages.
And I think change to better supported opinions is often a gradual and slow process. We can all change. If that were not true, we would not have schools or universities! So I am no evangelist. Just a patient plodder and prodder for better epistemologies. In that respect, I admire Street Epistemology founder the Canadian philosopher Dr Peter Boghossian. However he recently resigned his university position at Portland State because, “it has become clear to me that this institution is no place for people who intend to think freely and explore ideas.” You could say he was cancelled out of his job. And I think knowledge is gained by looking for the consensus of expert opinion. There is a newish movement in philosophy called social epistemology; and I have interviewed Dr Matheson Russell from Auckland University to learn more about that productive approach.
Now imagine someone posted potentially harmful misinformation on the Nuremberg site, and sent anonymous emails to reporters ia (she/he) disagreed with. Let’s assume it could possibly breach proposed hate speech laws, but would fail Coyne’s tests: it was not libel, didn’t directly incite violence, and below a legal threshold for harassment. Imagine contacting that person’s employer, and employer’s clients with this. I can’t see any crime being committed in doing that either, except it may amount to harassment.
But is this the best way to deal with the issue?
What would this person be likely to do after losing ia’s job? That could mean more time to create mischief on the Nuremberg site and other social media campaigns peddling misinformation. That person could now feel the notion of a conspiracy out there to silence ia’s opinions is very real indeed. The us/them tribalism may be reinforced. And what if the worker actually does a good job, and gets on fine with ia’s co-workers? What are the chances now of having productive chats over the work breaks that might have a positive effect on that person’s picture of reality? It may be the worker has dependent children. Might they not become innocent victims?
I think a better response to someone like this hypothetical worker might include some of these:
- Contact the person directly and try to establish a respectful dialogue, saying why you disagree.
- Make the misinformation more widely known through blogs, newsletters, and/or media releases.
- If you think a law may have been broken, just contact the police directly.
It could be, as it was put to me by Victoria Uni’s Religious Studies Emeritus Professor Paul Morris last week, that for some, skepticism is not extended to include their own opinions. He suggested cancel culture thinking finds real human qualities too complex; and so tries to reduce and simplify people as only good or bad with that old false dichotomy rhetoric about being either for us or against us.
Cancel culture is talked about by Jonathan Rauch in his book The Constitution of Knowledge. Nobody is safe, so it can be a scary thing. I think a good epistemology looks at a consensus of opinion of experts after they have subjected various proposals and claims to skeptical scrutiny. Whatever still stands is more reliable than what is left at the fringes. And as Rauch strongly asserts, it is OK to make mistakes, but not so great when once an error has been exposed, to continue denying one was wrong.
Vicki suggests at our next conference NZ Skeptics invite a psychologist with expertise in changing false beliefs. As Rauch says, nobody has the final say, in science findings are provisional. And I like this saying, from skeptic Jonathan Howard writing for the Centre For Inquiry,
“There is no shame in being wrong,
Only in refusing to admit error.”
Utua te kino i te pai
Jonathon
Three links
Stuff offered this background history in 2021
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300439357/covid19-nz-why-a-small-group-of-doctors-opposes-vaccination
Reuters fact checked the Neuremberg claims
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-nuremberg-mandate-idUSL1N2ST1XP
Our Science Media Centre
https://www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/tag/covid-19/
The Disinformation Project
https://www.tepunahamatatini.ac.nz/2020/09/06/covid-19_disinformation-in-aotearoa-new-zealand-social-media/
One book
The Constitution of Knowledge Jonathan Rauch 2021
Sets out the features of a functioning knowledge community (journalism science law etc) and makes the case for caution in trying to cancel and suppress silly and dangerous ideas. He shows how such efforts can backfire. The book is available in Wellington library. Rauch builds on the work if another Jonathan (Haidt).
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The oppressed can err too (Blog #44)
Very short story
Saturday 7th May 2022
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This month I am coming close to heresy. Cutting it fine, risking causing offence, hurting and re-traumatizing others etc….But new research on trigger warnings suggests I should not give you a warning because that may reduce your resilience…But…too late! ¿ What is the opposite of a warning. ¿A warning that something positive could occur (i.e. resilience)
Let’s start with some values I hold dear, because misguided though I may well be, at least you should understand that if I say something that turns out to be harmful or wrong, I have not done so intentionally, nor in bad faith.
So my values:
Inclusion. I think we are all in this life together. I do not like us/them tribalism. People who do bad things, I still regard as part of our family. Even when we feel we have to lock someone up for many years, I feel it is still wrong to totally abandon that human being.
Empathy, understanding, wherever possible I at least try to engage meaningfully and in good faith with people. That includes those who have Ideas I think are very whacky, false and even deluded. I think about the consequences of my ideas, what I say and my actions. I sometimes get it wrong, and do harm. I think we all do. It’s just that some deny this imho. So I have found I love some people who have one or two ideas I think are wrong and could prove harmful. The harm caused by alienating them and trying to shut them up is imho greater in the long term than the harm their ‘silly’ ideas may cause. I remember well hearing many vigorous debates here on the issue of whether we should have a death penalty (I think the idea is horrible because if killing is bad…)
Diversity is good and I extend that (beyond different nationalities, ages, cultures, languages, sexual orientation, etc) to also mean being exposed to people whose opinions I think are hurtful, harmful, and wrong. So I mean diversity of opinions helps us make better decisions. Having to defend your cherished beliefs against people with ideas you think are clearly wrong may strengthen the basis of your opinion if you are right. Many people would imho at first lose their argument for the globe model of the earth against flat earthers when it comes down to the specific evidence.
So I’ve touched on epistemology. Let’s leave that sidetrack now…More here if you are interested. And I strongly recommend this 2021 book on knowledge by Jonathan Rauch.
So here is one example of what I am talking about.
You can buy a T shirt on Amazon emblazoned with the words, “Boys are Stupid, throw rocks at them.” Now I doubt very many people will carry this out, and I am not proposing banning them, but I do reserve the right to say I don’t find them funny, nor helpful to people in general. I think they do qualify as (alright, “jokey” bad taste) hate speech, but I don’t want that banned except where it incites others to violence, or is defamatory.
I found these discussion on the topic interesting.
Sarah Begley in Time Mag 2014 (why such ‘jokes’ aren’t funny)
History of misogyny and misandry (the former of course is more common) Joe Kort writing in Psychology Today
And in case you’ve never heard of androphobia according to the Cleveland Clinic it exists as a bona fide phobia diagnosis…Not all misandry of course will be androphobia, but I hadn’t considered before that some misandry may be the result of androphobia.
One more thought I shouldn't have to say this but, just in case I am misinterpreted...
I cut a bit of slack for oppressed traumatised groups and individuals. Of course some of them they will kick back vehemently. But we all know what happens when revenge is dished out with interest. I discourage going too far...
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If you have some thoughts, please let me know. I can post your comments on my website, but let me know if you wish me to do that. I won’t otherwise.
Send them to [email protected]
Crises and God (Blog #43)
Very short story
Friday 1st April 2022
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Henry (not his real name) loses his job. Everything had been going nicely in his ordered life until then. The world (not the real world) inside his head was understandable and predictable. It all made sense, and everything held together like a fabric with the same pattern in a garment that always fitted and always did its job of keeping his warmth in, and the rain and bad weather out.
The day he loses his job, Henry’s garment unravels. People he thought he could trust tell him he is being stupid. Some abandon him. They don’t behave as he expected. They don’t want to know. He didn’t expect to lose his job. He didn’t expect Mary (not his real wife) to get so fed up with his “moroseness” and leave. Henry is not a real person,
but Henry ends up in hospital diagnosed with a stress panic reaction. Henry sees a chaplain. Henry isn’t religious, but the best they can do is to provide him with a Christian chaplain.
Henry desperately needs to belong somewhere, to feel appreciated, valued positively. He tries going along to Destiny Church. Arise, and The Assembly of God…The music and sense of belonging and being valued are good, and it reduces his stress.
After Mary takes half the furniture, Henry goes to the Salvation Army. They provide Donna for him to talk with. Donna is down to earth, reassuring and practical. Donna understands. Donna is sympathetic. She sorts his budget, tells him exactly what government help is available…he is able to receive everything he is entitled to without feeling guilty …well almost - he feels a debt to a lot of people…
Henry asks if there was anything else the Army could offer him. Donna tells him they could also provide him with spiritual salvation.
Henry starts to think the Christians might have a more reliable world-view than the one that wasn’t real, and that let him down. He tries praying. Donna tells him:
The bible is inspired by and provides Divine rule…so there are all the rules for a stable, satisfying, meaningful life.
There is only one God who is “infinitely perfect”…the only proper object of worship.
Except the one god is really three “persons in the Godhead.”
Jesus was Divine and human at the same time and came to earth to tell us how to live.
Adam and Eve…you know the story…
Jesus’s suffering on the cross somehow atoned for all our sins, and after that you have to come to god and he will save you…as long as you also repent your sins.
Henry struggles with this bit, so I’ve copied it direct from the Salvation Army website
“We are justified by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and that he that believeth hath the witness in himself.”
If you don’t want to risk your state of salvation, then stay faithful and keep following God’s rules…
And then the final bit which I believe is called eschatology..
“We believe in the immortality of the soul; in the resurrection of the body; in the general judgement at the end of the world; in the eternal happiness of the righteous; and in the endless punishment of the wicked.”
I am not disparaging those wonderful, caring people at the Salvation Army. I’m just trying to describe what I was told recently by a creditable officer there. She told me about their work with the Mongrel Mob. I was touched. I think one’s moral character, or moral compass if you like, may transcend religious or political beliefs. Someone who genuinely cares about others, is altruistic, understanding, compassionate, a foul weather friend, is empathetic….I guess we really are all sinners. I know I often fall short of this....I'd love to be caring, altruistic, etc, every time that is called for.
Anyway, the interview was part of my current investigation with Daniel Ryan for the NZ Listener on religious influences in NZ life. If you have any suggestions or leads, please let me know.
[email protected]
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Follow-up COVID. A character in my Covid dialogues story predicted this covid wave would peak with tens of thousands of daily cases, and around ten deaths a day. Correct order of magnitude…
Follow-up My mistakes: I was wrong in believing that the Chinese (I had it as Japanese) word for crisis means danger and opportunity. It seems it is an urban myth…Crises are not so good, bugger!
https://husdal.com/2010/11/26/a-crisis-is-not-an-opportunity/
When To Be Kind (Blog #42)
Bullies, Idiots, madmen, and the misguided
Friday 4th March 2022
1 KINDNESS towards people with ideas we think are silly. Nearly all of them are just like me or you, and both you and I almost certainly believe something that is not true.
: I read some words I thought to be wise, and based on good psychology.
“ As disinformation experts confirm, constructing an 'us versus them' situation isolates protesters further, plunging them deeper into their personal paranoias and collective conspiracies..." [Morgan Godfery Stuff 24 Feb 2022 Follies of Camp Covid…]
I have a close person whom I love very much, who refused to be vaccinated, thinking ia is better off that way, and not likely to get seriously sick with covid if infected. I worry. Another close person changed ia's mind and got vaccinated so ia could work. But I would never call either an idiot, nor ever say either is/are ‘not one of us’. Ia is. (I say ‘ia’ = he/she/anything in between to maintain that person's privacy. Hugely useful word, btw). Ed Coper emphasises the need to find common moral ground and to have private conversations…
[His 2022 book is called, Facts and Other Lies]
So there we have my first suggestion. Many good people whom we love have ideas we think are plain wrong and sometimes even dangerous, and arguably irresponsible in their unintended consequences. Don’t alienate those people unnecessarily.
2 BULLIES: APPEASEMENT FAILS…Well history suggests appeasement and love are ineffective. Lenin, Pol Pot, Hitler, Putin… Bullies seem to me to have excessive self-confidence and self-esteem. If only we could lower their self-esteem so they would understand they are just as prone to biases and false beliefs as the rest of us. We are all wrong sometimes. Myself included.
¿Can we stop Putin. Helen Clark says realpolitik means probably Ukraine will have to be a NATO free buffer zone. ¿Appeasement. I’ve emailed the Russian Federation Embassy here in Wellington and keep in touch with the facebook group, Ukrainian Gromada of Wellington.
A quick google search suggests terrorists are beyond rehabilitation. I found just one reliable source. It concluded, “Overall, the available evidence strongly suggests that re-offending rates for released terrorist prisoners is surprisingly low.” [Silke and Morrison International Centre for Counter-Terrorism 2020].
- I also plan a small footpath demonstration of thanks and empathy towards police and politicians here in Wellington.
3 DELUSIONS: I worry about some people who were at the covid deniers’ protest in Wellington who appear to be mentally unwell. When I come across someone whom I suspect is mentally ill, I will stop and see if there is anything I can do to put that person in touch with expert help. There are psychotic delusions and then mass delusions for the mentally well.
I am currently researching the status of reiigion in New Zealand for NZ Listener. ¿ Do churches have any special privileges over secular organisations?
If you have some thoughts, please let me know. I can post your comments on my website, but let me know if you wish me to do that. I won’t otherwise.
Send them to [email protected]
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The Vax dialogues episode 6 (Blog #41)
In which a Naturopath is struggling
Saturday 5th February 2022
I have a new idiosyncratic style element that comes from Spanish. ¿at the beginning of a question imho makes for a more fluid reading experience (¡Gracias, Erwin). And…¿don’t you think that now, adding another question mark at the end is at least usually redundant (?).
Some time has passed since we visited Erik and his work colleagues, family, and friends.
Vovid-19 vaccination rates have climbed to over 90% of adults in NZ – one of the highest in the world, it seems. But the new Omicron variant seems set to sweep through the country.
Influenced by the journalists he works with, our main character Erik did his own research and as a result had himself vaccinated. His mother, more under the influence of her naturopath is still not vaccinated, and Erik is becoming concerned for her.
Erik and his sister Astrid are visiting their parents (Sven and Bente) for a Sunday evening meal. Astrid is studying a second year paper in philosophy and stage one biological sciences at Auckland University. Some of their conversation takes place in Norwegian and a little Swedish…Astrid likes to practice after studying both Swedish and Russian last year).
It is after dinner, and they are all drinking beer and cider.
“¿So what are your medical friends telling you about the Omicron outbreak” Sven asks Astrid.
“Väl, it will spread, probably there will get to be tens of thousands of new cases every day, at the worst point. We expect about ten people dying every day at that bad point, for a few days or maybe a couple of weeks. Then it will gradually tail off. But not everyone will get it. Many vaccinated people will never get it. We will get…”
“¿So, getting vaccinated is a no-brainer”, asked Erik.
“I have to anyway,” volunteered Sven, “I couldn’t do my job without my pass, and I don’t want to be unemployed.”
“So, we are a safe family, now,” ventured Bente, much to Erik’s surprise, given the last conversation with his mother on the topic.
“¿But what about Irena. Isn’t she upset with you”, asks Erik. “¿Didn’t she try to talk you out of it.”
“She is conflicted. Our Naturopath has just closed down her business. Because of the rules. She was struggling to make a living. They are worried about me. Irena thought I would get sick I didn’t.”
“¿But what made you change your mind,” asked Erik with great curiosity. He felt a little disappointed he had played no part in all this.
“Marina got the vaccine, and didn’t get sick, then two of Gloria’s clients who had been given the homeopathic flu complex got very sick with covid. One almost died; and the other made a complaint to the Health and Disability commissioner about Gloria. She couldn’t prove it, and I think Gloria turned around and pretended she hadn’t made any promises. Gloria says she had said the flu complex ‘might save her from getting covid’….
Uansett, I still think I might as well take some of my supplements. I still think the vaccine is not very good for me. But I decided there is a risk I might get very sick with covid; and I don’t see anyone who has had the vaccine getting covid, or getting obviously sick. I think the risks of the vaccine are probably not so bad as the risks of getting covid. Maybe these vaccines work better than I thought…
Writing and Acting (Blog $40)
Friday 14th January 2022
Sorry regular blog readers, I have been late this month; but I'll keep it very brief...
Of late, I have been busy completing my NZ Listener feature on the Supreme Court hearing into the Peter Ells case.
I am thinking privilege is in many ways a very good thing; because in this case, I have been privileged to be able to talk with several very wise psychologists, a lawyer, a friend who is a very experienced editor, and more...and of course the ebullient and encouraging, supportive, friendly editor, Karyn Scherer.
I really liked working with the team at The Listener. Believe me, mainstream media like The Listener do not just take anyone's word for anything, and they work together to get at the truth, whether the truth was what you expected or wanted to discover...Or not, as we say, probably committing a pleonasm...
So please check it out. and let me know what you think. It is always nice to see letters to the editor in response - or comments on The New Zealand Listener's Facebook page. Criticism is imho better (usually) than indifference. It is out on Monday (17 Jan).
Thanks to my wife Catherine putting me forward and encouraging me, I have also lately worked as a featured extra, then as very small part (one speaking line) of the cast in two films. Once again, I feel very grateful and privileged; privileged to have worked (in my a small part) in two great film-making teams. Teams run by people who are caring, fun to be with, and know what they are doing (Clarative Media in the second case). I think both films will be great Kiwi films telling important stories. More on that when they come out...On set, I met people who enjoyed conversing with me in Māori, Spanish, French (I only have a little French) and a word or two in Tongan...and in the recent film, Cathy and I were even paid to dance together!
On Tuesday (16th January) I will be in another team (playing music in ART GHETTO with Riccardo Testore and Baz Bailey) supporting Catherine's new exhibition at Thistle Hall. All of you are welcome to attend.
So I hope those happy experiences might spread a little more warmth and sunlight in the world...I'm inclined more these days towards doing my best to find connections with people who may have differing views. Besides, if you alienate someone, I think you reduce the chance of sharing any of your ideas, experiences, or knowledge with that person...and I feel I have been very privileged of late to be part of each of those aforementioned (yes, pun intended!) four teams...
Postmodernism (Blog $39)
Friday 3rd December 2021
I think a great place to start for a topic like this is the Encyclopaedia Britannica (E.B.). I think it is not so subject to error as is Wikipedia. I notice the Wikipedia entry on the term ‘politically correct’ needs correcting for example. That term originated in Russia before the first mention quoted in Wikipedia.
Noreira…Very briefly, it seems the Postmodernists tried to overturn the main thrust of the Enlightenment. (Frenchmen Foucault and Derrida are often quoted in this context). I think postmodernism operates within the realm of philosophy, and specifically within a branch called epistemology. Epistemology sets out to discover the best ways to arrive at truth or knowledge about the world.
Here are some postmodernist tenets according to the E.B.
There is no objective reality. It is all in our heads. [I suppose our heads can’t be real, either?...Maybe we are all in a Matrix or the mind of God?
So please settle your mental indigestion; arrest your mental confabulating wanderings; and let’s take a look at the second idea.
There is no such thing as truth. Postmodernists seem to deny that historians or scientists can help with this. This also follows from the first principle. So that means epistemology is likely a waste of time. However, I must be oversimplifying, because
postmodernists (according to EB) say as a result of what we have discovered (atom bombs for example), things are not getting better for us. They must believe bombs work. I think the claim is we are not progressing and becoming more enlightened, tolerant, etc as Enlightenment scholars claimed.
Having rejected evidence, and logic, according to the E.B. postmodernists also claim they know the answer in the nature/nurture debate. It is all nurture.
Language, which we use to refer to ideas and also reality, is of little use to postmodernists, who then go on to espouse hypotheses about how language works. Jacques Derrida originated the idea of deconstructing language to reveal its cultural biases. And that’s where I find I cannot decipher the postmodernist ideas about ‘semiotics’, 'the simulacrum' 'the trace', 'structuralism', etc…So I don't know. It could be a useful tool for revealing the ideologies and biases behind a written text or movie.
I read Robert Hugh's book on Postmodernism as an art movement way back when I was researching the major art movements for a recital with pictures (slides) I presented at various Public Art Galleries and the NZ High Commission in London. I applaud the introduction of outsider art (including street art such as graffiti), art from minority groups, and a variety of cultures which has resulted from postmodernist art curating.
I'm just not so sure it is so useful when it comes to science, including the 'soft' sciences such as Psychology.
Stanford University Philosophy Department provides more on postmodernism. I'd do well to read this book...
"The term “postmodernism” first entered the philosophical lexicon in 1979, with the publication of The Postmodern Condition by Jean-François Lyotard."
I like this critique from Stanford. It seems fair to me.
"Habermas argues that postmodernism contradicts itself through self-reference, and notes that postmodernists presuppose concepts they otherwise seek to undermine, e.g., freedom, subjectivity, or creativity. He sees in this a rhetorical application of strategies employed by the artistic avant-garde of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an avant-garde that is possible only because modernity separates artistic values from science and politics in the first place. On his view, postmodernism is an illicit aestheticization of knowledge and public discourse."
I agree with people calling themselves postmodernists who claim that horrible colonial attitudes have produced some very bad rhetoric that attempts to hide true motives. I agree cultural and intellectual diversity is healthy. I agree language can contain hidden subtexts. I want to know what they are, too. But according to the definition above, they are not postmodernists. They are making claims about reality. The same claims can be made using basic historical methods.
We also get ‘postmodernist’ lawyers who seem to say truth is unknowable while strongly pushing their own version of it relentlessly. One such is a prominent US law academic Menkel-Meadow. Her colleague Freedman takes issue with her approach.
But here’s the bottom line. I care about the truth. It matters to me. So I’ll part company with the postmodernists. I don’t reject the whole Enlightenment as a backward movement. Of course Enlightenment scholars were wrong about some things. But I think a good epistemology is self-correcting. If there is no way of knowing, there is no self-correcting except through logic. But postmodernism rejects (while using) that too.
Nicholas Shackel is a professor of Philosophy at Cardiff University (Wales). He summed up Postmodernist in a Philosophy journal back in 2005.
“Many of the philosophical doctrines purveyed by postmodernists have been roundly refuted, yet people continue to be taken in by the dishonest devices used in proselytizing for postmodernism.”
I’m not sure I want to read too much more on postmodernism, except to understand what a minority of what I suspect are rather maverick amateur epistemologists are on about.
Jacques Derrida, was if a little misguided certainly witty.
"To pretend, I actually do the thing: I have therefore only pretended to pretend.”
I need to read a basic textbook (not too long) that will explain the core ideas. This is only a small start. I have read chunks of the Bible despite finding it seriously wanting because it still influences many Kiwis. So does postmodernism.
You could say all viewpoints are of equal value, so all are winners and should get prizes (as Alice said in Wonderland). Or when you hear unsupported views that Covid-19 is just a slight cold, masks don't help, and vaccinations are dangerous and useless...you could say there is an opposite view which is true.
Anyway I could be wrong. I’m prepared to admit that, and have done so in one or two blogs I’ve dedicated to just that.
WDYT? (what do you think?)
UPDATE Feb 2022
Foucault certainly had a dodgy personal life...I wonder if we can trust what this "famous theorist of power and sexuality" has to say on that topic...
Philosopher Stephen Hicks is yet another who feels Postmodernism has not been very healthy for academia. He explains why here.
FOLLOWING UP see blog #8.
I had two conversations in Māori recently.
In one, the Māori woman with whom I had the kōrero thought the idea of using 'ia' in English here is a really good whakāro.
Why?
It is elegant. c.f. 'the person'
It is gender neutral. The Swedes realized they needed a word like 'ia' and invented 'hen'. I don't think that sounds so good in English...
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Am I woke? (Blog #38)
Friday 5 November 2021
'Woke' originally meant a US person of colour who noticed racism is still a serious problem, felt angry about it, and was going to do something about it.
So as I am a Pākeha New Zealander I can't be woke in this sense. I am very symparhetic to this cause.
Since then 'woke' has taken another wider meaning to include major issues like global warming.i accept the overwhelming evidence ftom the IPCC so in this sense, yes I am woke.
Some use 'woke' in a perjorative manner. They mean to describe a trendy belief they think is false. If I were to accept that definition I think Id say no, Im not woke. Well, not that kind of woke. Id try then to define the woke issue and discuss the evidence and logic.
So to conclude, my answer is yes I am woke snd no I am not woke.
Comment:
The term “woke” down here tends to be used in a pejorative sense if at all. I recall Malcom X had a real issue with wokes. He preferred Southern Rednecks any day, as you at least knew who you were dealing with. That assumes of course that many people adopt a woke persona for self-advancement. Perhaps I am being too cynical but I recall thinking when I was at uni that the very visibly woke..
- Southerner Ken
Ellis again (Blog #37)
Friday 22 October 2021
I have just spent a couple of weeks going to court and watching our Supreme Court at work via a video link. It was very educative. Five of our best judges made interesting comments about how evidence from witnesses (especially young ones) is best assessed in our courts. There were half a dozen psychologists who assisted with very interesting presentations on how our biographical reports from memory can be (or are less likely to be) contaminated by time and suggestive questioning. I think they all agreed that sometimes a distinct memory we are convinced is real may turn out to be false. The distinction between a memory and a report is an interesting and useful one. One lawyer suggested science just confirms what we already know. But the judges then asked him how that works with counter-intuitive knowledge. He didn’t have an answer. I think this attitude is anti-scientific. wdyt?
With Covid-19 you may have noticed that a small number of medical clinicians (General Practitioners) are out of step with the strong consensus coming from experts who do the studies and assess the research. Your doctor does not do the research, but is trained to respond to the consensus of expert opinion in diagnosing and treating you with things that are likely to work. GPs who fall short by saying counter-factual nonsense (like vaccines don’t work) can be disciplined by the Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal. You can (and I am about to) complain about them here.
https://www.hpdt.org.nz/
In my experience clinical psychologists may be more likely than GPs to think they know better from their clinical experience than a consensus of research scientists. Last month a clinical psychologist (Heather Adele Heron-Speirs) was disciplined and fined by the Tribunal because she was “negligent, unethical” and acted “outside of her sphere of experience and competence, and yet persisted with her views which were clearly going to have an adverse effect on not only Mr H, but the entire family.” This relates to the Ellis case as Heron-Spiers had made unfounded accusations of sexual abuse.
https://www.hpdt.org.nz/Charge-Details?file=Psy20/486P
You should be able to read more of what I have discovered when I publish my findings about that court hearing in a magazine. That is provided I make it a well informed, impartial and interesting story that is worth reading. I have an editor who is very interested…
Cranks and Crackpots (Blog #36)
Friday 1 October 2021
So what do I mean by a crank? The word comes from a Germanic root, Krank meaning bend. A mechanical crank is bent...
The Art and Popular Culture website gives a definition covering well what I mean,
"Crank is a perjorative term used for a person who holds an unshakable belief that most of his or her contemporaries consider to be false. A crank belief is so wildly at variance with those commonly held as to be ludicrous. Cranks characteristically dismiss all evidence or arguments which contradict their own unconventional beliefs, making rational debate a futile task, and rendering them impervious to facts, evidence, and rational inference.
Common synonyms for "crank" include crackpot and kook."
The dictionary considers fanatics and quacks are rather different. I’d add unlikely conspiracy theorists as also differing as they include the idea the truth is being hidden from most of us, despite the fact they “know” all about it, and are telling us.
I know someone who believes some kind of vibration in sevens is the magical key to the universe. Of course we love the number seven. There were seven wonders of the world, sevens rugby, etc. etc. One hypothesis is that our short term memories can only hold about seven items in our conscious working memory; so we don't so much like longer lists.
Until you talk with my friend with the crank sevens “theory”* about his magic vibration, or one or two other matters of “spiritual” significance, you might think he is very practical and knowledgable. Indeed, like many cranks, he is perfectly rational and sensible as long as we keep outside his crackpot sphere.
Before you condemn my friend; along with the QAnon unfounded conspiracy theorists and dangerous vaccine misinformation “theorists” and cranks….Be aware that many famous scientists were cranks. Even (but less often) within their own field of expertise. Check that out. For some reason(s) they ignored the usual checks and tests when it came to the pet crackpot idea.
Despite this, some scientists have an interest in cranks, because occasionally cranks do come up with something useful. Even if they are psychotic. A lack of good evidence makes an idea unlikely, but does not prove it is false.
As I have often said without yet being contradicted (that’s no guarantee I am making sense btw)…I think we all (myself included) are likely to have at least one crackpot idea we think is at least most likely to be true (see my blog #2 for example. I have another similar essay to pen about how I was wrong about something else).
I do not think new ideas are necessarily scoffed at by scientists. They may withhold judgement until it is confirmed by new independent data; and science is self-correcting over time. I go by the consensus of experts (see last week's blog).
There are also widespread delusions - in the sense of a belief that is probably untrue*. Peculiar conventional religious beliefs have been very widespread usually within the countries in which they originated. They can't all be right as often they contradict one another. Another kind of delusion is mass psychogenic panics such as occurred In Auckland a few decades back about a smell emanating from the wharf near Parnell. Most of the population falsely thought they were being poisoned.
Then there are common facts of which many of us are ignorant, or we have false beliefs about the world often due to socially transmitted false memes. I wonder how many people think trees grow mostly by moving matter from the soil? Surely, they don’t materialise from fresh air? No, that can’t be true!
So let’s challenge silly beliefs; while respecting the people who carry them. Be kind, patient, and understanding. Otherwise you might as well say you are a stupid idiot yourself…etc…i.e. add a few expletive intensifiers.
I deal with cranks by asking if they have submitted their ideas to experts, if they have good evidence, and does the idea actually make sense? Finally, does it contradict things that are well established facts? If so, I'd like to see some amazingly good evidence.
The sun is shining today. Let’s get out there in the real world swim, run, bike, walk, go to the beach, meet up with friends, play a game, or just sit in the sun. Yes, we can be stupid, but life is generally good regardless. Especially here in Aotearoa. The world will truck along nicely taking not the slightest notice of what we think of it.
Notes *
1 There are two meanings to the word theory. A well established scientific explanation like evolution or relativity. Or it could mean a crackpot idea for which there is no credible evidence.
2 A psychotic delusion differs in that it may be true, but is based on clearly irrational illogic. The psychotic one leads to dysfunctional behaviour like making false accusations, and avoiding safe situations, etc…But the two types of delusion have many similarities…
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Who do we trust? How do they know what is true? (Blog #35)
Friday 17 September 2021
So here's the key thought...most of what we know, we have accepted on trust.
Cranks, cult members, and people with false beliefs therefore might be expected to be like this:
- Over-confident and over-reliant in their own critical thinking skills
- Applying logic and evidence tests to too many issues when there just is not the time to do so. This might distract from their ability to just listen to experts
- Resisting authoritative statements from experts who do know what they are talking about.
- Keen on finding a group or cult sharing minority alternative views like QAnon.
There is a philosopher who is an expert in this area of thought whom I have met. I think what he has to say is important. You can listen to social epistemologist Matheson Russell here. At the 1hr 27 min mark (you can just slide along to there) he makes these points.
- referring to those who accept mainstream opinion as "sheeples" or "muggles" etc.etc...
and feeling smug that they know "better".
..."There is no alternative to trust…there is blind trust then there is warranted trust …the idea of self assured critical thinker who only believes things she or he has evidence for ...that has always been a myth. There is a body of beliefs we have taken on trust.
Matheson (who is a lecturer at Auckland University btw) points to indicators that trust is warranted...
Like the existence of a medical council that can take complaints and uphold a consensus of basic medical facts...
I'd add organisations that are self-correcting - like Th Guardian Newspaper which seems to always publish corrections to any story that may have been in error...
- Matheson also mentioned groupd that are diverse make better decisions.
- He suggested to me to also look for whether say a doctor regularly consults with colleagues, and belongs to groups that discuss evidence together...
- and there is that well known obvious one about ignoring or giving less trust to scientists who are speaking outside of their own sphere of expertise...
and a few more...but I'm off to do some athletic coaching now...I hope they trust what I have to offer and that it is warranted trust!
I wonder, maybe my baby boomer hippies went too far with our anti-authoritarianism. That might have spawned some beliefs that were even more dangerous than the ones we challenged...like anti-vaxers, and people who think there is a useful alternative to medical science...
Reference book (from Matheson's talk)
The Enigma of Reason....Review here from Psychology Today
Useless Health Advice - part one diet (Blog #34)
Friday 17 September 2021
Today, I listened to a live talk by an expert on pseudoscience in sport.
I thoroughly recommend it for anyone who would like to be healthy without wasting time on diets, supplements, and treatments that do not work.
It covers and reinforces some of the ground Harriet Hall talked about in regard to Olympic athletes back in 2012.
Some take-aways...
- protein CAN be converted into fat by your body, so eating a diet of mostly protein is not a good idea for this and several other good reasons.
- promoting useless ideas that are only placebos is unethical because it only worsens the current obesity epidemic.
- most sports supplements are useless and may have negative side effects. I bought an excellent summary of this from our library for 50c because borrowers would not read it! [Anita Bean's Sports Suplements, 2007 ]
- cupping (a form of acupuncture that can cause burns) not only does not do any good, but relies on believing in magical energy systems...
world class athletes do often fall prey to bullshit and useless time and money wasting pseudo - treatments. Often their sponsorship arrangements (necessary for them to survive financially) will steer them towards using and promoting useless products.
- like K tape, "barefoot" running shoes, supplements (Athletics NZ urges all asthletes to avoid the lot)...
My Self-Esteem (Blog #33)
Saturday 28 August 2021
I found a simple and quick test for self-esteem here.
You can check out your score here in about 30 sI think it is a good test.
I was pleased to see this time I scored smack in the middle. Last time I felt it was too high. It only took about eight years of determined effort to get it down as bit, so I hope less boasting and over-stating things I think are true...And a shorter time for me to admit when I have clearly made a mistake. I have noticed I have been poor at that.
So...I hope this pleasing (to me) result will not shoot my score back up nect time I test it.
Please check out your score and let me know what you think via email of my Facebook page.
[email protected]
I think the above graph shows very few people have low self-esteem; and there are a lot (psychopaths and jokers and sufferers from the Dunning-Kruger effect?) giving themselves top marks.
Anyway if you haven't read it yet, just search here for my blog #14 or the longer detailed version on my practical psychology tab...
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The Value of Human Life (Blog #32)
Friday 20 August 2021
This will be concise. Perhaps one day I will be motivated to expand on this; probably only if it is considered for publication somewhere...reasonable enough? - On a good week only about forty people will look at my website...and some of those will read my blog. I do have one valued friend or two who tell me they enjoy reading my blogs, so maybe I have made some kind of a start...
Noreira...I began today meditating on how irresponsible governments seem to me to have knowingly allowed covid-19 to flourish in their countries. As a result, we see thousands of preventable deaths in their countries....and (this is what gets to me) they must have known it would be exported to countries like ours, which otherwise would not be having to lock down now. In fact, had it not been for the attitude of probably India's government, we may not now have the delta variant which was given had so many (millions of) opportunities to evolve.
So, long story very short. This is where that book comes in...I revere this text by the late Scottish psychology professor, Stuart Sutherland. I think it will continue to be published for a long while yet. Sutherland points out that when a major public construction is undertaken - like a long tunnel or large skyscraper - a calculation is made of the likely human deaths it will cost. This is considered against the benefits.
I am one (like our P.M.) who places a high value on human life; especially within our country. We can but do little to affect other countries' policies; but when they knowingly endanger our citizens, that is when we probably have a right speak up.
Afghanistan was invaded after 9/11 for two reasons: to prevent further terrorist attacks on U.S.A. soil, and I think also to protect civil rights (especially those of women) from the horrific excesses of the Taliban. The Taliban kills and maims people unnecessarily.
So feel free to consider my facts and (tentative) conclusions. Let me know if you think I am in error; or if there is something I don't know here...and make your own conclusions. I'd just urge you to base them on reliable information, critical thinking and logical arguments free from bias - especially cherished political, tribal or philosophical/ideological positions...
Unconscious Motivations and thought (Blog #31)
Friday 23 July 2021
I am sure some of you who have seen the impressive Surrealism exhibition at Te Papa will find some of this interesting and significant.
I am very interested in hearing what you think, and some of your experiences with these phenomenon.
[FEEDBACK please to [email protected] ]
Does some kind of largely unconscious process or language in our brains (mentalese) precede conscious thought?
Just how free are we to think our own thoughts and make our own choices?
There is much I have come across in my studies of psychology to suggest at least some of our perceptions and decisions are biased or noisy (unreliably varied). That leads us to fail in our intentions to understand the truth, and know why we make decisions. Read on…(this is an extension of blog no 6 - index of my blogs is below this entry)
I wonder…can I wonder without words?
Hold that thought, because it runs all the way through this essay.
prologue…a babbling brook
Once I lived temporarily with my wife and two small boys in a cabin at the sylvan Brook Valley Holiday Park. The brown cabin is still there in its idyllic setting close to Nelson city.
Because it was summer, and we were not there too long, it was a pleasant experience. From our cabin we could hear the babbling brook. It was a peaceful sound and sight that inspired me to compose a beginners’ classical guitar study I named The Dancing Stream. When I sat beside the brook, it seemed to talk to me directly about the place and the atmosphere that surrounded it. I thought about the ineffable nature of that experience. By what process had I translated it into music? The piece was successful. It was published in a collection, and many of my guitar students said they enjoyed playing the piece.
…in the beginning, baba
The effect reminded me of that joyous babbling of my first two sons as babies, not so long before. …and now the babbling of our grandson at almost 6months of age. Before they could speak, they seem to simply express a happy contentment and enjoy the apparently meaningless sounds of their vocalizing. Of course crying is a completely different matter…Babies next progress to what is called canonical babbling, when they listen to themselves and learn to reliably repeat patterns of sounds like, ‘ba, ba’. Our younger son, when he was just beginning to speak would happily spend hours just sitting in our beautiful big garden in nearby Richmond. We sometimes thought he must have wandered off, and panicked, racing off down the road looking for him….but he was very happy just babbling to himself. There was nothing wrong.
Dada
Besides “ba, ba,” a baby’s canonical babbling also inckudes, ‘da, da’. The baby does not try to say any specific word to begin with. The Dada Art Movement seems to have been an attempt regain or explore that kind of pre-language consciousness.
German Dada poet writer Hugo Ball, decided in 1916, “The next step is for poetry to decide to do away with language.” So he soon after performed his nonsense Dada poem, which began,
“gadji beri bimba
glandridi lauli lonni cadori....”
Romanian Dada leader Tristan Tzara was an anti-war poet, eccentric Cabaret singer and critic. He set up an event in Zürich in 1919 involving over 1,000 people that began with a boring conventional lecture on art designed to make the audience angry. It progressed through deliberately discordant music to end in a riot. In describing the event Tzara proclaimed,
“Dada has succeeded in establishing the circuit of absolute unconsciousness in the audience which forgot the frontiers of education of prejudices..."
His 1919 manifesto ends with this, “Freedom: DADA DADA DADA, a roaring of tense colors, and interlacing of opposites and of all contradictions, grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE.”
Babies, composers and Dada artists seem to have one thing in common. The presence of an ineffable fundamental experience that could precede thinking in words.
Albie…our cat and his thoughts
Now - many years later - my second wife and I had a smart and amiable fluffy ragdoll cat called Albie (he is our daughter’s cat, and now lives with her). He responds to his name and (sometimes) the command, “Shake paws!” Once or twice, he has just come up to me and held out his paw for me to shake…then he seems to think I will give him a snack. I like to give Albie as an example of the meaning of the word ‘atheist’. Because there is no sign Albie has any concept of a god, I assume he is without (a-) a religious belief (-theism). Neither does he show any sign of thinking we are Gods. He could think he is one, judging by the way he cunningly gets us to open doors for him, and to do what he wants…
Be that as it may, he “talks” to us (i.e. meows) quite a bit in a very expressive manner. The American SPCA and quite a few other cat people say cats don’t meow to other cats; but they have learnt it is the best way to communicate with humans. As with babies, their insistent pathetic cries - provided they are not overdone - evoke responses in their mnders and carers.
the oracles
It seems the ancient oracles attempted to access that wordless state inhabited by our Albie.
The most famous oracle was at the temple of Apollo -in the Greek town of Delphi. Built nearly three thousand years ago, it had previously been a temple for the earth mother Gaia. The medium there was a woman “over fifty, known as the Pythia, who lived apart from her husband and dressed in a maiden’s clothes”, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. The Pythia would often babble unintelligbly, and her utterences were translated into intelligible but often ambiguous language, that was then written down by the priests. A common request was to know the outcome of a proposed war. A recent examination of the Delphi site found the reports of the Pythia entering a trance-like state were likely true, as ethylene gas is emitted there from a spot where two fault-lines cross directly below. Ethylene can induce both euphoria and incoherent speech. Just like modern psychics, some oracles claimed to talk with the dead. Just like some pentecostal leaders, they claimed to also receive prophesies from gods.
If we are to apply Occam’s Razor, however, we may could eliminate the gods and conclude the oracle’s prophesies were a kind of group exercise. The vague unconscious utterances of the oracles were shaped into words by the priests according to gut instincts, and some knowledge of the world.
The claims about the gods or dead spirits not only added gravitas, but probably also helped the oracle and priests to escape blame for false prophesies. The town of Delphi prospered for a very long time from this business.
anoesis
Some people who meditate try to still their thoughts in order to experience their minds and/or the world more directly.
“When there are thoughts, it is distraction: when there are no thoughts, it is meditation.”
– Ramana Maharshi (an interesting celebated Indian Hindu sage who died in 1950)
I used to meditate in that Indian style… and it felt like that on long runs when I was so fit, my body seemed able to take me on a tour as though I were a mere passenger on board a running machine.
Years later I was in a conversation with world class ultra-distance runner Fiona Hayvice in Wellington. She enters extreme races like the 100 mile Western States Endurance Run. She told me she just zones out when she is in a long race. I introduced the word ‘anoesis’ to her. She immediately liked that word, as she thought it describes her zoning out perfectly.
aphasia
Something like anoesis can be imposed by disease or disability. I once knew a man who suffered from aphasia that had been caused by a stroke. He understood what people said to him, but I think he could say only two words: yes and no. He could think, he knew who we were, but could not tell us. He had thoughts, but no spoken language apart perhaps from some incoherent babbling, that I think he had largely given up on. His wife understood some of what seemed incoherent to the rest of us. He was in some respects like our Albie; except I am sure he understood all of what we said to him. And like Albie, he wasn’t able to report much detail of what was going on in his mind. We inferred a lot of it. We don’t know whether he thought in words.
Hypnopompia and hypnagogia
The mental state betwixt sleep and wakefulness, where we can experience lucid dreams is called hypnagogia as we fall asleep (characterised by intense images); and hypnopompia as we awaken. I like to collect poetic nonsense words and phrases that usually float into my mind during hypnopompia. If I don’t quickly make a written record, I usually forget what they were.
I am also fascinated by the hypnagogic images that are in themselves meaningless, yet strongly feel as though they contain definitive information. These have been collected, recorded and painted by surrealist artists, as have been the nonsense words and phrases from those twilight states. I dreamed of a bright yellow parallelogram, whose pointed corners connected two fields of wavy blue lines that clearly (at the time) represented two discrete thoughts or realities with associated feelings. At the time, the connection seemed obvious, like when we “join the dots” between related observations to reveal a causal connection. Yet as time passed, I was progressively less able to convince myself there was ever any connection. I no longer have any idea now what the wavy lines represented. It all seemed so obvious at the time! It was and often feels like synesthesia where we see sounds or hear colours. The abstract artist Kandinsky thought each note of music had its own colour. My hypnagogic images were very similar to Kandinsky’s famous painting, Swinging.
I often hear a commentary in the state of hypnagogia - once these words floated into my head, “I am going to the Sunshine Mind Festival”…but sadly, I failed to record the details of the festival experience!…The words often have been taken apart and reassembled in weird ways. One afternoon I thought to myself, “Can I truffle you to debollock this?” It all makes perfect sense at the time…actually I made up that example using dada and a little glossolalia (more on that soon).
The famous Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Carroll (published in 1871 in his book Through The Looking Glass ) which I love to recite is similar…
“Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe…”
Carroll goes on to give meanings for the words he invented. Galumphing and chortle went on to become widely used real words.
dreaming
Hypnagogia will segue into dreaming providing one does not wake. In that case there is usually no memory of the hypnagogia.
I think dreaming is like an artist endlessly recombining elements of a painting in a myriad of ways, until one combination looks original and works. Dreaming is mostly images rather than language.
My wife (second wife – not the one this story began with) has painted oil paintings professionally for decades. Some of her most successful paintings started off with absolutely no conscious plan or idea. Perhaps they – as with our dreams, anoesis, and hypnagogia - were powered by an unconscious ineffable State.
Once I awoke with a nice melody in my head which I was able to write down and use. Sir Paul McCartney’s Yesterday came to him almost complete in a dream. He reminisced that it was as well there was a piano next to the bed at the time so he could capture it before it slipped away.
Scientist Otto Loewi had a very odd idea for his time about bursts of chemicals being released to create nerve impulses. He hadn’t thought about it for years until one night in 1920 he dreamed of an experiment to test this theory with frogs. He woke and immediately wrote it down in a hurried and unfortunately rather illegible manner. In the morning, he could not make the notes out. However, luckily the dream came back the next night, and he successfully wrote it down, did the experiment and made scientific history. The first time Loewi had the answer, the reason he was then unable to understand his notes may have been because those notes were an attempt to recall what he experienced in a wordless state. Perhaps it is impossible to translate directly from the original emotions, sound and colour of pure thought into ordinary language.
mentalese
More recently I discovered the word mentalese. Harvard Psychologist Stephen Pinker developed on the hypothesis that we all have a universal language of thought (referred to as the LOTH). He named it mentalese, and thinks our brains first conceive thoughts in images, abstract propositions, sensations and feelings (mentalese) that we then translate or convert into language.
Pinker has pointed to ambiguous words that sound the same (like ‘tyres’ and ‘tires’) to show something other than the sounds or words underlies and drives language. Pinker says when we invent new words, we must have had the idea first.
Someone who has no language at all can still think. Pinker points to deaf people who have never learnt sign language, yet can handle money and do complicated repair jobs. If only we could look within their brains and see if they have invented their own (silent?) words!
The eureka moment so often comes after we have been sleeping, or doing something unrelated to the problem we were trying to solve. Our unconscious minds must have been working hard in the interim.
Lethologica
We all have experiences where we know whom or what we are thinking of, but cannot recall the name. For a while I had trouble with ‘hydrangeas’ and ‘geraniums’, both of which grow in our garden. As soon as I noticed both contain the word ‘drain’, and that our hydrangeas grow somewhere near a drainpipe, the problem evaporated. Now every time I either see or imagine either plant, the word ‘drain’ and an image of a drain automatically pop into my mind. Finding the word is then easy and certain.
I wonder…as we become a little more forgetful with age, perhaps we are beginning to partly abandon language for some deeper thought process.
Thinking fast
Our minds can think in two distinct ways. We can spend time and effort (using our cerebral cortex) to logically consider various options, and come to a reasoned conclusion. Or we can use the older part of our brains to almost instantly give us an answer in simple terms. That answer is usually either it feels great, (so yes, do it, enjoy) or it feels scary or repulsive, (so run away or fight). The latter fast (type I) thinking is rough and ready and subject to biases. But it is faster than conscious thought and can save our lives. There is an excellent book on these thought processes called Thinking Fast and Slow (2011) by Nobel prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman. Thinking fast uses unconscious processes like the many phenomena described thus far.
In 1969 Upper Hutt musician Wayne Mason released his song Nature. He thought the song would flop. But it went to no1 in NZ. In 2001 the performing rights organisation APRA voted it New Zealand’s best song out of the best 100 songs of all time. The chorus is unusual in that it has no words. Just “do, do do…” and then “de de de… “ Mason had written the song after spending an hour on his front porch in a state of anoesis looking out at a beautiful day and listening to the breeze in the trees…In the song he says he can hear Nature’s own voice, and, “Rustling whistling leaves turning breeze into speech…” Mason must have understood how mentalese works, and how to communicate some of its sounds and rhythms without using words.
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The Covid Vax Dialogues episode 5
(blog #30) Fri 11 June 2021
Tāne talks about the empathy trap
Erik woke with the same tight feeling in his chest he had felt most of Thursday. It was overcast and the kitchen of his Mt Eden flat villa was only faintly illuminated by the murky dark green light that filtered through the smallish cabbage tree and larger camellia bush outside the window. His flatmates were already gone, so he turned on the coffee machine and his Chill Youtube playlist. It took him first to Sweden with some nostalgic sounding vocal harmonies and soothing cello and piano. He did some stretches, slowed his breathing, and thought about the cause of his anxiety. Covid vax. Offending Irena and his mother. Security of new job at Epistemology magazine. And that woman driver who had given him the fingers as he dithered on an intersection before resolutely taking what he knew was the wrong turn. Erik breathed in deeply as he stretched his hands above his head, exhaled slowly as he released the tension and relaxed – it was a kind of simple Yoga sun salute Irena had taught him. As he breathed in, he imagined he took in some kind of vitality, and when he expired, he imagined ridding himself of all polluting aggravations, tensions and well – all the bad shit…
Only a little better, Erik thought, the aggravations were still there to be sorted; and that needed energy and thought. Maybe Tāne could help? he wondered. After all, before he established the magazine, Tāne had trained and worked as a clinical psychologist for about ten years. Except, he remembered, Tāne had told him psychotherapies were still a new science and of limited proven use. Which was why Tāne had decided he could be of more use in his new role helping educate and share useful information.
This was all in Erik’s mind after he ran his morning circuits of Mt Eden, where the view over the city helped him feel more centred and in control. Today, he took the gentle slope back down at a much faster pace than usual. That helped. It rid him of that feeling in his chest entirely.
The run finished with a walk through the main street of Mt Eden road to the offices of Epistemology and after a shower, his weekly meeting with his editor and boss, Tāne.
“Hei! Hei Erik, “ Hvordan er dagen din?”
“Ata Mārie, Tāne. Everything is not ka pai, but the advertisers are still happy. We would be dead without the travel and lifestyle sections. We are good with the tourism industry and bad with supplements and a lot of beauty products. You are paying twice for Pippa’s work.”
“Accha, Erik. Do you have any leads into companies that sell stuff without thinking they have to make stupid claims based on no good evidence? “
“I’m looking at Califa and their oat milk. Oats are low glycemic index, so that’s good, right? We runners mostly power ourselves up with slow release carbs…”
“Yeah, probably better for losing weight and avoiding diabetes. Go for it!”
There was a pause during which Erik’s concerns began to resurface. He took another deep breath, and did his stretch.
“O.K. Erik, your body language is like semaphore! At close range with a megaphone! The easy charades kind of semaphore! Haha! So what’s eating you e hoe? He semaphore e hoa!” haha.
“Just my offending my mum and her naturopath and family friend Irena.”
Tāne remained silently looking at Erik with a compassionate and kind expression.
“I love my mum. I am lucky, she always supports me, she shows always love and empathy.”
Tane just nodded and during a short pause, still said nothing except after a few seconds that seemed longer - quietly and slowly…
”Ae,…ae, ka pai…god.”
“The problem was, well Irena helped me through a bad patch and I am so grateful to her. She listened a lot, and reminded me of my own strengths. She was just there for me…..and now….and now….she is so anti-vax….and I ja jeg…meg.”
“OK so you are changing your mind about that?”
“Ae, ja…yes (the latter word now seemed foreign to Erik).
“Irena believes quite a lot of stuff in Natural Medicine. I’m starting to question the whole Naturpath thing….”
“But you don’t want to question your trust in her support, love, all that?”
“Yes”. (the word now seemed less foreign to Erik) “I had a list of a dozen experts here in Aotearoa. Mum found my list and I could see Irena suddenly got very upset and shut down the conversation on that. I just left it, but then she came back to it, and I set her off again, so that was it. Disaster…”
“No it’s not, Erik. I call that the empathy trap. I bet if you got on to some other topic where you are not going to question her, she will turn off the tap quite quickly.”
“Aha! Yes. Thanks, Tāne. I’ll try that next time. If she had been one of my clients, I would have dne that. It wouldn’t have happened in the first place either unless absolutely necessary and I didn’t mind too much losing that advertiser…hey, come to think of it, I have seen her and my mum…..and a few others …probably me too…doing that…empathy trap….Does that mean it won’t happen with someone I don’t care about?”
“Yes.”
“Nō reira…I’m taking off my psychologist hat and I have to put back on my editor hat…oh taihoa e hoa one more quick one. I don’t think Sheree will mind me letting you know she was impressed by your last marathon time. 2hours 30minutes. Chur! Fast, eh! You must be fit Erik! …but, hey! I think she looked it up out of curiosity. So make what you like of that. She is a bloody good artist and valuable person on our team, Erik.”
The Covid Vax dialogues episode 4 (Blog #29) Sat 4 June 2021
Erik talks with his naturopath and mum
Erik woke feeling exceptionally relaxed and refreshed. He had been dreaming of flying through the air, and floating through a colourful landscape of mostly pastel greens and blues, seas, skies, forests, trails, rivers, lakes…It all meant something important as he dreamed, but when he woke, he couldn’t remember any of those insights. He decided to stay with the images and feelings as long as he could. The colours, and images felt right, as though they held him fast to the important uncounscious insights. Drifting through his semiconscious state was the nonsense phrase, “flotsy, tah..ah….rain, to blue, flew blue…..flotsy toogreebly too bluebly by…” It repeated with variations. But he quickly lost the words as they floated away…The glorious colours and the feelings the images evoked were much slower to fade, like a strong after-image…
His phone then rang, and his mother invited him to come out for a meal with her and her naturopath and friend, Irena. There was a vegan restaurant Irena wanted them to try. Erik readily accepted, they were always supportive and interested in him. But he evaded the question about whether he might be bringing a woman friend. He thought about Pippa or Sheree. Erik felt Pippa held him in rather low regard, and had lots of other friends…no,no why did I even consider her?, he asked himself…
“I could ask Sheree, But she is just a workmate…I saw her exhibition in Titirangi…”
“She sounds lovely, Erik, so there is someone?”
“No. Sorry to disappoint”.
It turned out Sheree was interested Erik discovered after he plucked up the courage to text her, but Sheree had something else on that night…Erik was both elated that she would consider the idea, and relieved as he realized her views on naturopathy and the wellness and alternative health movement would have doubtless caused some friction.
So after work, Erik picked up his copy of the tenth anniversary edition of Natural Health with his own notes written in, and a little more Sheree had emailed him, and headed off to Herne Bay and The Butcher’s Son. He entered the natural timbered rooms and found his mum, aunt Marina and Irena chatting quietly at a high table in a corner beneath three rows of herbaceous plants that werte lit up. His mum, then Irena rose and hugged Erik, asking about him and expressing delight that he could make it. After ordering – Taco Loco for Bente (Erik’s mum), B BQ ‘pork’ bad buns for Erik and the Autumn vegetable medley for Irena, the conversation turned to Irena’s business (thriving, but some clients expected too much), Erik’s flat in Mt Eden (flatmates much quieter these days) and his Aunt Marina’s Russian relatives (only one had covid and recovered). Then, as they were beginning on their mains, the conversation segued naturally from covid recovery in Russia to vaccination in New Zealand.
Irena talked about administering homeopathic alternatives she thought were ideal for travellers who had decided not to vaccinate. The homeopathic flu complex, she said trained the immune system to deal with twenty different flus and also covid.
“So does it have some covid in it?” asked Erik. “Homeopathy uses diluted down toxins, that usually produce the symptoms you are wanting to cure, doesn’t it?
“Well, yes, so things that are not covid but produce the covid symptoms is classical homeopathy. So we wouldn’t use covid. Remember, homeopathy cures the real essences of illness, it doesn’t have to worry about the substance.”
“So, what’s the essence of covid?”
“Essences are really energy frequencies.”
Erik felt more confused. He wasn’t sure if he was lacking in understanding, or perhaps this just didn’t make sense.
“Now we have a machine that has measured the energy frequency of covid and the different influenzas. We can impart the right therapeutic frequency into the medicines.
Erik was confused. “So, wouldn’t anything change the body’s energy system?”
“Well, yes,” replied Irena, “ but some things more than others. Once you tune the body to a healthy energy, it can recognize unhealthy energies and keep a healthy balance.”
Bente (Erik’s mum) felt it was time to support her friend and the wellness cause.
“You know, Erik, don’t you that allopathic medicine works on a different plane to homeopathic medicine. Ordinary doctors look at broken bones and obvious things like that. Symotoms. But they don’t see the real causes of disease. Isn’t that right, Irena?”
“Yes. There is a lot they don’t see. Energy systems, chakras, energy flows in the body and vibrations. The universe is tuned to certain vibrations. Not everything is physical as we all know.”
“ But this machine…”
“Radionics machine, Erik. It was a real doctor Albert Abrams who made that discovery. The authorities hated him, because he was curing so many people!”
Erik hadn’t heard so much about frequencies before. He had thought there are two worlds, the physical and the spiritual, and he was becoming less sure about the latter.
“So this machine, it produces real vibrations and energy you can measure?”
“Yes.”
“So is there some interface between essences and reality?”
“I think it is rather mysterious kjaere. We can’t know everything.” Answered Bente. But somehow it works.”
Erik had been for a long time trying to think through how - if at all - it is possible for the spiritual and real world to connect. And he felt Irena had somehow convinced him that attempts to prove a connection were not so likely to succeed. He wasn’t convinced, either that he would bother coming to Irena for a homeopathic covid prevention.
“So here’s what I really want to know,” burst out Erik, “does the homeopathic covid vaccination work, and do the ones that are being rolled out and most people are taking, do they work?”
“Well,” began Irena, looking at the desert menu, “aha! Peach and oassion pie! I’m having that…and did you know, Erik, the Greek athletes used to eat cheesecake!”
The conversation veered off as they ordered deserts, back to Norway, and Irena’s father’s Russian family who lived very close to Norway…
But eventually, Erik’s curiosity returned and he decided to ask Irena politely again how Irena knew her homeopathic vaccine worked, and how she knew the Pfizer one most people were having didn’t. Having any kind of vaccine didn’t seem to be a bug issue with Irena. But deciding about the Pfizer one was important to Erik. He figured both Irena and his mother might be horrified if he were to get the vaccine.
“So how do you know about the vaccines, Irena?” he asked eventually.
“Well, we know you have to get the essences right, for a start.”
“Yes, but wouldn’t it be reasonably simple to just test vaccines? Like give a thousand people a certain vaccine, and another thousand get a placebo, except nobody knows who is getting which until the end of the trial?
“Ah but meantime, a lot of the one thousand people who get no vaccine get sick! How can you justify that?”
“I think that is just what they did with the Pfizer vaccine, because it was new, and nobody knew if it would work.”
“Well, I’m too busy helping people, and doing things that work, to bother with that nonsense!”
Erik’s salesman instincts stopped him from asking again how she knew it worked. He figured that a repeated question would signal disagreement. Disagreement in Erik’s experience meant push-back. Push back meant alienation and alienation means no sale. That was what he learnt in a seminar once. And like Irena and her clients, he felt that following that advice generally worked. But he suddenly thought to himself, ‘how do I really know that?’
“I understand what you mean”, replied Erik. “Of course if your clients are getting better, and I know they trust you and like coming to see you – like I do!…
“Thank you Erik, it’s always a pleasure talking with you!”
“So I guess if we were to do that experiment, then, would you expect the ones getting the homeopathy would do better then the ones getting a sugar pill?” asked Erik very gently and with a welsoming smile on his face.
“There is more to naturopathy than just taking a pill, Erik. As you know, holistic medicine treats the whole person.”
“Aha! I was wrong, sorry, then. I don’t want to go on and be annoying”…Erik smiled and laughed a little, “but what if our imaginary experiment had all subjects getting the holistic treatment, except half still got the placebo instead of the homeopathic medicine…”
“Oh, that kind of double blind experiment has been done with homeopathy, and it works,” replied Irena a little hurriedly and in a less friendly voice. Erik noticed the change immediately, and decided that line of questioning had better be given away before it was too late.
His mother gave him a gentle nudge, “We’d better get our energy states to harmonise, I think, Erik, “ she demurred and remonstrated.
Erik took a deep breath, let it out slowly and held his mother and Irena’s hands…”Aaaah! That’s better!” he said with a dropping gentle tone and a smile. Peace was restored.
They talked about Erik’s success with new clients, and how Irena was starting to tap into new markets with her clients. And Erik’s father, Sven, who was away in Dunedin on business.
But as they were supping on a last hot chocolate, Irena decided to return to the topic of vaccines,
“You know, Erik,” she said, the allopathic pathetic medics have made a lot of mistakes. They can’t measure the virus reliably – keep getting it mixed up with flu; and they are ignoring the patients who are dying after being vaccinated…and they are in cahoots with the vaccine manufacturers. Big pharma!”
“Aha! said Erik, and at last pulled out and unrolled his copy of Natural Medicine from his bag. Is this one place where you are getting that kind of information?”
“Oh that’s nice you have a copy, Erik! Good on you! Yes, but I don’t believe everything I read in there. I do think for myself.”
“Have you noticed many of the articles are not interviews but the writer is just re-hashing what the person they quote has said?”
“Yes, just like other magazines…like The Listener. The story on kanuka honey quotes Shaun Holt – it’s not written by him. And it agrees with something I think I read in Natural Medicine.”
“I suppose you are right, except I think the listener story at least talked with Holt. They didn’t ask his colleagues what they thought, though.”
“So what are all these notes of yours here?” asked Bente recognising Erik’s handwriting above the fixt advertisement in a glossy white corner near the top.
“…Dr David Skegg epidemiologist, Professor Philip Hill epidemiologist, Dr Maia Brewerton, immunology specialist, Professor David Murdoch infectious diease expert, Dr Ella Iosua, public health exper, Dr Nikki Turner director of the immunisation Advisory Centre…”
“Ignorant allopaths” was Irena’s response. Erik thought his mother had said quite enough, but she went on… Then we also have Dr Michael Baker (epidemiologist), Associate Professor Helen Petousis-Harris, Professor Rod Jackson, senior epidemiologist..
Professor Nick Wilson, Dr Ayesha Verrall, Simon Thornley, epidemiologist. Why have you circled Simon Thornley?”
“Becasuse he is the only one who speaks any sense,” replied Irena.
“Wow!” exclaimed Erik. “Out of those twelve experts, only one questions that the pfizer vaccine works, or that many people are not dying from covid. It was almost time to leave, but Erik was really curious…”How can you be so sure he is right and the others are wrong? They notice he doesn’t like to admit he is wrong – like when he predicted most of us would have covid antibodies and his prediction turned out wrong…”
“ He has the right answer for a start…”
Erik thought of something Sheree had asked him. He found it to be a very good question.
“ One thing I have someone (it was Pippa) say abut Thornley… Just something I heard. It may not be true…for him, being right is more important than knowing the ttuth. He could be a bullshitter who actually doen’t even care about the truth. He seems to start off with an idea, and he thinks it is proven beyond any doubt right from ther start. So then he only looks for evidence that confirms he is right, and ignores and discounts anything that suggests he is wrong…Or he could be a genius who is a better scientist. Which is more likely?”
Both his mother and Irena turned a little pale, and their energy vibrations were certainly not humming quietly. Erik figured he had gone way to far – he had let his curoosity get the better of his usual salesman affability and agreeability.
It took three repeats of the hand holding and easy breathing to dispel all that, and Erik made sure he gave them both a long hug and said nice things about how he loved them both (which was true) before they disappeared into the misty and dark night…
The Vax dialogues (Blog #27) May 21 2021
chapter 3 An Art exhibition and Erik and Sheree talk about sources
“Fuck!” Well, that’s the word Erik had in his head along with the slightly softer fy faen – he had picked up that Norwegian expression from watching Skam and the eponymous song. He hadn’t needed sub-titles…
Erik was standing in the Te Uru gallery (not Te Ure - thanks, Tāne, Erik had thought and said to Tāne, as he entered) set in the verdant foothills in Titirangi looking out on some massive native Kauri trees and the not too distant waters of the Manukau harbour. But Erik wasn’t looking out the window. In front of him was a painting in Sheree’s exhibition, Vulnerable. The painting was titled VM1. That morning Erik had woken to a nightmare where he kept being tackled playing rugby; and each time he had that horrible pain in his testicles which had been squashed. He realised he needed to get some more 3B Action cream [not a sponsor placement - ed] next time he set out for a two hour run in the rain. And now, coincidentally VM1 depicted a man in pain with blood on his penis. Fy faen, fy faen! Went through Erik’s head…and the nightmare vision of a penis not likely to ever be very good at samleie.
After the busy opening, Erik ducked into the new shop in the new modern grey building next door called Refill Nation. He was keen to reduce our plastic waste exports to Malaysia. He thought of talking to Pippa about that. Maybe she could do a story on that next. Then he went back towards the Gallery to join Sheree and a dozen of her friends, work colleagues and family, who filled up a long table in DECO – the art deco restaurant that featured Turkish round Copper tables and Italian and Turkish food.
Sheree was now content to let her friends all talk to one another. She was sitting at one end with Eric and Pippa on either side of her. After a while, Pippa turned to Tāne and started discussing recent events in Samoa. Erik only had a passing interest, and dimly perceived some words he didn’t even understand and some he did…matai, chauvinistic, fa’afafine, Fast Party (were they moving too fast?), malo! constitution, Barbara Dreaver, those bills did it, Auntie Tasi, human rights NOT protection party, ASSASSINATION attempts, nepotism, looking like a banana republic?…Erik’s interests increased a little at some of these words.
“So how did you feel about the show?” asked Sheree of Eric
“I liked your short artist statement. I think I can remember it all…Vulnerable. All of us. Everything, Wabi Sabi. Nice. Say no more! “
“Say something else. Did it evoke any feelings?”
Eric felt a little awkward. His professional salesman skills told him it would be nice to start with something in common; something not too emotive. He really didn’t know Sheree.
Sheree stayed silent. She wanted to know. Erik knew he didn’t want to talk about his penis.
“It did stir up a few feelings, Sheree. Other people looked excited, too. I think you really connected.”
Aha! nice, thought Erik. Always start positive! He had been genuinely impressed, but also he felt somehow defensive, as though Sheree had suddenly invaded his deepest personal world, as though she had triggering things he might not even feel comfortable talking to a friend about. Maybe not even appropriate…
“Any specific feelings or experiences?”
“OK. The women with those spots of blood…(oh shit! thought Erik…FY FAEN!)
…I felt protective; like maybe they needed some …empathy….maybe help from someone…so I felt I wanted to understand more and empathise…same with the men and those figures that looked like they could be men or women…But I also thought, should I even be looking at them? I feel bad if I think I am intruding…”
“Nice, Erik. Thanks for that. I am always happy when people relate to my works. There is no right way to feel about art”.
After ordering, Erik was keen to get back to the vexed vax questions.
“Well. The World Health Organisation does have a lot of experts, but they might not be so reliable in saying it can’t have come from the Wuhan laboratory. He opened a note on his phone…here’s why: 1. Fauci is no longer confident the virus did not come from a laboratory 2. The Chinese are saying to have such a hypothesis is “anti-science”. Why the big push back from a totalitarian state that lies and locks up their dissenters? 3. Staff at the Wuhan laboratory got sick very early on. They didn’t allow WHO inspectors full access. And wasn't that laboratory developing bad versions of viruses?
“Wait a minute the director general of WHO said a couple of months back that they hadn’t checked out the lab hypothesis enough. Anyway, we are being side-tracked. It is still the same virus either way. What about the evidence that our Pfizer vaccine works, and the side effects?”
“Well WHO says it is safe but doesn’t say how many people it was tested on. They have 7,000 staff, but not all are doctors.” So I wasn’t all that convinced by your link. Those staff are doing a lot of other stuff as well.”
“So did it make any difference to your confidence it is not a good idea?”
“Yes, the only bit that impressed me was how they had details on who might be better not having the vaccine. Like those with immunity problems. I’m down to 80% sure it isn’t so great.”
“Well, I went to Henderson and they had plenty of spare vaccines later in the afternoon, so I had my first shot. I didn’t get any side effects except a slightly sore arm for a day. They asked a lot of questions and do screen out some people. The staff were really friendly, too. It felt like a big party…I did read your article.”
“…and…I am thinking you found the Journal of Natural Medicine to be written by a bunch of conspiracy theorists?”
“Well the publisher is said to have stood by a picture he published saying it was an alien, when it actually came from a Movie…”
“But that was his other magazine, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was. I can see why you thought it looks like real science. The graphs and charts are well presented, They say they are skeptical and provide reliable information, etc…But I found some references that were just to blogs, websites, or short opinion pieces that are not studies in some scientific journals. Pippa as you know looked at the publisher, and the so called journal. She says the little good science referred to is mis-interpreted…” Pippa was at that moment engrossed in talking to the editor about how a spy like a Netflix character called Carrie Mathison should be brought in to deal with the hospital hackers who demanded a ransom…
So Sheree carried on quoting Pippa as saying she had consulted some respected scientists who called the magazine a journal of “Natural nuttiness” that promoted no end of conspiracy theories and woo: homeopathy as a cure for cancer? Covid not as bad as influenza? Colloidal silver…”
“Yes – broke in Erik – I have read Pippa’s story and checked some of it out. I don’t think I said I rely on everything in that journal, did I? I have changed my mind a bit; it is not always reliable; but it would take an evil genius to be wrong every time, wouldn’t it?”
“What do you mean?…oh I see, to choose the wrong answer every time would mean you must know the right answers, and be deliberately avoiding them?”
...Do you agree with the Journal and Plan B scientists saying, 'Looks Like Sweden was right after all?' ”
“Um…I used to think so…I’m not so sure it worked out so well with a lot of deaths.”
“I am sorry, I thought I’d find the online version of that Journal would have anti covid vax stories, but I couldn’t find much. The Facebook page didn’t seem to quote much real research either – just a lot of opinion, and not much of it coming from experts. We aren’t really getting very far, are we, because that WHO link had no detailed survey of the numbers of scientists behind the vaccines, and the number who don’t agree.”
“How do you decide, then?”
“I trust our mainstream media to be able to self-correct if they have something wrong. They have been telling us the vaccine is safe, saves a lot of lives, and has very few serious side effects for quite a while now.”
“Ah, but what if they are all just going along with the herd, and the original data isn’t there?”
“That is possible, but surely unlikely. Most scientists check out a plausible challenge, and can take on board new information…I believe that tens of thousands were involved in double blind studies, and the results were clear.”
“How do you know? The World Health Organisation didn’t seem to tell us!”
Alright, so for you, the truth matters, right?”
“Yes.”
“And are you more interested in knowing the truth or being right?”
“I suppose so. My mum, my auntie and my naturopath are all great, reliable, loving, caring people. I trust them. They never lie to me.”
“OK, so you must be a little afraid of upsetting them? Maybe them being right matters a lot to you?”
“No, I just trust them.”
“That’s nice, but does that prove they are right? Don’t you think sympathetic, nice people can be misguided sometimes?”
“O.K. I think I’ll have a look at what the doctors and experts say, and how they know. I have a start with Michael Baker, Siouxsie Wiles, and Des Gorman. Then that plan B maverick.”
“Sounds good. Where will you look? Our Ministry of Health? Some association of epidemiologists? Or an association of naturopaths?”
“Maybe all of them. I do want to know if we have it right…But I am still sure seeing I exercise, sleep well and have a good diet, I am not likely to get it, or if I do I’ll be O.K.”
“Do you think that assuming it works, you should think about protecting others?”
“Yeah, I guess. Lets talk about it again when we actually have some useful facts.”
“Accha. It’s getting late, so I’m off. I have a long run through the pine forest then we have our Orienteering club picnic tomorrow. Great show. See you later.”
“Ciao”
The Vax dialogues (Blog #27) May 21 2021
chapter 2 Erik and Sheree talk about sources
This Friday’s after work gathering at Win-Win was upbeat and buzzing. Erik came upon Sheree talking with a journalist, Pippa, who had just published a story on serious violent ructions between two groups in a coalition of the more conspicuous conspiracy theorists.
“So does it matter if they turned nasty? Why even report that?” asked Sheree of Pippa.
“It matters because half of our population still have some religious affiliation…it’s shrinking I know, but it’s getting more diverse. So plenty of Kiwis think they are all compatible. You know all points of view are equally valid and true!? They are not.”
“ Wasn’t it mostly about the dodgy financial dealings and dishonesty?”
“Does that matter then? Who cares?” asked Sheree.
“ How do you know that money was stolen, anyway, and who cares about that?”
“ I know because they hate one another, they incriminated each other. Showed me their phones and bank statements…”
“Well, does the truth even matter?” butted in Erik.
Pippa - “OK, Erik. Let’s say you were just charged $1,000 for your beer. I can see the price on the wall there…Walla Walla Wheat Wine $13. That wouldn’t matter to you, would it, Erik?”
“Um…yeah. OK sometimes truth matters.“
Pippa’s phone rang. “Oh cool, thanks, Talofalava! Malo! So glad you rang, I really appreciate that! Fa’afetai tele…” She went off to the back of the bar with her call…
So, hva skjer, Erik?” Sheree smiled.
“What?
“Have I got that right? Hva skjer…”
“Ja, Yes. I didn’t expect you to be using a Norwegian word…Anyway, I’m all good and…”
The interruption had allowed Erik to remember he had a bad habit of talking about himself and then learning nothing about the person he was supposedly conversing with.
He had been a little disturbed by her beautifully coloured sketch of ethereal warring floating spiritual beings for Pippa’s cover story. he felt those colours and the vibe should be relaxing and peaceful…so Erik decided not to mention that….
“So, did you do any research on whether the covid jab is likely to have benefits?” Sheree inserted into the pause …
“Not really, but I came across a copy of the NZ Journal of Natural Medicine with a lot of scientific articles on covid in the library. The stories had lots of scientific references at the end and graphs. Looks ike Covid isn’t as bad as they say, and we might be best to boost our natural immunity…”
“So…how do you decide on what is true, Erik?”
“ I have some trust in my naturopath, and some in my doctor, and evidence – well there seems to be enough evidence in the Journal…Too many questions not answered, too many doubts…”
“ So who are the experts, do you think, Erik about vaccines?”
“Well, doctors and people who treat illnesses.”
“So how about a consensus of doctors who specialise in epidemiology and contagious diseases?” Like the WHO report on covid. That’s where I look, btw…So how about over next week, you read the WHO report, and I’ll read your Journal of Natural Medicine? We will see what expertise is there, if they are reliable sources…”
“Um Gottes willen, Erik! Didn’t you read my story?!” Pippa seemed to have suddenly materialized before them and both jumped.
“What do you mean and what does um gotte mean?”
“ Swearing in Germasn is less offensive, Erik…do you do it in Norwegian?”
“Fy faen…sometimes, yes…”
“I guess you haven’t made the connection between Real News and Natural Medicine, Erik. And – her tone became more serious – I hope you are not talking to those people and the wellness woo peddlers about putting ads in Epistemology. The editor needs advertising of course, but not from people who attract Advertising Standards Authority and readers’ complaints. Not people who make false claims and mislead our readers!
So, good luck with finding Natural Medicine a reliable source, haha Erik!” and with that, she floated away rather like Sheree’s picture; it seemed Pippa had deliberately dressed in colourful hippyish pastel tones with her long silk scarf trailing colourfully in her wake…Her long blond hair seemed a natural part of her total couture and bearing…even her perfume had an earthy, floral, verdant touch…
[Thanks Linden for your suggestion to mention Real News. Did that! ]
The Vax dialogues (Blog #26) May 14 2021
Chapter 1 In which we meet Erik and Sheree
Erik and Sheree started talking covid vax spontaneously late one afternoon in May after work. They work at a magazine specialising in hard core investigative journalism. But neither is a journalist. Sheree does the original concept art and Erik sells advertising.
This Friday afternoon they meet with other staff at Win-Win and they are all down the “rabbit hole” – decorated with swirling artificial plants and colour - drinking an ‘Alice’ cocktail served by a man in a top hat. A musician is quietly crooning in the corner. But thery are both young so can hear one another above the bubble and hum.
“So are you all good for the covid jab?” asks Sheree.
“I’m not sure”, replies Erik, “I have heard your arm gets really sore, and I have never had the f’lu; so I think my risk of getting covid is really low, and if I did, I’d recover quickly. I went out and ran right around Arthur Lydiard’s Waiatarua circuit last Sunday!”
“Explain yourself, Erik. Not everyone has heard of Arthur Lydiard or the Waitarua. I haven’t!”
“LSS It is almost a marathon distance.”
“OK but what is LSS - a new drug?”
“Long story short. I have a tendency towards long explanations.”
“O.K. Accha. So what is your cost benefit analysis on the covid jab?”
“Not sure. Probably costs outweigh benefits.”
“I think I’ll take it (Sheree). Now on a scale from one to a hundred, given what you think you know now, how sure are you of that?”
“I’m 80 percent. My fitness and natural health. My body recovers well on its own. I have good genes, so I probably don’t need it. I also give some weight to some things I have heard medsafe have some concerns, and what about earlier vaccines? Have they caused any illnesses? This one is new. And isn’t there so much fear and hysteria about that the real risks are exaggerated?”
“Do you have a naturopath?”
“Not really. But I visited one last month. I got a discounted half hour that lasted for fifty minutes for just $50. She was really nice and discussed my diet, athletics, healthy habits and how I talk to myself. So not too bad for $50. My doctor gives me about ten minutes, he’s more per minute…So what is your confidence in the vaccine”
“I’m 95 percent sure the benefits outweigh the risks for healthy people like you and me.
O.K. (Sheree). How about we both do a little homework and talk about the best ways to find the truth next week?” Meantime, do you think Judith Collins is racist?”
“Well, perhaps; she seems to be playing the Brash book racist card anyway...This Alice is interesting. I think I need a craft beer. Or maybe a Ringnes. Bit hard to find, that one…Can I buy you something? What do you usually drink?”
“Rekorderlig. I’ll get them. Let’s see what they have.”
….to be continued. Part 2 next week talking epistemology.
FEEDBACK please to [email protected]
Covid the real hotspots
(other than India)
- Friday 7 May 2021 blog #25
India is in the covid-19 news a lot because it is a country with the highest number of covid-19 infections and deaths every day. I am so sad for them and worried about the new variants that will come out of all this.
But the average chance of being infected by covid-19 in India is probably nowhere near the worst in the world. The New York Times published a map showing where these covid hot spots are.
On this map, India is coloured in a dark red with 28 new cases every day for every 100,000 people. That’s bad.
But, wait a minute! Some countries are coloured in purple, and worse!
Sweden at 49 cases per 100,000. That is a lot worse; you are one and a half times more likely to pick up covid in Sweden than if you are living in India.
Also in the pandemic purple super dangerous zone are:
Argentina 53 (a little worse than Sweden) and
Lithuania at 42
The next bad group (still worse than India) includes:
Turkey and Mongolia on 35, and France on 30
…but the horrible black hole for Covid in the world is coloured black on the map.
That booby prize belongs to Uruguay with 70 new cases pert 100,000 every day.
So what is the problem with Uruguay? You can still find slightly dated news stories telling you the place is virtually covid free and it is totally under control!
I think some of our experts like Michael Baker have already warned us against being complacent.
I think India is under-reporting. But that still isn't likely to get them way up with Uruguay; and Uruguay is also likely to be under-reporting. I find it very hard to find out much about what is happening there apart from the devastating infection rate.
Sadly, it is not easy to find much material on this important question.
One source I found was Journalist Gabriela Vaz writing for the Agence France Presse on 17 April. She reported,
"Overconfidence and a loss of risk awareness were the two main factors that caused Uruguay to lose its best-in-class status,"
virologist Santiago Mirazo of the University of the Republic told AFP.
During 2020, he explains, the government was quick to isolate outbreak pockets with effective testing and contact tracing.
But over time, a false sense of security took hold and the population became ever more lax with masks and social distancing.
Today, at the height of the pandemic, bars and restaurants are open, though schools and some non-essential government offices were recently closed, and festivals and concerts cancelled.
A major contributor to Uruguay's fast-spreading outbreak has been its proximity to northern neighbor Brazil, which has been battered for months by a new infection wave fueled by a new virus variant, P1, deemed more contagious.”
So there you are. I’d love to investigate further –
- Talk with someone in Uruguay (I am fluent in Spanish)
- Double check the very latest nerws reports and data
- Ask Michael Baker for comment (I have met him and discussed his work).
- Tell you more about that amazing planned Uruguayan Covid memorial in the picture above.
but I have to pay some bills and my paid journalism work has of late dried right up. I’m doing a few more concerts, and my ongoing voluntary work for NZ Skeptics and the Society for Science Based Medicine. Mostly in Retirement Villages (only while we are on level one). Mind you, I did really enjoy my recent concert for the Christchurch Folk Club with local singer Kristina anne Godfrey
COMMENT
- Jonathan, thank you for this important note. However, and for no fault of yours, the analysis will not be correct because the official figures from India are being challenged by all.
Some journalists are pointing out that while there are over a hundred bodies being cremated and funeral pyres have been photographed as well as proof, the official figures say only 11 or 12 have died. This is just on one day in one of several crematoria in one city. Uruguay to India, hope all societies will come out of it with the least damage. - Babu Gogineni (whom I respect very much, as he is a prominent Indian Skeptic and Humanist who has done much good in the world) See the Wikipedia entry in him.
Many thanks, Babu I have since modified this at least to some extent accordingly.. - Jonathon
Getting Yourself Fit
- Friday 30 April 2021 blog #24
Recently I shared a few thoughts about athletics training with clubmate Simon Keller for my running club’s podcast series (Wellington Scottish ON THE RUN).
You can hear about my evidence based approach there. So what does it mean to anyone and everyone who might want to know more about being physically fit?
I am focused on aerobic fitness, and also interested in strength and balance. I think we can now say unless you are already very sick, your life will be better in some ways if you can achieve and maintain a good level of aerobic fitness. The studies I have seen show that within the moderate limits, you will live longer, be more mobile in your 80s, and be less likely to develop a long list of illnesses. Because your heart becomes stronger, you will have more energy and tire less easily. That is particularly obvious walking up steps or running uphill.
The Mayo Clinic in the USA, for example summarises the top ten benefits, which include improving your mood. That’s one reason I have spent a lot of time hanging around with athletes. Coaching bright, talented, fit young runners has been a privilege and joy for me. Just hearing them laughing and chatting exuberantly as we ran along some magical bush trails is a memory I treasure.
So it matters whether you use effective ways to get fit. In the podcast I mention a man I met who believed the wheels used on the Mars rover Perseverance were made according to a plan found in the bible. Yes, that is so unlikely I don’t even plan to waste time looking it up. However, there are similar unproven and unlikely superstitions that are followed by some world class athletes – including Olympic medalists and their coaches. Painting your fingernails a certain way (the Molly Huddle products), receiving a special prayer, a chiropractic tap, wearing lucky charms, kissing the ground, are all examples I have come across that I don’t think would pass a skeptical examination for logic and evidence.
Top coaches of course don’t spend too much time on useless superstitions; and most of them are not harmful. But I think some athletes who don’t understand how to check out claims are wasting a lot of time that could be better spent on activities that really do make you fit. And many top coaches do include some things that have about zero chance of helping their athletes.
For more on skepticism, I have dealt with cognitive biases in The Press newspaper, and I have developed a list of logical fallacies. For ways to assess science, one good source is our NZ Science educator Alison Campbell’s sciblog. There is a good guest blog there on pseudo-scientific spin that can lead you astray.
WHAT REALLY WORKS?
You can find more detail in regard to serious training if you are interested by clicking on my Athletics tab.
For anyone wanting to sample some of the many benefits:
1 Get out at least twice a week running, cycling, rowing, swimming or any activity that raises your heart rate and breathing. You really need at least one session to last half an hour. However, if you are not fit, start off running between two lamp posts (or about 20 meters) then walking the same distance two or three times. Start really small if you are not fit. Build very slowly. It might take two months to get to 20mins non-stop.
2 Allow and monitor your recovery. If you are not used to exercise, you may need up to ten days between sessions to recover to start with. For elite athletes, recovery is crucial. All too often, after a session that was over-cooked, they fail to take the next day off, and get injured or sick, or the progress stops as a result. While I’m on a cautious note, being fit requires good sleep habits and a reasonable diet, and it is not a magical panacea. It is just one of many things that contribute to good health. Genetics is another we can’t control much, so while you are healthy, make the most of every day! Be compassionate towards those who cannot train very much or not at all.
3 Don’t train if you are unwell or feel really uncomfortable when exercising. If you are totally new to it, have a medical check up right at the start. If you start out and feel really uncomfortable, go home and make a cup of tea or your favourite drink. Try again the next day. This balance is tricky and crucial to success. Just feeling flat is no reason not to give it a go. But if you still feel worse than usual after five minutes, apply that cup of tea rule.
4 Always make it fun and enjoyable. No, no, no; it is not about pain. Just pushing gently. Rushing out expecting to immediately run like a champion could take you straight to hospital. I know two or three Olympic runners who discovered when they joined an elite squad, that they had previously been pushing too hard. Run, cycle, row or swim, etc in places you love being in. Personally, I love to use botanical gardens and scenic parks and trails for my own and my athletic squads’ training.
Oh, and eat a variety of healthy foods, not too much rubbish (don't waste money on supplements), and get plenty of sleep.
That’s enough for today.
Check out those benefits and go to it!
Divorce for Men
- Friday 23 April 2021 blog #23
Nurit Zubery is an Auckland based Masters graduate in Law and an independent Mediator. She spoke recently (12 April 2021 on National Radio) about her and others’ research on the effects of divorce on fathers. As a feminist, she expressed surprise at what she found:
“The system sees them [men] as bad, even when they are not.
[Men experience a] strong grief reaction. Much stronger than women.
Almost five times as many men as women commit suicide following a divorce.
[I doubled checked this. The study I found in the BMJ said eight times]
Nine times as many are admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
They develop health problems like: cancer, heart attacks. and diabetes more than women…
Women initiate about seventy percent of divorce.
[my double checking revealed a figure of 80%]
Fathers following divorce [often] disappear from their children's life….The absent fathers were the ones closest to their children during the marriage. The transition from full-time father to part-time just broke their heart, and the pain was too strong to endure; and that is why they disengaged. ”
Her words resonated strongly with my memories of my divorce as a young father some thirty seven years ago. I think I can rightly say after so many years that it should be OK for me to talk about how I felt at the time. My diaries from that time and since are full of practical ideas and soul searching on how I might do better in my personal relationships. There is a small proportion on how I might heal myself… While we can attack, criticise, nudge, nurture, or abuse others, we can only direct and change our own behaviour.
It is hard to express strong emotions in their purest form, because how we feel is affected by what we think. I will probably resort to poetry somewhere in this…But I think (and I could be wrong as always) that pure and real emotions can be value and blame free. So…here’s what it felt like for me all those years ago. Plenty of the faults that caused the anguish were my own.
Bang!
A ten tonne truck
hits me from behind
going the wrong way.
Blood on the road.
Smashed and mashed my guts
Nobody calls an ambulance.
I drag myself off the road.
I can’t go home.
My replacement is there
I call a few friends.
I crawl about the streets blindly
dazed and disorientated
until I find
Finally the house of a friend.
He is good.
He is right to say
Only I can heal myself.
But he is kind
shares his cool Chinese cooking
even a beer
One day I can walk,
but every morning
the pain is still there
everywhere
..........in the street
as I run it eases
everywhere
..........in the park
The pain lurks
reflects back in beauty
within the iridescence
of the flowers
…to be continued…
LSS…I am wiser now.
I stayed strong.
There were other storms
Everyone has them
But this was my worst
By a large margin.
==============================
Talking False Beliefs
- Viernes 16 de abril 2021 blog #22
I know plenty of people with whom I feel a great sympathy, closeness, and empathy. They are nice people who generally wish everyone well. Two of them told me recently that vaccinations against Covid 19 will do little good and we would all be better off without them. While many regard this as a false belief, let's go to a more obvious example.
There are quite few who truly believe the world is actually a flat plane, and you could fall off the edge. I have a friend (Robin Bodley) who talks with Flat Earthers here in New Zealand. Some or perhaps most of them have to dream up a conspiracy of airline pilots who have seen the edge of the world. Doesn’t seem so likely, does it? Surprisingly once we go into the details, many of us (and I) don’t understand a lot of the data, obserbvations, and science that proves we live on a globe. Robin showed me a photo of a wall in Petone that vanishes when photographed from I think it was Oriental Bay, quite a few km away. The wall can’t be seen in that photo due to the curvature of the earth. Or is there another explanation? The Flat Earthers assure Robin they have one. They say it is refraction of light similar to how mirages appear. So Robin went right into the science of all that. He is still working on convincing the Flat Earthers that they could be wrong. No, it is not a game. They sincerely believe, Robin assures me. They had a national conference in 2019…There is a National Organisation, Flat Earth NZ
So already we have one useful principle in talking to holders of false beliefs. Realize that we don’t all know the science that proves many things. I thought I understood exactly how aeroplanes fly until I went right into the science. Firstly, I was wrong. Secondly, I’m still not so sure I understand aerodynamics. They don’t always stay up there, either as I discovered flying over the Italian alps. We suddenly lost about 1km of height in a nasty downdraft that had brought down a plane just a few weeks before we flew…Holders of false beliefs often have doubts that many of us who are not experts cannot answer easily.
Words really matter. I can’t even find the perfect word for a belief that is without any good foundation in logic or reliable evidence. ‘False Belief’ is well illustrated in Cathy’s painting above. It used to mean heresy. Heresies were thought to come from the devil! And ‘Bunkum’ which I used to like is of recent origin referring to a fluffy political speech made in Buncombe, North Carolina. I will search in other languages for a better term. Maori has given us ‘ia’ to refer to one person without reference to gender, German has given us cool words like ‘schadenfreude’ and Hindi provided a number of new official English words this year like ‘accha’ (which I use a lot now because it is so useful). So all suggestions for a better word than 'false belief' will be most welcome!
There are many tools I use to speak with others who have false beliefs. A better list will have to await a few more blogs, or for someone like North and South or The Spinoff to commission another investigative piece from me.
Meantime, remember we all have cherished false beliefs. I have come clean in a previous blog about one of mine (#2 my crackpot hypothesis no1). I’m sure I will find a few more over the next couple of years. When I do, I’ll write about them.
So knowing we are all idiots at least occasionally should generate the all important humility and empathy you need when talking false beliefs. That's a good start.
True Conspiracies
- Friday 9 April 2021 blog #21
I have a book back in Wellington that describes many rather big conspiracies. In some cases thousands of people died. They may not have died had the conspiracy been exposed earlier.
Now we have number of people also describing conspiracies. People like followers of Qanon, Billy Te Kaika, Jamie Lee-Ross, and Vinnie Eastwood.
I think there is a difference between the two sets of conspiracy descriptions. But first, lets clarify a few words.
According to the Oxford Learners’ Dictionary
A conspiracy is “a secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal.”
A theory is “a formal set of ideas that is intended to explain why something happens or exists.”
A conspiracy theory is “The belief that a secret but powerful organization is responsible for an event.”
I never liked the term conspiracy theory because I think the colloquial use of ‘theory’ to mean any old explanation someone might dream up could be confused with the scientific meaning as in ‘the Theory of Evolution.’ I even tried to make up an alternative term for ‘conspiracy theory’. But I guess many words have more then one meaning, and I don’t want to create more confusion.
Secondly, I notice the definition does not say the theory is likely to be false, yet when we call a belief a conspiracy theory, we usually think it is false.
So what do we call The US government’s plot to kill Fidel Castro? There can be little doubt it happened as the official records now reveal the plot. The list of real conspiracies is very long.
I propose the term true conspiracy theory. It is probably imperfect, but maybe it will do. WDYT? (that means what do you think?)
I am collecting a list of conspiracies.
That businessman in Auckland who conspired to silence a young man he had sexually abused is one. He was convicted recently, but still has name suppression.
I will do another blog soon on how we might be able to spot the differences between unlikely conspiracy theories and true conspiracy theories.
On Being a Skeptic
- Friday 2 April 2021 blog #20
I am about to present my third public talk on skepticism next week in Christchurch.
Thursday 8th April from 6-7pm at
The Pegasus Arms Christchurch
I have been involved with the NZ Skeptics on and off for almost half a century, and am currently on the committee. My talk is the result of a group effort with fellow committee members and input from those who attended my first two presentations in Wanaka and Invercargill. Of course NZ Skeptics do not necessarily officially agree with everything I have to say. I just hope I reflect reasonably well and in general how we think.
Skeptics are on a roll these days (see the slide from my show above). NB I am not claiming any kind of endorsement from Vicki or Siouxsie. I am pointing to them as great examples of what can be achieved a by good empathetic, patient and intelligent skeptics. I think they are both great role models. We can all try to be a bit more like them.
With the current rise of misinformation we now face increasing dangers from false beliefs in need of thorough debunking:
- vaccine resistance,
- talk of hoaxes and unlikely conspiracies about global warming, 5G, etc
- racism and misogyny
- violent radicalisation through dangerous ideologies. Our SIS director Rebecca Kitteridge recently (March 27 NZ Herald) warned that
“Extreme views and conspiracy theories…
can lead some people ‘down a rabbit hole’
Towards… violent views.”
We also need to avoid the doubling down and aggressive responses in talking with people with unsupported beliefs. I think we all have a cherished belief or two that is not true. That’s another reason why skeptics’ skills, experience, and expertise is now sorely needed. I present a number of tips for engaging with those benighted individuals who may harbour misinformed ideas.
I think two all too common myths about skeptics are:
1 That skeptics are too negative and cynical. Skeptics actually have a good sense of humour and are very positive and enthusiastic about the many wonderful things and knowledge we have based on good evidence.
2 Skeptics always doubt everything? We don't have a lot of confidence in things like quack medicines and scams because consider whether any claim is backed by evidence and reason. But we don't continually keep revising our views about things that have passed our tests until or unless some crucial new evidence or argument comes along.
So I do feel disappointed when I read loose expressions that are easily misinterpreted like:
“vaccine skeptics” – who have nothing in common with skeptics. Vaccines are something skeptics are enthusiastic about.
“climate deniers” – skeptics are concerned about global warming and agree with the IPCC’s findings. I personally just doesn’t like the poor illogical use of the term “denier” with the false implication that denying a claim is automatically wrong. Skeptics deny many things like: the idea the earth is flat. That doesn’t make us wrong.
Am I Talking Too Much?
- Viernes 26 March 2021 blog #19
Do men dominate conversations with women? Let’s just cut to the clear answer. It is yes; and to a significant degree. Mansplaining is not just a trendy new word. It is a common phenomenon. Stuff journalist Adam Dudding covered the evidence well back in 2017. In 1992 Janet Holmes at the University of Victoria published a paper reporting that New Zealand women are “ideal speaker-hearers”.
If you aren’t aware of just how serious this problem is, then you may need to have these terms explained to you:
Mansplaining: Men “explaining” an idea to a woman who got it ages ago.
Bropropriation: a man stealing a woman’s idea
Manspreading: easy enough to figure out what this means
Do you own simple research with this ap It can be used on your phone or computer and is very elegant and simple. It has two buttons. Dude and not a dude (speaking). It then adds up the total time for each. It assumes there is one male and one female, or an equal number; but of course even with say five women and two men, the dudes could still dominate.
If you are a big talker and prone to interrupting, it could be due to a lack of empathy. You can also test your empathy quotient her. Being empathetic may help you get more out of your conversations with anyone. You probably are not interested, but mine was 50 out of 80. I don't want to become any more empathetic, because I think I do too many unpaid voluntary things for others. Like this blog.
I am gathering feedback on this. If you have used the ap, please let me know your results and I can publish them here.
So, What to do about it?
Last year (2020), US researcher Joanna Wolfe claimed that a good strategy for men and women to use when they are being interrupted or ignored is what she calls, “positive future focus”. It involves starting with a positive statement (I think this is great to avoid triggering defences and then doubling down). Then, she suggests mentioning shared goals, and
"The person could say 'we could be having a better discussion. Let's take care not to interrupt or share thoughts until everyone has had a chance to speak."
It may also be practical to recognise that while it is rarer, some women can adopt aggressive communication styles, Erynn Brook writing in the Guardian (6 June 2018) uses the gender neutral terms: competition style and cooperation style. She sees a problem when,
“…if we have a person whose primary style is connection, speaking to a person whose primary style is competition, they may pass the mic and then never get it back. What we have, much of the time, is two vastly different communication styles colliding, which overwhelmingly favour competition style, because as long as someone in the equation sees talking longest and loudest as winning, the other person has no chance of connecting.”
A fix for that was described to me by a woman at my last Practical Psychology workshop. At a meeting, the chair could place a pen (or any marker) on the table. At regular short intervals, that pen moves to the next person who can then speak uninterrupted. She said she has seen it working well.
{…to be continued. If any publication would like me to do an in depth analysis, I am ready to go. I am about to workshop some of these ideas in my next Practical Psychology workshop in Auckland.}
Reiki and Poetic connections
- Freitag 19 March 2021 blog #18
I think poets are all a bit apophenic. They love to make all sorts of connections which do not have to be an accurate image of reality.
What is real, is that there are Reiki "healers" in New Zealand who offer distance healing. You send them some money, and they stay in their studio/therapy room and do Reiki. That involves using their hands to redirect mysterious energy flows.
So my poem is below. It had its first public reading last weekend at the Titirangi Poets group. Seemed to be very well received.
Nowhere Woman
You could be anyone
One of the ones who said.
“We all need to eat:
musicians, artists,…the royal families tell us too,
We all need to eat”,
They, someone,
I think you
Probably said
Something like that.
So you studied the way
The myriad ways
The arcane secrets
The ones I never understood
Of private enterprise
Of sizzling start-ups
It’s called business studies
So you started up
Built your boat
Like Team Emirates
The Kiwi dream team
So beautiful, so sleek, so fast
So clean a dream
It can race and win
I didn’t see you at the start line
Remote control Reiki
Drove your new boat
Like a cargo cult
You travel light
In the magic light
I see your money trails
Your boat is becalmed
You sing a lullaby
from a fantasy fable...
But the beautiful boat
drifts…in circles
You didn’t think of navigation...
You never had a destination…
But
“We all need to eat”.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DID YOU GET MY NAME?- Friday 12 March 2021 blog #17
So, what did you say your name was, again?
Except since she told me her name a couple of years ago, I’ve met and talked with her at least half a dozen times, and she is my neighbour. She has always used my name. What do I do now? And what should I have done in the first place? Does that sound kind of familiar? I’ve been there.
Memorising names is a topic I workshop in my Practical Psychology course. This is not a plug, btw, because I won’t be doing that unit on memory again for a while. Another question came up last night at the workshop. Why bother anyway? After all, you may never see the gas station attendant again.
So back to the beginning. When is it a good idea to ut in the time and effort to memorise someone’s name? I (and we at the workshop collectively) don’t see that it is worth memorising every name you come across. However during an extended maybe one-off conversation, you should be able to hold the name in your short term memory just by getting it right then using it a lot.
My answer to the why bother question last night was pretty poor. I appealed to self-interest. People will be more likely to do things for you and be more friendly and trusting when you use their names. Unless of course you overdo it insincerely, as some desperate and not so successful salespeople do sometimes.
It has more to do with social values for me, rather than the personal benefits. I wrote down most of the values I cherish. I found slightly more of them are social ones. Those that might lead you to memorising names could include:
- esprit de corps (the ability to work with others)
- humility (not using a name could seem arrogant)
- empathy (not being impersonal)
- kindness
- acceptance
- understanding
- patience
OK a few tips:
- Pay ATTENTION if you possibly can the first time you hear any name for the first time. It may turn put to be more important than you first thought. Repeat it, and even spell it out to be sure. If it is unfamiliar, make sure you pronounce it as accurately as you can.
- Repeat it several times straight away to keep it in your short term memory
- Use the name as much as you can do politely in your first conversation
- As soon as you decide you want to keep this one, store it effectively. First, decide if this person (say Brenda) looks like another Brenda you know or are familiar with (including celebrities). That may be enough. I even used a song in one case…”so…Desmond? As in Desmond wheels a barrow in a market place?…! That went down well, even though I was told later he hadn’t given me his real name (which was similar anyway, so I remember that too)
- Look carefully (but politely!) at the person’s appearance in detail. I love it when I meet a Glenda wearing glasses, or a Sandra or Sophie with curls (suggesting the S), a Mark with an obvious tattoo (I just made that one up), or Ted with a long nose and straight mouth, or a Dreadlock wearing Dion. I always try to make them positive, like Natalie who wore a dress with a nice pattern. She didn’t mind me saying I thought she was Nattily dressed, especially as I said this was how I was going to store her name in my memory. I won’t forget her name, either. Use your creativity!
- Write it down on a note in your phone. The human mind is not infallible! I have about 100. I usually write down how I stored the memory. That can help recognizing the person again. I read through the list when I am about to visit a city like Christchurch, or a particular group including my cousins, nieces and nephews and their children.. My lists are grouped accordingly.
- Add other connections and information as it arises. The story method can help make another storage location in your memory. For example, a poet called Sylvia would be easy to recall if you talk with her about Sylvia Plath…A friend of Fred’s called Freda will help remind you of her name. Yes, it does happen! An interesting conversation where say Dion or Stephen dissed music with seven beats in the bar, or Phyllis who loves horses told me what a filly is…that would be worth noting And my answer to the situation at the beginning? Humility is a virtue, and mea culpas and apologies are usually well received. Especially when the other person has made the same or a similar mistake sometime. (…=> !)*
- { * note I made up that one too. It means think on a little […],
- and you will conclude [=>]
MAGNESIUM SUPPLEMENTS - Friday 5 March 2021 blog #16
I saw someone buying magnesium tablets in the hope it would help her relax and sleep better. I don’t think the label on the tablets make such a strong therapeutic claim. But there was a smaller claim they could "help or assist" the body to relax. It is easy to assume they mean the tablets can sort your sleep problem from this. That might be just what the sellers do want you to think. If so, this is dishonest rhetoric. "Helps, supports, assists the body" are weasel words meaning,
"We have no evidence for our claims,
but please buy our product anyway."
When sellers of supplements make strong therapeutic claims, the Advertising Complaints Authority on receiving a complaint will ask for good evidence. Usually the sellers are unable to substantiate their claims and they are withdrawn. That's when the weasel words appear.
Like the other hundreds of substances we need to get in our diet, magnesium is used by our bodies in many interesting and useful ways to maintain our health.
So does that mean we should try taking magnesium if we are having problem sleeping?
It seems to me that first off, if it is serious and not just a result of some obvious temporary stress, then it might be a good idea to see your doctor.
I am not a doctor, but I have talked with some medical people, and my friends within the NZ Society for Science Based Healthcare about where to look for reliable advice on these matters.
The Medical School at Harvard University in the USA has a good reputation and has a special centre for giving general advice on medical matters. So I started with them…
“Dr. Bruce Bistrian, chief of clinical nutrition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, says magnesium deficiency in otherwise healthy individuals eating a balanced diet is rare. "The kidney has an extraordinary ability to reduce magnesium loss in urine, and thus achieve magnesium balance on a wide variety of intakes," he explains...
In [some] situations, magnesium supplements may be necessary, but taking too much can cause or worsen diarrhoea. People with chronic kidney disease should not take supplements unless prescribed by their doctor.
Magnesium supplements are sometimes marketed as "super-pills" that can fix a long list of ailments such as muscle tension, low energy, and trouble sleeping in people with adequate total body magnesium. The evidence to support the claims just isn't there.
If you're concerned about low magnesium, ask your doctor for a blood test. To maintain a healthy magnesium level, it's best to get this mineral from food, especially high fibre foods such as dark green leafy vegetables, unrefined grains, and beans. The recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of magnesium for adults is 420 milligrams (mg) per day.”
[Harvard Health 2021]
The National Health Service (NHS) in England is another good source
Their website echoes Harvard and says,
“You should be able to get all the magnesium you need by eating a varied and balanced diet.
If you take magnesium supplements, do not take too much as this could be harmful.”
I have this book (sold by Titirangi Library) it is excellent.
SPORTS SUPPLEMENTS by Anita Bean 2nd edition 2015
She rejects most supplements, but beetroot juice and probiotics may be of some use for athletes (not the rest of you).
Bush Remedies in Titirangi 22 January #15
- written late in 2020 after visiting the Titirangi Fair which is set up by and for the benefit of the local Rudolf Steiner school. I am grateful to Mike Bradstock for his suggestions. I pitched this story to half a dozen newspapers and magazines but received no replies.
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The Titirangi fair is not bad fare as far as fairs go. It is away from the road, and surrounded by Kauri and other native trees. The local town hall on the site provides a nice warm and dry food hall atmosphere that includes some excellent live music.
I decided to have a chat with a seller of a local Native tree version Bach Flower products (aka “remedies”) that were made from as I understand it, dew or water collected from the flowers of the NZ native trees mixed with brandy. I enjoy these conversations, and I try hard not to offend or annoy the sellers. I am just interested in the usually weird and wacky explanations of how they are supposed to work, and the strange epistemologies (ways of knowing) they use.
To begin, I was surprised to learn the founder of the flower products was a real medical doctor, Edward Bach, who also used homeopathic products (founded by another real doctor) in England back in the 1930s.
The seller of Bach flower products (let’s call him Bruce – uncharacteristically for me, I neglected to get his name) agreed to give me his explanation of what the product was and how it was supposed to work.
His first point was that we all have a physical and spiritual being. We all give off an aura, he said from our spirit. I asked him how he knew about auras, and his answer was that they show up in Kirlian photography. Just how a halo effect in a photo proves anything about auras is beyond me, as it is obtained by exposing the photographic plate to high voltage electricity. I have a philosophical problem with claimed interactions between non-material and spirit non-material things. A model of something we can’t see (like black holes, the Higgs boson, or tiny viruses) is dependent of special observations (looking at the virus under a microscope) or sensible (as distinct from far fetched Kirlian) deductions from things we can see or measure.
So I told Bruce I am an atheist in regard to his spirit world; meaning I am yet to be convinced it exists; and I don’t see the need to bring spirits into any models of the universe. I like Occam’s razor…
Bruce didn’t like my stance at all. It seemed any sale he might make to me depended on the spirit thing. I suggested we assume the spirit world idea to be true and see where it leads us. He didn’t much like that (I thought generous and reasonable) suggestion either.
This took us down some strange paths and what felt like rabbit holes. Every emotion has a vibrational frequency, he told me. He knew and quoted the 5G one. So I asked about the frequency of anger. His frustration with me grew, as he said I was ignorant, and needed to do some study on the topic. But he still couldn't answer the question. It seems the product he was selling is made from mixing dew or water that has been sitting on native tree flowers, mixed with brandy.
Bruce told me our emotions are responsible for our physical health. My aura could be out of balance, and contain some bad (5G like) vibrations. Taking the appropriate Bach product could reset my balance. This would lead to me feeling calmer and more and positive, which should result in better physical health. So he was probably touting a curative and preventative medicine. However, he would not name any condition that his product could either prevent or cure.
Some people find my skeptical approach and curiosity about everything irritation. When I asked Bruce for more detail on exactly how the vibrations of the product cancel out the bad vibrations from my aura, he became very anxious and he walked off, abandoning his stall.
At that point, regrettably, I quietly suggested to him that he might like to consider one of his own products to counteract his agitation. I didn’t share his upset, and remembered I was supposed to be buying some lunch for myself and my wife. I went on to have a nice conversation in Spanish with the Mexican woman who most cheerfully sold me an empanada. By that time, Cathy had given up on me and had settled in to listen to the singer guitarist in the hall with warm food and a hot cup of tea (it had been raining outside wherew I had been). A much better idea!
Postscript:
I looked up the Bach flower “remedies”
I think Bruce needed the Matai flower Bach “remedy” because it deals with
“Reactive emotional responses” and replaces them via the sacral chakra adjustment with
“Emotional balance, flexibility and…ease”
I think I was probably in need of some of the Maire product to tone down my
“too much talking…[and] unkind speech” and via the throat chakra teach me to
“know when to speak, and when to be silent”
See these websites:
Science Based Medicine site on Bach Flower Remedy. Do Bach Flower products have any use apart from as a form of entertainment? You be the well-informed judge!
Skeptics dictionary Kirlian photography
First Light Flower Essences of New Zealand. The business has a Titirangi Post Office box number.
ASA Advertising Standards Authority
- Therapeutic and Health advertising code
- How to Complain
Flowers...https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/bach-flower-remedies/
feedback please....send to
[email protected]
FEEDBACK
-none as at 23 Jan 2021. That means I will post the first non-abusive feedback I receive here. Being the first ever, I will appreciate the acknowledgement no matter how ill conceived it may seem to me.
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self-esteem update - the benefits for many in lowering it
4 March 2021 V3.0 update 26 March #14
NB a fuller version of this is to be found by clicking onto my Practical Psychology tab.
What level of self-esteem do you think chauvinists, racists, con-artists, criminals, and psychopaths might have? The research has been done (references below) and the answer is...well consider
John Banks who was probably removed permanently in Jan 2021 from Magic Talk radio for making racist comments. Banks said, "I am not racist..." and had earlier called his show "truth radio" . Banks seems to think he is the media messiah, "The ‘left’ media control New Zealand thinking. When you’re tuned to Magic Talk Mornings and I’m filling in, it’s Truth Radio. It’s factual, it’s very educational and it’s unbiased,” he said. [Colin Peacock National Radio Jan 2021]
Tennis player Novak Djokovic made what seem to me to be over-entitled arrogant complaints about quarantine in Australia. A sports psychologist calls this the pedestal syndrome, which I think rightly points to our over-indulgence of celebrities who then begin to live in their own over-privileged, indulgent, unreal bubble.
...and Eric Watson has shown little desire to repay his creditors, and yet he still seems to have a lavish entitled lifestyle. He seems to me to have thought "this is not happening" when he was led away to his prison cell in handcuffs.
I do not advocate having low self-esteem. Those people are humble, do not offend anyone, are usually very likeable and non-threatening, and don't expect much from the world. But they are also prone to depression and being bullied. The depression may be due to having a more accurate view of the world than the rest of us.
What most people seem to fail to recognise, however, is the epidemic of thinking too much of ourselves (see the references below and the book, The Narcissism Epidemic for example). Surveys of driving skills and many more useful skills show that the vast majority of us think we are a lot better than average. Do the maths! Check out the Dunning-Kruger effect. Yes, narcissism does relate to high self-esteem. Sorry. There are many popular misconceptions like this. Another is the styles of learning idea; but let's stick to self-esteem.
I practice two things that have lowered my self-esteem and made my life so much better.
- Making and later reading notes of my mistakes, and
- Thinking about people to whom I feel grateful. That leads me to thanking people. I should do that more often...
(and taking more seriously what trusted family and friends tell me.)
So if you are like me, and tend towards thinking a little too much of yourself, and that you are entitled to all sorts of things that you are not entitled to (like parking without paying), here are the many benefits of bringing your self-esteem level back down to a safer moderate setting.
This list may even be of help to those rare individuals with abnormally low self-esteem. That is because this list is a description of a sensible moderate level, not a low one. And those with low self-esteem need to know what they are up against...
I am assuming you value having a cooperative society and things like: empathy, honesty, humility, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding, responsibility, fairness, equality, trustworthiness, and patience...so bear with me...
If you can ensure your self-esteem levels are moderate or even slightly lower than that, I think you will be likely to experience these twenty benefits:
1. OTHERS WILL APPRECIATE YOU. Because you will now have more room to esteem other people, and have better manners towards them.
2. FEWER FINES That lowered sense of entitlement means you will commit fewer misdemeanours and crimes like parking and traffic offences.
3. TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. This always feels grown-up because it is. Accepting our mistakes is easier when you have less to lose from being wrong.
4. KNOWLEDGE Because moderated self-esteem allows you to realise that even in the areas of life where you have achieved much through talent and hard work, you know there is still a lot more to learn.
5. MORE TRUST Others will trust you more. That always feels nice, because you feel useful in the world and genuinely valued. When you value the opinions of qualified experts, this leaves less room for your own less well-qualified opinions.
6. SAFETY You will become less inclined to take extreme and foolish risks because you will be more aware of your own limits. The research by Dr Nicholas Emler for the Rountree Foundation showed high levels of car smashes, drug taking and unwanted pregnancies amongst youth with high self-esteem scores.
7. REAL HOPE rather than false hope will guide you better to make more realistic plans and goals; and so avoid the disappointments that result from failing to reach unrealistic goals. That means less disappointment.
8. BETTER PERFORMANCES You are likely to raise your own performances because you will be more aware of your mistakes; thereby being more likely to correct them. You will listen to experts who criticise you.
9. PEACE OF MIND You won’t try to do too much every day then fail. So...more chilled you. You won't be so inclined to keep banging your head against brick walls, like those with very high self esteem. Reality won't suddenly and unexpectedly bit into your fantasy world. That's because you will be more able to doubt yourself, and have less to lose if your cherished plan turns out to be plain wrong or even stupid.
10. REALITY AWARENESS will improve because you now have a realistic view of yourself. You can now escape from callow fantasies to reality. That’s a much saner and safer place to live. As they say at the start of every Skeptics Guide To The Universe, this might be "Your escape to...reality!" Isn't it nice to know the difference between fantasy and reality in general for its own sake? Surely, you would like to know how the world really works, and how best to guess how others may behave. People who have completely lost touch are truly psychotic.
11 FEWER FALLS into GULLIBILITY TRAPS We know that inflated self-esteem involves delusions about one’s real importance, status and abilities; and a blindness to one’s own errors.
12 LESS idiotic CONFABULATION. It is nice not to be too often making a dick of yourself. Remember Trump's confabulation about injecting yourself with bleach? That could kill you.
13 PUNCTUALITY You should make appointments more often because you will allow more time to get to places, allowing for your taking wrong turnings, unforeseen events (I can’t tell you what they are as I am not prescient)…
14. FEWER MISTAKES when SUPERPOWER FREE No, you probably don’t have superpowers like: Superman, Superwoman, Draupadi (Indian female hero), James Bond, Psychics with their ESP powers: telepathy, fortune telling (aka precognition), astral projection, telekinesis, etc. So you will make fewer mistakes when you bear that in mind, and be guided by real world information...It works better than the “spirit world” for real things.
15 TEAM BENEFITS You will join teams that are socially useful and work better with others. This is as a result of valuing others. So groups that exploit others like KKK, Trump supporters, and QAnon will be shunned. Within your group, you will gain more cooperation from other members.
16. SATISFACTION through knowing your limits and the sacrifices neede to achieve some things like becoming a doctor. You will not subscribe to the dangerous notion that more is always better; so will be also skeptical that having extreme amounts of: will-power, resilience, emotional intelligence, etc can also lead to error..
17. OTHERS CAUSE YOU LESS GRIEF. It is unpleasant when other people continually upset you. This is most likely because you are too easily offended. Being easily offended is usually the result of excessive self-esteem. When high self-esteem is threatened, offended people tend to become aggressive and create even more grief. When very high self-esteemers go into battle aggressively or literally get into a fight; they often take on battles against stronger opponents (thinking falsely they themselves are better), so they lose. Even more grief!
18. MORE SELF CONTROL and willpower, as you might move your focus sideways away from what a wonderful person you think you are to more useful attributes. Not only self-control (higher self-esteemers have less) and willpower, but other virtues like recognising human rights and self-respect. Most of these traits can be useful in countering bullying and dealing with totalitarian liars like Donald Trump and his mob.
19. DEEP SATISFACTION is preferable to the lollypop temporary high from high self-esteem. Nobel Prize-winner Daniel Kahneman and his close collaborator Amos Tversky have written much about this. I have read many of their books, and even have a book about them. If you'd like to know more, I suggest you read one of them.
20. HAPPINESS WITH LIFE The whole WORLD will seem like a place where many others are doing their best to make it a great place for all. But because you are not extreme in that view, you will also exercise judicious caution when you meet a narcissistic psychopath like Donald Trump. So you will live in a real that can be absolutely wonderful and affirming; but as I say with some sensible cautions and care.
REFERENCES
Baumeister, R.F. (2001) Violent Pride Scientific American April issue
Baumeister, R.F. et al (2003) Does high self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success,
happiness, or healthier lifestyles? Psychological Science In The Public Interest 4 1-44.
Baumeister, R.F. et al (2005) Exploding the Self-Esteem Myth Scientific American January issue.
ARTICLES in the media (mostly by journalists)
Dalrymple, Theodore (a nome de plume) (1999) Psychobabble that shields the seriously selfish
New Statesman Monday 16th August
Theodore Dalrymple is probably best known for his weekly columns in The Spectator and his essays in the American quarterly City Journal. He is a psychiatric doctor working in an inner city area in Britain where he is attached to a large hospital and a prison. His columns report on the lifestyles and ways of thinking of Britain’s growing underclass, and in his latest book, Life at the Bottom.
Greenberg, Paul (2007) Down With Self-Esteem. Posted on townhall.com Monday, February 05, 2007. Greenberg appears to be a newspaper columnist. This may have been originally published in the Washington Times.
Hanscomb, David (2020) see Psychology Today online Jan 17
Milstone Carol (1999) "When Bad Kids Think They're Great." National Post, (Canada) 23, March
Salerno, Steve (2006) Self-help's big lie. Published in the L.A. Times January 1 and available online (there is a link on the Illinois loop site).
BOOKS
Emler Nicholas (2001) book published based on his research for the Rountree Foundation
Sanchez-Jankowski, Martin a Sociology professor spent 10 years living with various gangs. He reports this in his book, Islands in the Street: Gangs and American Urban Society (1991). He, like many other researchers, tried and failed to find any sign of a soft inner core among violent people
Twenge, Jean (2006) The Narcissism Epidemic
FEEDBACK
You can help make this free post better. I do not mind bering corrected provided it is by evidence and logic.
please send any comments and corrections to: to [email protected]
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Whitebaiters #13
My email sent on 24 Feb...
The president,
NZ Fish and Game,
I suggest you sanction one of your councillors (Ken Cochrane) for his sexist comment about scientists.
Furthermore, the reports I have seen on this whitebaiting issue suggest your organisation, might benefit from
the application of a reliable epistemology.
If you reject science, then on what do you base the apparent assertion that there is no need for serious and significant restrictions on whitebaiting?
The religion of whitebaiting? Does your holy text assert that whitebaiting is a sacred ritual that must never be questioned? Do you rely on faith? A famous modern philosophy professor Peter Boghossian thinks that faith can be defined well as “pretending to know things you don’t”. [The Manual for Creating Atheists 2013]
It seems to be you are simply tangling yourselves up in your own whitebait nets.
And in the process alienating your beautiful region from the rest of NZ.
#12 dealing with silly beliefs pt 1 "It worked for me"
This is a copy of a post I made in reply to a supportive doctor after a Newstalk ZB radio interview I gave following up on my North and South piece on funding for a Homeopathy College was published in Feb issue of North and South. I figured others may be interested. See also the Silly Beliefs website which has some interesting similar things to say on the topic. Link to that here. Also you can check Daniel Kahneman's book Thinking fast and slow. I have read several of his books and research papers.
I do worry when I try to get these things across. For example I wish I'd talked more about "It works for me" I wasn't on air but listened to the talkback section where this came up and was pretty much unchallenged my the hosts.
However (as my daughter had advised me just beforehand - and I do listen to her, and my wife) that point about not abandoning real medicine did get out there. Simon, the Christian, said he thinks God gave us useful doctors. Not sure as an atheist if I want to encourage that idea, but it definitely has a lot more merit than the hostility of many homeopaths towards "allopathic" medicine.
I am still thinking about and discussing that "it works for me" idea. i.e.
- is this a good approach to things like plumbing? I replaced sections of broken mains water pipes three times on our old property. I am well below average as a plumber. But I only had to make a basic mistake once, linking the new pipe in, and having to dig it all up again. Once I followed the right procedure, it worked for me! Got me thinking about the differences between plumbing and medicine.
I want to learn more on what biases are in play with belief in useless remedies?
- Positivity bias (forgetting failures),
- misuse of fast system I thinking?
- I am thinking of doing some preliminary research to see if those most resistant to reconsidering silly beliefs have inflated self-esteem and a high latency between being obviously wrong and admitting they were wrong. I am thinking of devising a cunning psychology expt where the subjects don't know what I am testing...
How does one best put across the difference between big data and anecdote? I think personal stories or even anecdotes are very good as explanatory devices (not proof!!)
Visual things stick in our memories better. I have used the history of bloodletting as a cautionary tale, and still will bring it up, but people often don't get it. They think it proves doctors don't know what they are doing. (wrong verb!!! didn't it should be, and of course the truth is always complicated) It is tricky...
I always want woo enthusiasts (and religious people) to know I understand how they feel; I have the same experiences. But slow logical and evidence based thinking leads me to better epistemological reliability and thus to a better life....
#11 me too Jan 2019
There is a very good column in today's Dompost by Verity Johnson on this. She has discovered that some women make false accusations. About time we cleared up the Peter Ellis case, isn't it? You can lobby your MP to have him pardoned if the Supreme Court abandons the case. Three short thoughts:
1 By acknowledging that sometimes false accusations are made (for any crime, too) we can engender more confidence in our justice system. Not admitting mistakes is a Russian totalitarian approach, isn't it?
2 of course many men are bastards. I want as many as possible to be challenged and prosecuted. But remember, an accusation is nit a conviction, and while we all want the guilty to be found out, we can't be too sure they are until due process has been observed.
3 so bearing that in mind, let's hold off a wee bit on Weinstein. He hasn't stood trial, yet. The preliminary hearing is only just taking place. Given what I have read, I'd say he is very likely to be found guilty. In NZ we have the presumption if innocence and frown on trial by media. Public comment is not allowed under sub judice rules for good reason. We are of course legally (but perhaps not morally) free to comment on a US case...It feels to me that Weinstein is about to die, and was found guilty long ago. But I don't like kangaroo courts or lynch mobs even for horrible people.
Here is what the Washington Post found last year...Very similar to what my research revealed here in NZ.
#10 E Scooters Jan 2019
Update May 2021. ACC is now spending $7.5million a year on patching up e-scooter injuries. Can't we live without them? I've never used one.
I heard today on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe (your escape to reality) podcast that there are a lot of head injuries with e scooters. Worse than bikes. I suggest you ask your MP to push forward legislation to make helmets compulsory. We are paying a lot of money as tax payers on hospital bills and lost productivity.
#9 PROLIX Nov 2019
I will make this into an original meme. Still editing it.
( I noticed I had trouble remembering the difference between epenthesis and pleonasm (both useful words about words)...
It goes something like this...
...Why would you use an awful lot of unnecessary words (or syllables) to explain something when only a few words would suffice? And instead of all these words, I could use just one concise, terse or even curt word (without descending into brachylogy) to describe what I mean...Just one word, like: prolix, epenthesis, or pleonasm or verbose.
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#8 'Ia' (he/she) is better than 'they'
Useful Māori kupu (words)
I delight in languages. So I enjoyed the article by Thomas Manch, The Māori words that English Misses (Dominion Post 10 September).
I use an English word borrowed from Latin, mumpsimus, with an interesting back story. Mumpsimus means the same as pōhēhē, so it is nice to have another local option to describe obstinate idiots who cannot be corrected.
I have been regularly using a Mâori word in my English writing and speech alluded to by Manch. I find it the most useful word I have ever found to solve an ambiguity in English. I am often confused when I read of them driving a car, or they having robbed someone on the street. More confusingly, I saw a report about a schoolteacher and ia's class who may not have been vaccinated. "They may have been contagious" could have referred to the children or the teacher. I never found out. Had the reporter said, "Ia may have been contagious" I would have known.
A second reason to use 'ia' may occur in the above examples. We simply didn't get a good look at the driver or mugger, so we don't know whether it was a he or she.
A third useful situation for using 'ia' is when the person being referred to does not want to be identified or simply does not identify with either gender or sex. In Sweden, they invented a new word 'hen' which translates perfectly as 'ia' for this purpose. I understand it spread to other Scandinavian countries. I don't think it works too well in English!
Fourthly, I may know the sex or gender of someone, but still do not want to reveal it. I guess this is similar to how Ms does not reveal the marital status of a woman. And perhaps fifthly and confusingly for me, anyway, I am told sex is very different from gender. The two sometimes do not correlate. One can cause offence unwittingly it seems to me; so by using 'ia' judiciously, some (but probably not all) of this kind of offence might be avoided...
So I think 'ia' may catch on if some other people promote the idea.
I use it anyway in both speech and writing. I add (he/she) the first time I use it. My friends no longer need the translation as it does catch on quickly.
We already borrow directly from scores of languages. I don’t think English is really a language, as estimates of loan words in English are as high as 80per cent! Here are some:
ballet (French)
avatar (Sanskrit)
hoi Polloi (Greek)
khaki (Persian)
mosquito (Spanish)
doppelgänger (German)
aroha (Māori)
Postscript
The late journalist Frank Haden wrestled I think unsuccessfully with the problem of 'their' being ambiguous. I asked a well-known columnist what he thinks (July 2022). He felt ok with 'ia', although he was not confident it will catch on.
A solution some use in their writing is to use she for a page then change it to he for the next page, and so on.
#7 Fake fronts for fake facts Sept 2019
The next time you read a piece by someone from an organisation that sounds like a legitimate scientific research group, just check it out if you are not sure who they are.
International Life Sciences Institute X according to the New York Times (18 Sept 2019) this group are "almost entirely funded by Goliaths of the agribusiness, food and pharmaceutical industries...[and] championed tobacco interests during the 1980s and 1990s in Europe and the United States..."
There are many more...I will add to this list...do you know any?
Let me know [email protected]
#6 Mentalese Aug 2019
This is a very abridged version of the article I am in the process of submitting for publication. If you would like a copy of the full article, I can email you ac copy. The question here is: how does thought originate in our brains? I look at evidence that there is a fundamental process of thought, where are ideas are generated independently of language. Psychology professor Steven Pinker calls this primeval language of thought mentalese. It seems we think first in images and feelings (or an unfathomable perhaps ineffable process) that are then somehow then translated into words. We obtain glimpses of this process in dreams, during the hypnagogic transition between sleep and wakefulness, and a number of other situations.
#5 PETER ELLIS July 2019
I am so sad to hear about what is going on...I feel so disappointed for Peter.
I wrote a book on the evidence from the scientific viewpoint of someone qualified and experienced as a teacher, social worker and psychologist. I was ably assisted by my friend Richard Christie who is an excellent editor.
Phil Goff, various MPs and some key Ministry of Justice officials refused to read this. Most also refused to read Lynley Hood's epic and authoritative book on the case.
There is really no need left now for debate on what the science says.
Read for yourself here (my Book)
or see A CITY Possessed by Lynley Hood. Your library will have a copy
#4 AM I A PAKEHA? June 2019
This one needs more references and if I receive any feedback I might improve the content.
Most of my grandparents (and probably half of my great grandparents) were born in NZ. Before that, as far as I can tell, most were English or Scottish. I am very comfortable with calling myself pakeha; also Ukranian or Caucasian (see my second blog entitled MY CRACKPOT THEORY)
I speak Māori and I haven’t heard Pākeha being used by any of my Māori friends and acquaintances in a derogatory mood. The only people I have seen take offense at Pakeha, are those with a slightly racist and right wing bent. If that is the usual trend, I wonder why that is so.
Pākeha I argue is useful because it makes clear you are of European (and probably mostly English) descent and you live in NZ, as probably did your parents. Nothing is perfectly precise, but for me it does well. Any term can be used in a derogatory manner, but I don’t think Pakeha is a derogatory word.
European seems a little weird for me because my family have been here son long. As I say in my song, Song of a Pakeha, “We left mother England so long ago, I am an Islander, a Pakeha now…” Pakeha are Pacific Islanders.
Taonui *(2019) suggests…
“Inspired by historian Michael King, Pākehā changed in meaning from ‘New Zealanders of European descent’ to ‘all non-Māori New Zealanders’. This is now reversing, as new ethnic groups assert stronger identities.”
Māori seem to have come here from other places, probably originating in Taiwan. English from various European places including around the Caucasion mountains.
References
NEW SCIENTIST 10 March 2019 Describes how theoriginal Britons pretty much died out to be replaced largely by invaders from the Caucasian region.
RAWIRI TAONUI 9May 2019 Stuff opinion
ON BEING PAKEHA Stephen Kin
#3 WHERE ARE YOU FROM? May 2019
Sometimes you can get into unnecessary trouble when you ask a stranger, “Where are you from?” I can’t remember getting into such difficulties myself, but here is a good starting point for thinking about this issue..it is only two minutes long and I think quite funny…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crAv5ttax2I
So, maybe this guy’s main (and first) mistake was simply to give insufficient weight to the lack of accent of the woman he met? That was always my take on the point to this sketch. The way she spoke told him she was American. Of course what may be driving this could be a racist alt right kind of attitude.
So would he have been better to ask where she lives now; and/or where did she spend most of her childhood…Might he have struck up a better conversation that way?
So what about the opposite situation? i.e. she looked American, but spoke with a strong foreign accent?
Personally, I really enjoy speaking to people from other cultures, especially if I can talk with them in Spanish, Italian, Máori, or (a little in) German, French or Greek.
So my response with them is to ask, “hablas Español? , “Parla Italiano?” or “Kia kōrero a koe i te reo Māori?
Especially if I am talking with a Māori, if I ask “Where are you from?” I would mean (or add), “your turanga waewae?” to Iwi? Maunga? Te wai?
But we could be talking with someone who is one of us as Jacinda Ardern might say. Someone with a strong foreign accent, but is a NZ citizen, identifies strongly with NZ and could have been living here for 20 years. Like a very interesting and well-informed intelligent originally German Kiwi man I very recently met. After we had been talking for a bit, I asked him, “Bist du aus Deutschland?” I was pretty sure I was richtig, so no problem, we went on to a discussion of flugscham and other interesting German concepts…
NEW PARAGRAPH (Jan 2021)
Or, as I didn't discover until 2021, someone with a strong foreign accent may still have been born here. The accent could come from family and friends. I met a women whose family are from Goa in India, but who speaks little Hindi herself. Although she was born in Goa, there her family mostly spoke in English. Had she been born here, her accent would have I think been the same. I was interested to learn just after that of how the Oxford dictionary of English has just added a number of Hindi words that are very commonly used in England. Words do not respect national boundaries. Neither sometimes do accents. There may be more Indians speaking English than English speaking english...
But I occasionally get it wrong and the reply to “Parla Italiano” is “What? Sorry, no…” So far those conversations have also gone well, maybe because I then admit I am not as good as I thought at picking accents, and so we go on to discussing life in Poland or Romania because I am interested.
The only new arrivals from overseas whom I have found who don’t like discussing their homeland so far are from Syria (I often go to a barber in Newtown where the person cutting my hair always seems to be from Syria). That might also apply to refugees from Saudi Arabia. One very recent female refugee seems to have escaped from a frightful family by any standards of decency. Given what happened to Khashoggi, I would now also be very cautious discussing life back home with a Saudi...
I think the key here is treating others with respect and genuine interest.
I think I can probably improve some of my questions a little. I’m interested to hear some others’ take and experience with this…
My family are (in most branches) third to fifth generation Kiwis; but I have recently discovered my English and Scottish ancestors probably mostly hailed from near the Caucasian mountains after the original Britons suffered a massive plague or were killed. So I sometimes call myself an ethnic Ukranian (see blog #2)…
And if I get it wrong somehow, I remember what Renee Taylor said in her blog (April 10 2019)
"...Some people don’t know how to apologise, or what an apology means. They say things like, ‘If anything I said caused offence then that was not my intention.’
What a cop-out.
What should have been said was, ‘I’m sorry I used that expression, those words, that threat. I was wrong and I apologise. I won’t do it again. I hope you’ll forgive me.’"
I like that. Thank you Renee. He whakaaro nui koe.
Blog #2 My Crackpot Hypotheses March 2019
- no 1 are English people Latin?
I have long maintained we all have cherished beliefs and memories of things that do not dwell in the real world. Reality trucks along following its own course, caring nothng at all about our fond fancies about reality.
Our false beliefs are perhaps just less extreme forms of overvalued ideas that are said to drive the crazed behaviour of terrorists, crackpot politicians and tyrannical despots. I think usually our good moral values will constrain our most idiotic ideas before they become so over=valued we cannot give them up..
…or a discussion with an honest friend may help knock a silly idea on the head. The other day, I went to the Kelburn Village pub to watch a friend perform with his band of brothers. I had often played there before myself a few years ago. So I asked if they had managed to source some beer from Kelburn in Scotland, as the owner was (or had been) Scottish and the suburb of Kelburn was named after Kelburn in Scotland. But it turned out the barmaid was English, and the Scottish owner had left some time back.
I regard the people of any country as being a mixture of their ethnic and cultural roots. Here in NZ we most certainly have Polynesian, English and Celtic blood along with some Chinese, South American and many other nationalities in the mix. Stats NZ has more detail if anyone is interested.
But I digress, so back to the English barmaid at the pub…I used to cherish the notion that my mostly English heritage included quite a bit of Latin blood. We have a family story about a sea captain ancestor and a Portuguese barmaid. I have always liked that story, despite there being no evidence for it. Because I love speaking Spanish and performing Latin music with friends from South America, I feel a special affinity to that story, because my Pakeha ancestry is mostly English.
So I suggested to the barmaid that she may have Latin blood, being English. Maybe, she was from Cornwall and some Spanish sailor washed up there from the Spanish Armada, or some Spanish smugglers settled there?
Or, maybe back when Britannia was part of the Roman Empire some Italian blood crept in? Or French after the Norman invasion?
I was taken aback to discover that not only did the barmaid categorically deny this, but she did not seem to share my interest in Latin culture and origins.
I sat down with my English beer, while the Prowse Brothers Band sang a very catchy song they had written about the virtues of ordinary Kiwi beer such as Lion Brown...
I shared the above encounter and theories with a friend. He also surprised me with his comment (for which I took no offence).
“Jonathon”, he said, looking at my phone, “That theory is as cracked as your phone!”. And because he wasn’t feeling well (and perhaps was not feeling partial to discussing crackpot ideas in those circumstances), he promptly walked out of the pub.
So I checked it out on my cracked phone. I was quite quite wrong...The French people are not really Latin although the language is, and England was settled first by Celts from across the channel, then the Germanic Anglo-Saxons. I couldn’t find any evidence for any Latin blood…In fact after reading a current edition of New Scientist I now like to inform people that most of my heritage both cultural and genetic may be Ukranian…or at least originating near or in the Caucasian mountains near or in where Ukraine is situated today….and maybe a little Norse or Scandinavian, even a tiny bit Arab and African.
But not Latin.
REFERENCES
The Tribe That Rewrote History Colin Barras New Scientist March 2019 no3223. cover story
Lone Wolf Killers: A Perspective on Overvalued Ideas Matthew H. Logan Ph.D. Violence and Gender. December 2014, 1(4): 159-160
Blog #1 CHIROPRACTIC March 2019
Chiropractic Treatment Summary
research compiled by Jonathon Harper (M.A. Dip Tchg) Version 1.1 updated on 13 Mar 2019
e-mail: [email protected]
If you come across any new reliable information, please let me know.
In the year 2000 a doctor in Newport, England was driven out of her home by a benighted vigilante group who thought her medical specialist title meant she liked to sexually abuse children.
So it just might pay to be able to recognise real medical specialist disciplines that require about a decade (at least) of serious study: reading endless long scientific text-books attending hundreds of university lectures and workshops and passing many difficult written and practical exams.
Can you distinguish the real specialist doctors in this list? Test yourself with a pen and paper before you look up the answers at the bottom of the page.
Naturopath, homeopath, oncologist, pathologist, neurologist, gastro-enterologist, acupuncturist, chiropractor, osteopath, orthopaedic surgeon. (I need to add to this list!)
So if you are considering taking an alternative to scientific medicine, why not first consider a new as yet unproven treatment within the medical profession? What other alternatives are there? A thousand years ago, there were plenty of ideas abut what worked. Drilling holes in skulls (perhaps to release evil spirits), bloodletting (that must have killed millions), and a few sensible ideas like exercise and avoiding over-eating. Since those days, all the ideas have been thoroughly tested by scientists using double blind experiments to avoid biases like the powerful bias we all have towards distorting our sensations and especially perceptions to see what we expect, and then to ignore evidence that proves our cherished beliefs wrong.
Do you wish to use and pay for treatments that have consistently failed those tests over hundreds of years of testing?
Would you agree that bloodletting is essential to provide a balance of the humours in your body? What of other equally ridiculous claims by other non-medical practitioners?
Would you take a small risk of serious or even minor side effects for a “treatment” that is unlikely to provide any improvement?
If an increase in ice-block consumption correlates perfectly with drownings at beaches (it often does); would you avoid buying an ice block to be safe in the water? Uh-huh! Correlation does not prove causation! So if you got better just after a bloodletting, would you say the bloodletting cured you? And “It worked for me!”?
So! Would you rather then that a “treatment” is tested on a lot of people, has a plausible theory as to how it works, and is tested many times by different teams of properly trained scientists?
So bearing all that in mind, let’s have a look at Chiropractic.
Is it a medical discipline?
…well no. It is not taught as a therapy in any reputable medical school. It may be mentioned (negatively) in a course on the history of medicine.
Scientific double blind studies?
…A real Doctor, Simon Singh claimed, “There is not a jot of evidence Chiropractic works.”
Rather than provide such evidence, he was sued by a group of Chiropractors in England. He won the case. Chiropractic therapy has very little proven effectiveness beyond the placebo effect.
Controlled studies have shown the only effectiveness of Chiropractic is for lower back pain (NZ Medical Journal April 2010) – not the myriad of other conditions “treated” by chiropractors (Singh and Ernst 2008). The very small effect for some back problems could be no more than a chance effect, and of less therapeutic value than random manipulations or exercises.
What about the theory behind it?
Chiropractors generally follow the “teachings” of the founder David Palmer who was born in Ontario in 1845, and came to Iowa in the U.S. He became a grocer and beekeeper with an interest in ‘magnetic healing’ and spiritualism, who called himself ‘Doctor’ despite a lack of any medical education. The idea of Chiropractic came to him as ‘received wisdom’ at a séance in 1885. Chiropractic is one of a number of strange fringe belief systems that originated in the U.S. including: the Mormon religion (they have no black ministers and believe the Indians came from Israel), Christian Science, craniosacral manipulation and applied kinesiology. Bloodletting was mainstream at the time of Palmer’s birth and killed hundreds of thousands of patients.
Palmer believed in a mysterious life energy he called “innate intelligence” despite having no evidence that it even exists. Do real doctors speak about “flows of “innate intelligence” forces within the body? Palmer claimed a blockage of this energy system causes disease.
Different chiropractors do not even agree on what vertebrae have “subluxations” (see Singh and Ernst 2008).
Chiropractors lack of medical knowledge is shown in the fact that many are anti-vaccination.
…and worse as a 2016 report in Forbes here on an official Chiropractors International conference shows.
What about side effects?
The risk may be very small, but it is a big risk…Neck manipulations can lead to stroke (Singh and Ernst 2008 pages 172 -178; Stanford University Stroke Center study 1992).
Kristi Bedenbaugh, a former beauty queen from Little Mountain, South Carolina was proven to have been killed by a chiropractor’s neck manipulation.
Chiropractors use X-rays, which do carry a small risk of causing cancer. Do the proven benefits outweigh this risk?
BOOKS
Singh and Ernst 2008 Trick or Treatment. It is worth noting that one of the authors had been a practitioner and teacher of “alternative” medicine.
Ben Goldacre 2008 Bad Science published by Fourth Estate. Goldacre is a senior medical doctor in England.
GOOD TO GOOGLE
Quackwatch Chiropractors “One patient proven to have been killed by neck manipulation was Kristi A. Bedenbaugh, a medical office administrator and former beauty queen from Little Mountain, South Carolina…
BBC News Chiropractic ”Back treatment 'has few benefits…libel case dropped against Simon Singh…”
Science based medicine chiropractor breaks baby’s neck…2013
ANSWERS to the quizz
REAL Doctors: oncologist (cancer specialist), pathologist, neurologist, gastroenterologist, orthopaedic surgeon (bone specialist).
QUACKS (no proper medical training): Naturopath, homeopath,acupuncturist, chiropractor,
SOMEWHERE IN-BETWEEN osteopaths start off with an ordinary science degree, but then enter their own training establishments outside ordinary medicine. However their training does now include a lot of standard medicine.
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