On Racism and White Privilege

[Johnathan Clayborn]

I will preface this by saying that this one is going to be rather long, because I'm pretty worked up about this issue, but it should be worth the read.

Just yesterday I was discussing the recent bouts of protests in Baltimore, Maryland that were sparked by the tragic death of young Freddie Gray while he was in police custody. Some ignorant, narrow minded racist actually had the nerve to sit there and call me racist, which was met with applause by his group-think companions. Even though this person did not know me, and was clearly incapable of grasping any of my comments with any ounce of understanding or comprehension, this still bothered me, so much so that I swore off even commenting about politics or religion or equality on Facebook.

To any of my friends who know me personally, they recognize that there's not a racist bone in my body. I may be a great many things; I may be naive at times, I may be idealistic, I may be a hopeful dreamer of a Utopian future that will likely never come, and I am definitely overly analytical and highly logical in my thoughts, but I'm not racist.

So why was I called a racist? Because I actually proposed that people be treated equally and fairly and that the color of your skin should not, under any circumstances, play a factor in deciding who is awarded benefits or opportunities. I stated that the fact the job applications and college admission applications even have a race field seems like a sad, sad commentary on how far we still have yet to progress. You are either qualified for the job, or you are not. You are either capable of academic success, or you are not. The color of your skin plays absolutely no bearing on how you perform either of these functions. But to suggest that people be judged as individuals based on their own personal merits and abilities rather than skin tone is, apparently, racist.

A lot of people are upset, rightfully so, about the excessive use of force by police and the shootings of unarmed civilians. The media and society is generally far more upset when the suspect who was shot is black. Curious about this, I actually went a looked this up. According to the CDC WISQARS database on injury mortality reports there are some interesting values to be considered. When pulling the data from the database I examined "legal intervention" as the cause of death. This is their way of saying "police caused". I also looked at data for both genders for ages between 15 and 50. The breakdown of the results of that search are below:

It might not be noticeable right away, but the table tells an interesting story. If you look at it strictly in terms of number of total deaths, numerically, then it shows that police kill  white people more than twice as often as blacks. Some people would argue, where's the bias there? However, if you evaluate the number of deaths as compared to their percentage of the total population (the total number of available victims possible), then the data tells the opposite story; blacks are killed at twice the rates of whites. All of this will inevitably, invariably turn into an argument between two sides; blacks are killed more because they commit more crime, which will be counter-argued with blacks commit more crime because the police target them and profile them and racially discriminate. Which group is right? I don't know, I honestly have no idea Realistically, it's probably somewhere in the middle. But, it's completely irrelevant. How can I say that? I'm a racist asshole, remember? No, really I'm not. The point of the protesting is that police brutality and unnecessary use of police force is an epidemic problem. As the data on this chart shows, it's a problem that affects everyone. I had suggested that they stop using the hashtag #Blacklivesmatter and instead use the hashtag #Allivesmatter. That's also, apparently, racist thinking. 

When one considers the main crux of the argument, and the points of the riots, it's that police treat people unfairly. Ancient wisdom tells us that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. By using hashtags that turn the issue of police brutality into a racial issue, then it tears apart and divides any real traction that the movement might have before it even begins. Ancient Chinese wisdoms taught by Sun Tsu in the Art of War explain strength and unity. If you pick up sticks one by one you can break them easily. If you pick up a bunch of sticks and bundle them together, they cannot easily be broken in half. This same logic applies to social change and social reform. One unified voice all demanding the same change will get results. Divided voices are easily swatted down, broken, and quickly lose focus on exactly what it is that they want in the first place. Do they want Justice for Freddie Gray? Do they want an end to police brutality? Or do they want to change the paradigm of thought process? The answer is probably "all of the above", but prioritization must take place. 

All of these conversations brought up another point, one that I've argued against for some time; the idea of White Privilege. As a white male, I have not, at any point in my life received any sort of privilege simply for being white. My family doesn't have "connections". We don't have "family money". We don't own land. For generations we were poor farmers. I am moderately successful by most interpretations of that word, but I only got there through hard work and determination. I got there through working a full-time job and going to school at more than a full time rate. One person argued with me saying that where she was from in the south, all of her white friends were just handed jobs and that's how they succeeded, and that her family directly benefited from her being white. That's fine, for you, but it never benefited me in any way.

Here's the real root of the bigger issue though; Saying that White Privilege even exists is a racist ideology. I know, I know, I keep making outlandish "racist" claims, but here me out. The problem with thinking that there is even such a thing as White Privilege assumes that all white people are the same. Would it be fair to say that Native Americans are the same, or do they have unique and distinct cultural differences between their tribes? Would it be fair to assume that all Latinos are the same and that people from Puerto Rico had no differences when compared to people from Brazil and Chile? Would it be fair to assume that all Black people are the same and that people from Nigeria and Kenya are the same as people from Somalia? If the answer to these questions is no, which it is, why then is it okay to assume that all White people are the same?

The whole concept of White Privilege is that white people have a better socioeconomic disposition than Black people because they aren't discriminated against when looking for work or applying for school because they're white and society caters to whites. Within the broad spectrum of White cultures that make up the total overall White demographic, my particular culture that I identify with is Irish. Irish are probably, aside from the English, the epitome of "white". Then you have French, and Germans, and Italians, Russians, Polish, etc. I want you to consider these images here for a moment: 

Consider for a moment that Irish and Italian immigrants to the US were discriminated against. They were denied work. They were denied education. They were denied other benefits and opportunities in exactly the same way that people of color were denied to them. So what then, pray tell, would these people claim was the reason that they weren't successful? Are they going to claim White Privilege held them back also? That's crazy and it doesn't work because, oh wait, they are white. 

The whole point of this particular illustration is that just trying to say that people of color are underprivileged and it's due to White Privilege not only grossly oversimplifies the situation, but it actually completely detracts the conversation and shifts the focus away from the actual mechanisms that cause social injustice and inequality in the first place. Clearly not every black person is destitute, underprivileged nor a criminal. Clearly not every white person has doors and opportunities available to them simply because of the color of their skin. If you honestly believe that, then either you are totally ignorant of actual history within the United States, or you're harboring racist thoughts yourself. 

So what is racism anyway? Really, racism is the discrimination, mistreatment or abuse of another person or group of people due to the color of their skin or their ethnic origin. To combat racism there's another word that's thrown around a lot lately; equality. We talk about gender equality, we talk about racial equality, we talk about religious equality and social equality. But there's a problem with this: 

Everyone keeps talking about equality, but no one actually wants to be equal. I am very egalitarian in my worldviews and beliefs. I think that all things; rewards, opportunities, benefits, punishments, everything, should be decided equally, unilaterally, and fairly to every person without regard to race, religion, or socioeconomic status. Is that a realistic thought? Maybe not, but it's still how I think that the world should be run. 

As I had said to some of my friends discussing this issue; "you cannot create a racial construct as a response to a socially or institutionally racial issue and expect the underlying racism to be resolved". Case in point, consider this for a moment: If there was a scholarship for one group of people, but another group of people could not apply because of the color of their skin, would that be racist? Of course it would, right? So if there is a scholarship that was available only to white people and no people of color could apply, that would be racist, right? Of course. Well, what if it was a basketball scholarship because there aren't enough white basketball players? Still racist, right? So, why then is it okay to have scholarships for black people and other people of color where white people are not permitted to apply, but that's not racist? I'll tell you why, because it actually is racist. But, wait, Affirmative Action! That's nothing more than a bullshit excuse to exercise more racism because of racism. To those people of color who were discriminated against it might feel like vindication, but it's still racism at it's very core. 

The whole argument for Affirmative Action scholarships and programs in the first place is that people of color have been historically underprivileged socioeconomically and therefore had less access to money for healthcare and education. (We'll pretend that the Irish and Italians that were also discriminated against just got money from magic leprechauns for a moment). Going back to the logical, egalitarian way of thinking, financial aid should be awarded on the basis of need as the sole criteria. Race should never play a role in these kinds of decisions. So, if that is the case, and assuming that people of color are underprivileged, then by default they would also have the most need (because they make the least amount of money). And, because they had the most need, they would also, therefore, be pushed to the front of the line as an intrinsic result of their low socioeconomic status. The people who have the most need for the money are the ones who get it, period. Race need not be an issue. Creating special categories whereby certain races are excluded or prohibited from applying at all because of the color of their skin is the very definition of racism. If you can't see that, then you are a part of the problem. 

The issue of why certain populations are underprivileged is a complex issue that does not have a simple answer. Trying to summarize it as a race issue is not only ignorant of historical context or understanding of race, but it also does the entire conversation a disservice. How can you truly understand a problem and get to the real root of the situation if you enter into the conversation with an outlook that you already understand the problem and are closed off to hearing the viewpoints of others? I recently removed some people from my Facebook feed because I was tired of their racist dribble while they spouted that those people who didn't agree with them are racists. 

By continuing racist lines of thinking, such as white privilege, it further undermines their efforts to bring about meaningful social change. For example, by making this a racial issue, instead of simply a social issue, then it serves to alienate all of the other white people, like myself, who might be otherwise sympathetic to the plight of the underprivileged because they are or were underprivileged themselves. It's not a white vs black issue, it's much more complex than that. 

Some of the arguments that were thrown around were that the "power structure" of the country was skewed and that white privilege exists because white people have the power. Again, this is racist thinking and oversimplifies the issue. We've already established that it's racist to think of all Natives the same way, and that it's racist to think of all black people the same way. So which white people is it that have the power, exactly? It certainly isn't me. It's certainly not anyone that I personally know, either. This kind of thinking, that all white people are the same, creates additional problems that weren't there before in addition to everything else. 

I ask you all, if you truly want to understand the people around you, start looking past the end of your noses. Stop this racial nonsense and actually listen instead of pretending to know all of the answers. You've been discriminated against by those in power. That sucks. I would know because I have been too. But, rather than seeing myself and people like me as an ally, as a brother in the same boat of suffering, most people will instead downplay my personal successes and undermine me and lump me in with the same group of people that discriminated against me in the first place, all while calling me racist for thinking logically and rationally. 

The whole point of this rant is this; if you want to protest, that's your right, protest. If you want to speak out against the abuse of power and the social injustice that exists, that's great, I'm right there with you screaming for exactly those same things. I don't want to be abused by those in power. I don't want to be unfairly punished or rewarded for things I don't deserve or didn't do. But as soon as you start making it about the color of my skin or the color of your skin, then our common ground and our common goals dissolve away and become divided. So I ask you, if you are upset about Baltimore, if you are upset about unjust police brutality and unnecessary use of force, then what is it that you want? Do you want actual, meaningful social change, or do you just want to be right? 

On Religious Freedom

[Johnathan Clayborn]

The internet, and the media in general, is buzzing with talk of Indiana and their passage of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, formally known as SB 568 (not to be confused with the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993). As with many pieces of legislation this bill comes with very heated controversy from both sides of the fence. The reality is that this is very muddy water.

One of the first things that becomes clear is that proponents of the bill, and several media outlets, have suggested that Indiana's RFRA is similar to the federal act passed in 1993 and similar to those in 19 other states. In truth, this is not the case. While other states and the federal government do also have RFRA laws on the books, they are not the same. The biggest difference between the laws is that Indiana's law is much broader and would allow for blatant and widespread discrimination.

Under the provisions of the federal laws, and the laws in many other states, the RFRA could only be used as a defense against a lawsuit by specific people and organizations and within very specific contexts and applications. Under Indiana's version of the bills, those restrictions are removed and anyone is allowed to claim "religious freedom" under any context. Indiana's bill expressly allows for-profit businesses "the free exercise of religion", which is directly contrary to most other states RFRA bills which expressly exclude for-profit businesses from being permitted to exercise this defense.

Most other RFRA bills include verbiage that restricts the defense to actions brought about against an organization by the government. If the government files a lawsuit that says that you can't wear purple shirts to church on Sunday, then the organization can respond with an RFRA defense and argue that such a suit would violate their right to practice their religion. It's very specific in the context of when and how it can be used, and by whom. Indiana's bill opens this defense up for businesses to use in response to lawsuits filed by private citizens.

Let's recap; all other RFRA laws to date expressly forbid for-profit businesses from exercising RFRA as a defense against a lawsuit and confines it to churches and non-profit organizations, but Indiana's bill allows for anyone to use it. All other RFRA bills also limit the use of this defense to litigation brought to bear by the government, but Indiana's bill opens this up to allow for this defense to be used against everyone. These are major differences with far-reaching repercussions.

One particularly muddy consequence of this that will undoubtedly happen, is that this state's law violated federal laws that protect against hate crimes. Even if a person or a business in Indiana uses the RFRA as a defense in a lawsuit, they may still be found guilty of federal crimes for discrimination. This inevitability will almost certainly lead to renewed debates about how much power the federal government should be allowed to exercise over the states and private individuals. The US Supreme Court has not yet made a final ruling on the federal status of same-sex marriages nationally. The general expectation by most legal experts is that this conclusion is inevitable and only a matter of time before it happens. When that happens, if Indiana's bill remains in effect as-written, things will get very complicated.

Legal issues aside, depending on where one stands on the issue, this bill is viewed as either a sword or a shield that will either be used to attack a person's civil liberties, or protect them from unholy sinners. Already one pizzeria has used the RFRA as an excuse to refuse service to a same-sex couple who were trying to hire them to cater their wedding reception. As gay allies began lashing out at the pizzeria online, conservatives in support of the bill rallied to the pizzeria's defense by donating more than $300,000 to it for use in legal defense.

The major proponents of the bill, including some of the lawmakers who tweeted about it during it's passage through the system, are hard-line conservative Christians. They generally believe that the moral fiber of America is becoming degraded by sinners, such as gay couples, and that the homosexual population has a secret agenda to "make everyone okay" with their lifestyle.

Within the United States, the vast majority of people are Christian, according to self-reported studies by the US Census Bureau and Pew Reports. 16.1% of people are unaffiliated with any church (which includes 1.6% who are atheists and 2.4% who are agnostic, and 12.1% who are "spiritual"). 4.7% of the population is "other religions" (which includes 1.7% Jewish, 0.7% Buddhist, and 0.6% Muslim). The remaining 78% are Christian.

This is where is starts to get weird for me. 51.3% of the population are Protestant. 23.9% are Catholic. 1.7% are Mormon. The rest of Jehovah's Witness, Orthodox, or "other".  Although I identify as atheist in my adult life, I grew up in the Christian church. My family has been Protestant for about 10 generations or so that I know of.

Christians oppose this bill because they don't want to be associated with "gay sinners". My question is, which Christians? The United Methodist churches that I grew up in were very tolerant of basically everyone. The Ecumenical Catholic church accepts gays. As does the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church, the Lutheran Church, and the Presbyterian Church, to name a few. The Baptists stoutly refute homosexuality in any way. And the Roman Catholic Church also views it as a "moral evil" and "contrary to the laws of nature"... unless it's a Catholic Priest who is partaking of homosexual behaviors with young boy. Yes, I know, I'm citing a stereotype and not all Catholic Priests are like that. I know that. But it's happened enough that it seems highly hypocritical for a Church to take a stance against homosexuality when that many of it's ordained leaders are in trouble for it. Is that unfair? Perhaps. But I'm sure the young children who were molested or forced into child prostitution by their priests felt that their fate was unfair.

As someone who grew up in the Christian church the one thing that I find ridiculous about this law is that I know that the Bible says "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7) (a concept also recognized in the Jewish and Muslim faiths as well). That being the case, by what right do any of these "Christians" have to judge anyone else? Isn't the nature and frequency of a person's sins between them and God directly? We all sin, we just sin differently. Where in the Bible does it say, "love thy neighbor, unless he sins differently than you do, in which case shun and reject him". I don't recall ever seeing that.

Even more importantly, if the laws like this are going to be brought into play to protect religious freedoms, my resounding question is which religion? Which specific flavor of Christianity is being catered to with the passage of this law when Christianity as a whole is, itself, divided on the issue of whether or not being homosexual is a sin? And what makes that specific church more important than another?

I am very egalitarian in my worldview. I think everyone should be treated equally and fairly and justly as often as is possible. It's unrealistic for me to think that everything will always be equal and fair, but that is my hope and vision for the human race. I could get into all of that for hours and hours, but I digress. I personally think that this bill is a mistake, a huge step backwards in civil liberties. However, if it is the will of the people that this law be passed, so be it. But, this law must be upheld unilaterally and uniformly across the board without question. If a "Christian" pizzeria wants to refuse service to a gay person because it's against their religion (and somehow they are personally in a position where God made them responsible for passing judgement on others), then a Muslim Grocery should also be able to refuse service to a Christian because he doesn't pray to the East. A Jewish Accountant should be able to refuse service to a Christian because he doesn't wear a Kipah. An Atheist should be able to refuse service to a Christian because they believe in God in the first place. If this doesn't happen, then it's immediately clear that this bill is just a clearly veiled excuse to exercise hatred and bigotry.

No one is saying that you have to be accepting of "homos". Their sexuality is not your concern. Their sins are not your concern, that's between them and God, it's not for you to judge. What proponents of this bill fail to see is that this bill, if applied equally and justly across the board, becomes a double-edged sword that serves no purpose other than to leave everyone bleeding and once unsheathed, it's difficult to put back without causing injury to each other. I'm pretty sure that God, however you may believe in him, would not want his followers to go around deliberately hurting other human beings. As an atheist, I certainly don't want to hurt anyone, especially not deliberately. And if your God demands that you discriminate and hate and hurt others on purpose, then that just reinforces my decision that I don't want anything to do with your God.



References:

http://mediamatters.org/research/2015/03/31/media-misleadingly-compare-anti-lgbt-indiana-la/203105

http://www.npr.org/2015/04/01/396871391/indianas-religious-freedom-law-differs-from-other-states 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/01/indiana-religious-freedom_n_6984156.html

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0075.pdf

http://religions.pewforum.org/reports

On Bullying

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Sometimes I get emails from Change.org to my inbox. Some of them I sign, others I laugh at. Today I've received one on an issue that honestly has me torn: bullying. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating bullying, not at all. I'm not convinced that our approach is handling bullying is the right way to go.

This particular article started with a tale of woe about a 14 year school girl who was bullied at school and online and then, tragically, took her own life. The girl's mother pushed to have legislation enacted that would keep bullying out of schools. The petition was sent out to stop SB-500, which basically states that the schools would not be allowed to initiate disciplinary action against students who cyber-bullied other students on the grounds that the school doesn't have the authority to control children on the nights and weekends and that the school is not the police department.

Obviously, bullying sucks. Anyone who's ever been bullied knows that. So, on the one hand, I totally relate and have empathy for these kids. But I'm torn because I don't think that pretending that bullying doesn't exist is the right approach. Okay, so you've effectively put up a wall of make-believe at school and made the students stop picking on each other, great. What's going to happen when those students go to work and find themselves working with coworkers, or even for a boss who is a bully? What if the HR person is a bully? (Yes, that happens, while I never was the target of that, I have personally seen it). It seems to me that instead of trying with futility to change the whole of human behavior, we should be teaching children how to respond to bullying. I suppose it's possible (but I think highly unlikely) that they might teach kids not to bully other kids and that once they are out of school those kids will suddenly all just become nice people, but what happens when those people interact with people from other countries where bullying isn't outlawed? They will literally have no skills to handle such a situation. I don't see how that is helping. We don't tell our kids "Hey, bicycles are dangerous and you might fall down and get hurt so we're going to put a ban on bicycles until you're 25 and how no idea how to ride them anyway." No, we teach our kids, this is how you ride a bike. This is how you get up and dust yourself off when you fall down. This is how you laugh it off and take it in stride.

Rather than protecting our kids from this menace I really feel like a better use of our time and money would be to teach kids to have confidence in who they are and embrace their quirks. I vociferously oppose the "zero tolerance" policy in schools. I have, and will always tell my kids that they have the right to defend themselves. If someone starts a fight with them, they are allowed to fight back. Even if the school suspends them, they will not face repercussions at home as long as they didn't start it.

I've found that most of the people who bully do so because they are insecure themselves, and most of the people who tend to get bullied are some of the most awesome people. Wil Wheaton has talked several times about how he was bullied as a kid, and he has really great advice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04WJEEb33CY I was called a nerd a lot in school. I know, that's a big surprise to everyone who knows me even a little (sarcasm). I am huge nerd. I make no apologies about that. It's who I am and I fully embrace that fully. I'm a dork, and I'm silly and I find wonderment in life from the inner workings of our universe down to the smallest atoms and how photosynthesis works. It's just absolutely amazing to me. I wouldn't trade any of what I know for people to stop calling me a nerd. The more I know, the more beautiful and amazing the world becomes. In some ways I do pity those who rebuke science because they will never see how beautifully intricate everything is. We shouldn't be teaching kids to run away and hide from ridicule. We should be giving them the confidence to embrace who they are enjoy what they love.

Of Arguments and Fools...

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Over the last few days I have been embroiled in several debates on Facebook ranging in topics from religion and politics, to science and climate change. Some of the things that I've debated about quite literally make no sense. I could just elect to not engage these people, but I have a compulsion to stamp out incorrect information and it usually leads me to engage in these debates.

As I've gotten older I have gotten somewhat wiser. Eventually there comes a point when you realize that the person with whom you are debating with is either unwilling or unable to change their views. This was the case in all of the debates that I was involved in; one was with a racist bigot who's personal views were too far ingrained to look at the situation objectively, another was with a conspiracy theorist (a whole special kind of case there), and the third was with a narcissist who could not be wrong.

Sadly, in all of these cases the debates turned into arguments, at which point I bowed out. Only a fool continues to argue with the foolish. There is a huge difference between a debate and an argument. A debate is two or more differing positions on a subject that are presented with facts, logical constructs, or reason-based arguments as their support. One person comments, the other person listens to that comment, rebuts the point (usually), and then makes a counter argument. An argument is simply saying "not uh" and "you're wrong" over and over again. When that starts to happen, save your breath.

Most of the time intelligent people can have a debate and realize that just because a person has opposing views on a particular subject as you does not make them a bad person. It just means that they have a different viewpoint than you on that subject. That's totally okay. There are several people on my friends list on FB that have very different opinions about me on certain topics, but those people are also some of the people that I respect the most; JD and Josh H. in particular. Why is that? Because during the debates that we've been in they've been able to present their arguments logically and/or factually, and most importantly, respectfully.

I enjoy seeking out debates with people who have different opinions than I do. Every time I do, I'm secretly hoping that they have debate skills like the fine gentlemen that I've mentioned above. I want them to present a solid argument. Show me facts. Give me a logical construct to frame your position, or explain with reason why your position is superior. I crave this in a debate. I enjoy this because when I'm presented with information and logical arguments it forces me to re-evaluate my own beliefs. Do I believe what I believe because it makes sense and it's the right thing to believe? Or do I believe what I believe because someone told me once that I should think this and I've never bothered to question that? Both of the men I've mentioned above have been successful in changing my opinion about different topics at one point or another because they were able to present information or logical constructs that I had not considered before.

There are several maddeningly frustrating elements at work when you debate with someone who does not understand these principles for whatever reason. One frustrating element is that some people will fabricate information to prove a point. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, as much as I respect him, has been guilty of fabricating or incorrectly attributing quotes when he makes anecdotal references. This is ethically questionable. But, in the scope of what information he's presenting, a quote being incorrectly attributed is more forgivable than botching the factual data at the crux of his argument. A more specific example of this comes from one of the debates I was involved in regarding Climate Change. One of the debaters said: "the co-founder of the Weather Channel is a doctor of meteorology and he says that it [man-caused global climate change] is a fraud. I believe him." This was his response to my presentation of scientific data that demonstrates that the CO2 levels in the air sharply increase coincidentally at the same time as the Industrial Revolution. He was presented with facts, so he responded by quoting an "expert". But, there's a problem. The man that he is speaking of is John Coleman. He has been quite a vocal critic of climate change since 1987, that part is true. But he is not a doctor. Not only that, he has not any academic degrees from any institution in any academic discipline. His opposition to global climate change is not based on factual evidence, but instead based on his own opinion.

But this is just one of many tools of the trade. Another very common example is the Ad Hominem attack. The ad hominem attack is an attempt to discredit a person's argument by attacking their personal character. At various points in different arguments I have been called: a Republican, a Democrat, a Conservative, a Liberal, A "Tea-Party psycho", They bring politics into the debate to build upon the ad hominem attack; because you are a [fill in party here], then clearly the logic of your argument must be unsound. This is an asinine argument.

Confirmation bias is another common problem that crops up in online debates. Confirmation bias is the refusal to accept or consider new information that might force you to admit that your position is wrong. For example, someone might argue; there's no such thing as man-created global climate change, see this snow storm proves it! and then you might point out that the snow storm was caused by a tropical storm interrupting the jet stream (a condition of global warming), the pacific ocean is warming rapidly (sharks in the tropics have been found as far south as Australia and fish native to Hawaii have been found as far north as Alaska), and that the CO2 levels in the air sharply and drastically increase beginning with the start of the industrial revolution. Confirmation bias sets in when this information is wholly dismissed with wild assertions like that data is a conspiracy to keep scientists employed/keep government or big business funded or Climate scientists don't know what they're talking about, I did my own research. Or, my favorite it's only a theory. Clearly, people who use that one in particular have no experience in scientific research whatsoever.

Circular Arguments are also equally frustrating. Circular arguments make a chain of events that ultimately leads back to the original point. Global warming isn't real, the weatherman said so! But, science. Those scientists are wrong, the data is inaccurate. It's a conspiracy! But, logic. But logic is wrong because I don't want to believe it. But, reason. No, reason isn't right, the weatherman said so! ...repeat ad inifinitum.

I encourage everyone to head over here: http://www.yourlogicalfallacyis.com and read the different types of logical fallacies and why they are bad. You may still fall victim to some of them from time to time, we all do, it's human nature, but once you are more aware of them you can work to avoid using them in your own debates. 

Reflections on Life

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Life is confusing. Life is hard sometimes. Life isn't any one thing, but rather is a series of interconnected choices, chances, and events that are woven together to build our experience. You can plan things out all that you want. You can go into situations with the purest of intentions. You may even think to yourself that you have it all figured out, and you understand how life works. But, every so often, life serves up some curveballs, poignant reminders that you have absolutely no idea what you are doing after all. And every so often, those curveballs are game-changers in the sense that the experiences that bring about, good, bad, or both, will irrevocably change you from the person that you were into someone else and that person that you were ceases to be.

Sometimes something happens that makes you reevaluate life and you realize that it's not worth it be serious and you might become more child-like. I've seen this happen with older people and some people who are terminally ill. Other times, something happens that makes you jaded, or it kills off part of your soul so that the world seems less colorful, less beautiful, darker. And still other times things happen that make you less child-like and force you to grow up and face some harsh realities. Sometimes it's more than one of these things.

Much of your life is dictacted by your own choices; do I go right or left, do I take a new job or stay where I am, do I finish school or take a second job, do I wear the blue tie or the black one? Very often though other people's choices intersect with your life in irreversable ways. Maybe someone decided not to have their brakes changed and as a result they crashed into your car and left you disabled. Or maybe someone from your life that you were connected to just up and leaves with little notice and without explanation. Sometimes people decide to quit their job and it creates a new position that you can move into. There are lots of ways that other people's choices interact with our lives. Often times we describe these things as chance, but it's not really chance. Chance would be calculating your odds of being in the right place at the right time for an event to occur, not the actual choices themselves, although the choices do play a role in those calculations.

Decisions that we make on our own are the easiest to deal with, sometimes, because we made those choices; we have control over them. I say sometimes because sometimes the choices that we make aren't the ones that we really want to make and the end result that we get from those choices is actually the furthest thing from what we want in life. Other times, someone else makes those choices for us; someone leaves, a parent decides to move, your work closes its doors, etc. Those choices are especially hard to deal with because its not really your choice. You have no control over those situations. The situations are what they are because other people exercised their power to make decisions and choices.

The real trick to life is figuring out the difference between the choices that you make you and the choices that someone else makes. Understanding this difference will allow you to understand what choices you actually have control over. You can't decide to tell your employer to stay open, you can't decide to tell your parent not to move, and you certainly can't decide to make people that you care about stay in your life. The only decisions that you have control over are how you handle those game-changing occurences. Do you let them break you, grind on you, wear you out until there's nothing left, or do you rise up to meet them and accept that you have no control over them? Once you figure out which things you actually do have control over, you'll be in a much better position to actually change your life for the better because you can decide to change the things that you don't like.
 

Critical Thinking in our Education System.

[Johnathan Clayborn]

I had originally wanted to write about this some weeks ago, but I got side tracked with other posts and homework. Now I'm circling back to it because I still think it's an important discussion. I follow some people that I find rather interesting on my Facebook page; Neil Degrasse Tyson, Dr. Michio Kaku, and others. Dr. Kaku posted a link with a comment advocating that we should stop trying to teach critical thinking in our education system. At first I was taken aback. I respect Dr. Kaku a great deal, and I've long held the belief that we need to teach more critical thinking in the classroom. How could he say such a thing?
Then I read the article and I understood and I agree with him.
The main point that the article was making is that in too many classrooms across the country the concept of "critical thinking" is often mislabled and passed along under as a guise for political or policy reform. Teachers bemoan certain policies or political views that they dislike and present their side of the argument to the children under the guise of "Critical Thinking". Some Science teachers will publicly lament that they are not allowed to teach their religious beliefs about creation to the students but are instead forced to teach concepts such as the Big Bang and Evolution. This is not critical thinking.

Far too often many of us are victims of our own minds, trapped inside of our firmly held beliefs and ideologies that we succumb to psychological traps like confirmation bias. We're all guilty of it from time to time, but some of us are worse than others. I pride myself on being a truly critical thinker. I enjoy debating with people who have a different opinion than I do, not because I want be right and win the debate, but because that I'm hoping beyond hope that they can articulate why they believe what they believe with logic and reason and possibly support their position with facts. This forces me to re-evaluate what I believe; do I believe what I believe because it's the right thing to believe, or do I believe if because someone once told me that I should and I've never questioned it? Many of my friends have acknowledged this trait about me and some of them have managed to convince me to change my mind on certain topics. I have many friends whom I respect a great deal and yet we have vastly different opinions on certain topics. That's perfectly okay.

But sadly that's not commonplace. And it's not what happens in many classrooms either. If I am not capable of actually critically analyzing a situation, how can I teach others to be that way as well? If I physically don't understand the concept of critical thinking or I refuse to participate in it, how can I realistically expect others to do it?

The one thing that is clear from this article is that the concept of critical thinking in a classroom setting needs to come from a complete revamp and overhaul of the curriculum and instructional methodology that is being used in schools today. I promote critical thinking in my son all of the time. He will often ask me: "Dad, how does X work?" Instead of just telling him what I want him to know or to think, I ask him what does he know about X, and based on what he knows about X, what does he think? How does he think X works? And, where can he learn more about X? This is a process that I will always continue. I will never presume to push my religious or political beliefs onto my children. If they have a different view than I do, great. If not, that's great too. Either way they should arrive at their own conclusions in their own way.

When it comes to conversations of "critical thinking" that take place in most places today I'm reminded of Inigo Montaya again..."you keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means". And since any explanation I might give would invariably miss some of the finer points of this conversation, I encourage you to read the article in the link below.


Links:
http://io9.com/lets-stop-trying-to-teach-students-critical-thinking-1618729143?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

The Portrayal of Self

[Johnathan Clayborn]

There has been a lot of fallout and discussion over the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO a short time ago. To say that there are some strong, political and philosophical disagreements over the issue would be a gross understatement. People are quick to argue about their take on the militarization of police, abuse of power, the requirements for lethal force, and the overall social injustice of underprivileged minorities being discriminated against. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that these conversations shouldn't take place, because they should. They're very important conversations to be having as a nation and as individuals. But there was one bit of fallout from this that's not discussed very much, and when it is, it's often a one-sided discussion. So, rather than contribute my two cents to the plethora of opinions about the above topics I wanted to talk about the portrayal of self.

There are many people who are complaining because the media is showing picture a picture of Michael Brown that makes it hard to view him as a defenseless victim. His detractors are using this photo as justification that he deserved to be shot and was dangerous. His supporters are saying that the photo was taken out of context and was hand-picked by the media to deliberately portray him in a bad light. Take a look:


In an apparent show of support for Mr. Brown and as a backlash to the media many people, mostly young African Americans, are posting two photos of themselves, one respectable and the other questionable with the hashtag: IfTheyGunnedMeDown. You can see examples of some of the photos here and here and here and here.

There are two things that I want to point out. First, is that the media is not the paragon of impartial truth that they are sometimes considered to be. I've worked with enough reporters and been burned by them and seen them in action enough to have first hand knowledge of this. The news will always report the story with a slant. And if it's not the slant of whatever major political corporation pays the bills, then it's whatever slant will generate the most viewership. So, you should expect that the media will always use the worst photo of you that they can find.

The second thing that I want to point out is that you have total control over this. Many of the articles talk about these photos and throwing around the terms "alleged gang signs". No. These are gang signs. What other signs are they if they aren't gang signs? They aren't peace signs. They sure as hell aren't American Sign Language. They are gang signs. If you are a respectable person, would you want to associate yourself with a gang by flashing signs in photos? Gangs do nothing but perpetuate violence. Many gangs have a "blood in, blood out" policy that requires violence. You certainly don't see gangs helping old ladies across the street, covering up graffiti or feeding the homeless. Why would any person want to associate themselves with such organizations. If you post crap like that on your page, society will judge you as thuggish. If you are posting such photos as a joke, you need to revise your sense of humor. It would be akin to me posting a photo, as a horribly unfunny joke, of myself in a KKK hood and then being upset when the media circulates that picture calling me a racist. And I never understood the point of flipping off the camera either. I typically don't go around giving people the bird in my day-to-day life, so why would I pose a picture of that on my page? If I saw people walking down the street throwing signs or flipping people off, I would pay them closer attention and view them warily.

Society will judge you by whatever means that they can, and whatever means they have available to them. If you don't want to be viewed as a thug or a brute, or a no-good-doer, then stop posting pictures of gang signs, drugs, profanity, etc. If you want society to view you as a respectable person, then keep that stuff off of your page. It's really that simple. You have the power to control how you are viewed by society. You have the power to say to the world "this is who I am, and this is how I want you to see me". Make a smart choice.

Choosing your lessons

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Yesterday the intranet page at my work had an interesting poll. The question was:

If you can only be w/ one type of person for the rest of your life...Would it be..
1) Someone you settle for and are miserable with, but who is financially stable.
2) someone that you want to be with, but you both struggle financially barely making it paycheck to paycheck.

Not surprisingly, 3/4ths of the people who responded selected option 2, myself included. There were a lot of people who rationalized their choice with comments like "money doesn't buy happiness". One commenter suggested that "if you select option 2...You will argue w/ your significant other mainly over money. Its inevitable no matter how much you love your mate.". Others were quick to point out that If you agree on how/what to use your limited resources on then you will not argue about it. The arguments come because you have different goals/priorities, not because of lack of money. In some cases this is easier said than done, but the logic is highly accurate.

I responded to the thread with the same example I gave when I was in my undergrad degree and I discussed in my post back in December, 2011. The basic premise of argument is that without sufficient income you are sometimes presented with a Kobyashi Maru scenario where there is no right answer. No matter what choice you make you will emotionally distraught and psychologically distressed. These types of choices are made every day by the "working poor" of America, people who make more than minimum wage, but less than enough to have a comfortable living. Is money the end-all, be-all thing to have? Certainly not. Money is not everything. However, when you are struggling to make ends meet, not having enough money to pay for things will certainly lead to unhappiness. Anyone who's ever been in that situation can attest, it's no picnic.

Another commenter responded to my post by saying that he agreed with me and that it's our resilience that gets us through those hard times. He suggested that people who picked option 1 because they thought that it might bring financial peace of mind are forgetting what the other commenter posted about differing goals and priorities; just because you have money doesn't mean that you won't fight and argue about it. In some cases you may fight and argue more because there's more money to fight over.

I vociferously concur with that commenter's sentiment. What most people fail to realize is that life is about struggle. You will always struggle in your life. You will always have a problem, a dilemma, a challenge...something that needs to be overcome. Honestly, that's part of what makes life interesting.  The question is never about whether or not you want strife in your life, it's going to be there regardless. The question is really about what the nature of that strife should be. There you have some choice in the matter, that's why I picked option 2. It's better to struggle with someone that you actually like. Our whole lives are nothing more than a series of sequential challenges, it's how we handle those challenges and what lessons we take away from them that define us. I'm not at all ashamed to admit that at one point in my life, in my early 20's, I was basically homeless living in an RV in a KMart parking lot where I worked. I decided that I didn't like that condition, and I changed it. It was a series of stupid choices, the kind that young people often make, that lead me to that spot in the first place. Since I made choices that lead me to be there, I could make choices that would take me away from there. Now, 12 years later, you would not have guessed that I was basically homeless, and I'm approximately 18 months away from completing my PhD. I firmly believe that every situation and experience in our life can teach us valuable lessons. Since it's our struggles and strife that defines us, that teach us, the real question we should be asking is "what lessons would I like to learn today?"


How much do we see?

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Yesterday I was having one of my classical philosophical mind trips where I sit in awe at the nature of the universe. I was thinking about vision. We use our eyes to inform ourselves about so many things. For most of us, our vision is a very large part of how we perceive the world. We can see what time of day it is, what the weather is like, if there's danger approaching. We can observe our fellow humans and animals and see their behavior. For most of us, our eyes are critical to understanding our world. And yet, for all of the importance that we place on our vision and our eyesight, our eyes don't really see anything at all.

There are many different estimates of how far the human eye can see. A lot of it has to do with ambient light, elevation, etc. But, assuming that you are standing in an open field during the day and you are looking around you can see fairly large objects at distances up to 20 miles. Assuming that your line of sight is a radius and you could turn and look equally in every direction, then your total field of view would be calculated by π(20)^2. 3.14159265359 * 20 * 20 = 1256.637061436 Square Miles. That's how much you can see at any given time. The entire surface of the Earth is 139,430,000 square miles. This means that as much of the earth as you are seeing is still only 0.000901267% of the planet we call home. Even if we made a more liberal assumption that you could see 100 miles in every direction, you would still only see 0.022531684% of our home. If you round that to the nearest 10th, then that means that everything that you're looking at right now, everything you can see, is 0% of the Earth. You see nothing. All of the wonders and beauties of our planet account for an infinitesimally small fraction of our home, so small that it's less than 1/10th of 1/4 of 1% of the earth.

Not even close to 0% of the Earth. Photo Credit Ben Foley. 

Thinking about things from a different perspective let's talk about space for a moment. Just looking at stars in the sky, at best we can see about 8,479 stars unaided with a telescope on any given night, assuming average lighting conditions. There, according to the average estimates, 200 Billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. That means that what you can see accounts for only 0.0000042395% of our home galaxy. A more realistic calculation is that we can see only 2,500 stars unaided with a telescope from any given point on the Earth at once. That's only 0.00000125% of our galaxy.

Not even close to 0% of the Milky Way. Photo Credit National Geographic. 

Switching to a larger scale and talking about entire galaxies, the number is even smaller. Without the aid of a telescope you can see the Milky Way (our home galaxy), plus Andromeda, and the Large Magellanic Cloud, as well as the Small Magellanic Cloud. That makes a whopping total of 4 galaxies. There are, according to the most recent estimates, 500 Billion galaxies in the universe. That's 0.0000000008% of the universe. Even with the aid of the Hubble Telescope we can see only 10,000 galaxies at once. That's 0.000002% of the universe. All of the beauty and wonder of the galaxy, all of the planets, all of the stars, and the nebulae, and supernovas, and comets. Everything that we know, everything that we see accounts for nothing in comparison of the entire universe. We know 8 to the -10th power of the universe.

0% of the Universe as seen from the Hubble Telescope. Photo credit - NASA.

And what about what we do see? What we do see is in the form of visible light, which is a form of radiation that is part of the electromagnetic spectrum. It might surprise you to learn that, calculated on a linear scale, the amount of light, color, everything that you can see with your eyes accounts for only 0.0035% of the entire EM spectrum. We are completely blind to radio waves, microwaves, infrared waves, ultraviolet waves, x-rays, and Gamma Rays, all of which are part of the EM spectrum. Every flower, every bird, every piece of art, literally everything we see is only a tiny fraction of the actual amount of things that are theoretically able to be seen.

Our eyes are also completely unable to see any of the other invisible forces at work constantly around us; wind, barometric pressure, gravity, temperature, and so on. And while we can observe specific behaviors, we have no idea why those behaviors are occurring. We can't see other people's thoughts.

For all of the beauty and splendor and awe-inspiring things that we can see, when compared to the scope of reality, we see absolutely nothing. And yet, many of us still continue to rely so heavily on our eyes to make decisions for us instead of letting some of our other senses and feelings take over.

Perception, Reality, and Words

[Johnathan Clayborn]

I have been thinking a lot about relationships, perception, truth, reality, and fate the last couple of weeks. So much so that I'm compelled to write a rambling article about it because I have no one else who will really understand my meaning anyway. It turns out the sometimes the people who you think understand you the best don't really understand at all. There's so much that's running through my head that I don't even know where to begin.

First, I wanted to start with the concept that God/fate brings people into our lives for a reason. I don't think that this is true anymore. I used to wholeheartedly believe it. I used to think that we were meant to cross paths with people for some kind of grand-reason that was beyond our knowledge or understanding. Now? I can't possibly fathom how that could be so. Sometimes things just don't make sense. 

Perception is another thing that I've been thinking about recently also. It's been brought to my attention that some people have the idea that just because people appear calm, reserved, or self-contained on the outside, surely it must mean that they are simply devoid of emotions on the inside as well. Some people I know are emotional time-bombs. They're highly emotional people and they show everyone exactly how they feel by laughing, or crying, or screaming, or yelling, or whatever the case is. There is aboslutely nothing wrong with that. But, a lot of those people also think that because other people don't express their emotions the same way that it somehow means that their emotions aren't as intense. They don't realize that the collected exterior shell is simply a mask that they wear for the world and that under that shell is a turbulent storm of emotions that boils with the intensity of 1,000 burning suns. Just because people don't actively express outward bursts of emotion doesnt mean that they don't feel more strongly about something than you can imagine. I would argue, in fact, that in most cases the reserved people probably feel more strongly than the outbursters. My basis for that statement is because the act of having an outburst of emotion triggers an emotional release that allows the floodgates to open as some of that pressure to bleed off. Collected people don't have that same release, or if they do, it's too much to handle or too late. That's part of the reason that people say "it's the quiet ones that you have to watch". The highest rates of suicide are among those who are calm and collected on the outside. (And no, that's not a cry for help or an implication that I'm contemplating suicide, that's merely an example to demonstrate that people who don't express emotions outwardly very much feel with great intensity).

With regards to truth and reality, they weave an intertangled web. It's very easy to sit down and talk about general facts and information. People can deal in facts, they provide data and arguments in their case to make their point. The evidence can be considered and weighed and judged. When dealing with personal matters and feelings, this is almost impossible. You say that feel this way? Really? Well, where's your proof? It's easy for people to make up their mind about a situation and then fall into cognitive biases like confirmation bias and discount or discredit anything that's presented. "Oh, well, yes, you said that, and I can see that, but you didn't do it sooner so whatever you're saying must be a lie to cover up some nefarious plot". Or, "you've said that already, you keep saying the same thing. While it's possible that you keep saying the same thing because it's true, it's much easier to believe that it's just a line that you're feeding me so that I can keep clinging to my biased opinion of how things are". Certainly, those developments of bias aren't without cause or provocation. Something happened to cause people to develop that way of thinking in the first place. But once they've latched on to that ideal, it's nearly impossible to convince them of the actual truth no matter how hard you may try. This is doubly true when you are talking to the kind of person who deals with emotions through outburts and you are a reserved type. Because you don't make the same outbursts, your words must not be true either. The whole thing must just be some sort of scheme. Often as a result of that people begin to convince themselves that relationships between people meant different things to the other person. Two people can both go into a relationship feeling and thinking the same thing. But, within a short time it could easily be a situation where one person still feels the same way about the relationship and the other person feels like they were being used, or played, or whatever the case is. It makes it easier to replace the other person if we just convince ourselves that they were being disingenuous the whole time and never meant anything they said.

Words alone are a wholly inadequate expression of feeling. Words convey thought, but not feeling. I love you is a wholly meaningless expression. I'm sorry is a meaningless expression. You can say these things to people all day long, but it is not possible for them to feel what is in your heart. Since they can't feel what you feel, the words that you are trying to use to convey those feelings creates an impossible scenario. It's like trying to count out ten trillion dollars in pennies. You imagine that as "a lot", but you cannot possibly, realistically visualize exactly how much. As a result you wholly understimate the magnitude of the expression. You might be trying to convey ten trillion dollars in pennies with your words, but the person hearing it might only hear ten thousand dollars in pennies, because that's all they can imagine. If this is coupled with someone who has fallen prey to confirmation bias and has begun convincing themselves that everything that you say is a well-rehearsed line as opposed to a fact, or that it was all a game or lie to begin with, it represents an extremely morose exercise in futility. Some people might say "I'm scared", or "I'm terrified", but again, it's totally meaningless. Without being able to feel what you feel there's no possible way that anyone will ever understand the true gravity of that emotion or the paralysis it might induce. This is a departure from my way of thinking as well. A few weeks ago I was a self-proclaimed logophile (lover of words). I used to think that words had a grand purpose and meaning, that they were the glue that held society and civilization together, that with the proper selection of words, you can make anyone understand anything. This is no longer true for me. Words have lost a lot of their meaning and value to me. They will never again hold that same special place in my mind as they did before.



The measure of a man

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Recently I've found myself asking what makes a person a "good person". Sure, the obvious answers are they have a sense of ethics and morals. But, ethical and moral codes are subjective and dependent entirely on the cultures and religions that define them. What is considered perfectly ethical one in culture is not ethical in another culture. But, beyond that, what makes a person a good person? Are there universal traits that make a person "good"?

Respect for other people is probably one trait that I would mark highly on the list of a good person. Do they treat people equally and fairly in all situations? Do they think themselves equal to everyone or do they see themselves as superior to others? Do they treat service staff like human beings instead of servants? Do they treat everyone with the respect and dignity that they deserve, or they think that they own other people directly or indirectly?

Falling right along those lines similarly is compassion. Do they have compassion for others? Are they likely to give up their last $5 so that  someone starving and homeless on the street  can get some food, or are they likely to walk past saying that they deserve it? Do they protect those who are weaker than they are, or do they prey on them?

What about integrity? Is this a mandate of a good person? Many would argue, Yes. I would be inclined to agree with them. In it's most basic form integrity means doing what you say that you are going to do and doing the right thing even when no one is looking. It means being able to live with yourself after all is said and done.

What about selflessness? I would argue yes again here as well. are they willing to go out of their way to help others? Are they willing to help others at all? Would they park at the top of a freeway off-ramp and walk 1/2 mile back down the hill to help some poor sap push their 1974 Cadillac up the hill in August in Phoenix asking for nothing in return, or would they continue to drive by? Would they spend $100 of their own money to buy wooden cross necklaces for the homeless just to give them a glimmer of hope, or do they think that homeless people should have to work for everything that they need too?

What about community improvement/civic duty? Are they requirements for a good person? Do they volunteer in things that make not just their own lives better, but increase the betterment of the whole neighborhood? Is that a requirement for a good person, or does that play a factor at all?

If these general codes are the essence of a good person, how much margin of error is a person, a human being, allowed before they go from being a good person to a bad person? Is it one strike and you're suddenly a bad person? By this criteria I hit every single mark of a good person on this list. So that makes me a good person, right? But what I've lied? What if I've made mistakes? what if I had allowed myself to develop a bad behavior due to an intense emotional stimulus? Am I still a good person then, or does that mistake overwrite all of the good that's within me?

When we judge other people we should take care not judge people by their behaviors alone, but by the entirety of their character and their intent and motivations for those behaviors. Someone very dear to me told me that they didn't believe that people can change. I think that for the most part this is true, but with a critically important caveat; a person's nature cannot change, but a person's behavior can. If a person is self-absorbed and is only interested in getting what they can for themselves, then they will not likely change that nature save for an act of divine intervention. However, if a person has developed a bad habit, a bad behavior, or something about them that is otherwise negative we should take care to ask ourselves if the cause for this behavior can be removed or changed, or if we are going to discard all of the positive traits that a person has because of a temporary situation. Addicts of all sorts successfully go through rehabilitation programs all of the time. They are usually good people who are in a bad spot. But, someone saw enough good in them to help them through their situation and give them a different set of behaviors, a way to change their pattern and their stimulus that drives that behavior. Shouldn't we afford that same chance to everyone? Shouldn't everyone be given a second chance to demonstrate that they have the propensity to change, and that they can go from being good people to wonderfully amazing people? At what point are people resigned to their sins and deemed hopeless?

Much adverse human behavior is predicated by one solitary emotion: fear. What each of us fears is different, but fear compels us to act in strange ways that are outside of our normal character and pattern of behavior. A very good friend of mine once told me that fear is nothing but "False Emotions Appearing Real". I really wish I had remembered that advice sooner, but I can tell you from experience that fear can cast a pretty intensive and realistic hallucination on your mind if you let it and in the process you can ruin the best things that have ever happened to you and the things that matter most in life. If you find yourself stuck in a situation of inaction as I was, or overly nervous about doing something, like forgiving, trusting, or making a change in your life, ask yourself what is it that you are truly afraid of. Dig deep, find the cause, and wipe it out. Fear has never done anything good for anyone and only serves to allow many of the best things to become tarnished, broken, or lost completely. Don't let the wonderful people in your life slip away because of fear. That is a regret that you will have forever because, sadly, there was no real reason for it in the first place.

The Problem with Science

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Before reading further, take a moment and watch this video. It's not very long, a little over 3 minutes: Bill Nye on CNN

This video struck a sour note with me. It seems as though this video exemplifies a lot of what is wrong with our society today. A debate about a politically charged controversial subject? No, not that part. The part at the very end. The part where the reporter says that the "science group" bullies people who don't agree with them.

Here's what I think is the biggest problem; people have opinions and ideas. Don't misunderstand me, ideas in and of themselves aren't what's wrong, no. But when we stubbornly and resolutely cling to an idea because we thought it up at some point, that's where it becomes a problem. As human beings we are subject to logical fallacies such as confirmation bias; I believe that what I think is right so much that I will refute whatever evidence is presented that might suggest otherwise, no matter how numerous or credible. In extreme cases of this, you start to develop wild conspiracy theories to defend my thought. In fact, human beings are so good at using logical fallacies that we have 2 dozen of them in our arsenal (for a breakdown of them check out this fun site: Your Logical Fallacy).

The main crux of the problem is that people believe that science is merely someone's opinion and can be argued against. Science isn't just my opinion, though. It's much more than that. Science is developed through the use of the Scientific Method, which all true scientists use. Sure, there are some crackpot "scientists" out there, but those people are to science what the Westboro Baptist Church is to Christianity; crazy extremists who do not represent the vast majority.

The scientific method can be a little complicated for people who are unfamiliar with it, but Neil DeGrasse Tyson sums it up nicely:
     "generations of searchers strictly adhering to a simple set of rules: 
      test ideas by experiment and observation; 
      build on those ideas that pass the test; 
      reject the ones that fail;
      follow the evidence wherever it leads; 
      and question everything."

By using the scientific method we can ensure that the data is accurate. I can conduct an experiment. I can write down exactly how I did the experiment; what tools I used, when I did the experiment, what was being experimented on, and under what conditions. I can take very thorough notes and record my results. Then, another scientist can do a repeatability test and replicate my experiment. If they also achieve the same results, then the test is accurate and the results are true; we can put value in those results. For example, if I look into a powerful enough microscope I can see that water is comprised of 2 atoms of hydrogen and 1 atom of oxygen. This is true all of water, everywhere. It is scientific fact.

Where we, as a society, run into trouble is when we encounter someone who believes differently. Maybe this person thinks that water is HO2. Or maybe they think something crazy like H2S. No matter how much you try to explain that water is, in fact, H2O, they don't believe you. They employ their arsenal of logical fallacies and they stoutly and resolutely reject the truth with a determination that is sadly admirable. You can't help but admire their conviction, however misguided it may be.

But here's the other part of the problem; scientists themselves. As a PhD student I consider myself one of them, so this next part applies to me very much. Every scientist that I've ever met or read about or conversed with in any way has two major character flaws. 1) We are intensely curious people. We want to know everything. We learn as much as we can about as many things as we can. We read, a lot. We read non-fiction. While the rest of the world is watching American Idol or reading Game of Thrones, we are reading books on thermonuclear dynamics and astrophysics and contemplating the nature of the universe. This is kind of what compels us to do research and become scientists; an insatiable drive to know and to learn, to understand. But, this leads us directly to our other flaw: 2) We have a need to share, to teach, and to enlighten. We completely fall prey to the social bias, projection bias, where we assume that everyone must also share our love of learning and knowledge. To scientists, the idea that anyone would not want know the truth seems incredulous. Therefore, whenever we encounter someone who has a belief that doesn't fit with what we know to be accurate, scientifically speaking, then we are compelled to enlighten that person. This isn't done out of malice or hate. It's certainly not an attack on the person or their intelligence. After all, if we as scientists didn't think that you were intellectually capable of comprehending the information, it would be a futile endeavor to try to explain it to you in the first place. But, most scientists have the same problem as I do; the deep-seated compulsion to stamp out incorrect information. The problem is that not everyone wants that incorrect information stamped out, and that concept is so completely foreign to scientists that they can only react by trying harder to make you understand. It's a vicious cycle. It's not that scientists are trying to bully anyone. If you asked any scientist, I would wager large sums of money that they would say that they are simply trying to impart the gift of knowledge.

Some scientists are getting a little better about this and realizing that sometimes it's just better to leave well enough alone. But, sometimes these people who have such strongly held convictions that their belief is right and science is wrong are also very outspoken. The result of this is that other people begin to believe them and what started out as one person having a crazy notion snowballs into a movement, one that stands in the way of progress and scientific advancement. Scientists try to react to these movements by pointing out that it doesn't make sense or by demonstrating that they actually don't know that much about science. That's how we end up with satirical sites like this one that explains the dangers of water: http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html.

For me, my hope for the world is that everyone would be a little more open to the evidence and would actually critique their opinions and their beliefs and be okay with the idea that their belief might be wrong. Scientists do this frequently. They often publish retractions or corrections, such as when Dr. Stephen Hawking, published that he might have been wrong about black holes recently.

An Open Letter to "Stand for Children"

[Johnathan Clayborn]

To whom it may concern,

 

While I was recently supporting an online petition on Change.Org I was presented with another petition that the website thought I might like; your petition to support Common Core in Arizona. I am writing to inform you that, regrettably, I cannot and will not support your petition in this case. While I do agree with the mission statement of your organization and your stated goals, I believe that this particular course of action is a mistake. Common Core does have a more modernized set of standards than what is currently being used in Arizona, yes. However, it also treats all education as a one-size-fits-all, assembly line approach that has not been working very well for the last 100 years. Taking an approach that isn't working and changing the color of the product that the factory produces still does not begin to repair the problem.

 

The education system in America is beset with challenges; administration who mis-allocate funds, publishers who overcharge for textbooks, a diminished literacy rate among schoolchildren, behavior problems, violence, drugs, a high teacher turnover rate, and not enough resources for the teachers to effectively do their jobs. The NCLB Act has already been highly detrimental to our education system. Instead of allowing teachers the freedom to teach lessons in a way that children understand and in a manner that will develop children's cognitive thinking processes, we binding teachers to a very narrow curriculum with a high degree of specificity. And, to ensure that the teachers are teaching exactly what is prescribed by administration more and more states are tying teacher's annual pay raises directly to how well their classes perform on standardized tests. The adoption of the Common Core curriculum will not improve this problem. In fact, I would argue that it makes it worse as it locks teachers into a prescribed curriculum even more. Students today are being taught to the tests. They are learning the answers to the specific test questions through pure rote memorization at the expense of cognition and higher level thinking. We don't need robots running the country when we are old and grey, we need thinkers, intellectuals, inventors, renaissance men...none of these would be created by spoon feeding a prescribed curriculum to the students.

 

The vehicle that is public education in America is broken. The "education reform" plan that is common core will not repair this breakdown. At best it would replace one tire on the car when all four are flat, and even then there's no guarantee that the new tire will be inflated. Many proponents of education reform wish to simply throw more money at the problem, but that's not the answer. The US Public Education is already the most expensive education in the world, and compared to other G8 countries it's a shining example of confident mediocrity. We are losing new teachers faster than ever before in history, with 50% of new teachers quitting within the first 5 years. That fact, right there, should be a deafening alarm bell that we are doing something drastically wrong. I challenge you to name another professional vocation where people are required to have at least a Bachelor's degree as a minimum requirement to be employed with a turnover rate as high as this. We are losing competent qualified teachers at a much faster rate than we can replace them. They are retiring, taking their years of wisdom with them or they are young and intelligent, but have decided that this job. as much as they love it, is simply not worth the hassle that is imposed upon them by bureaucracy.

 

There are many, many ways to change the education system. The most effective way would be a complete overhaul of everything we do from the top down, including the notion that summative assessments are a requirement for determining if our children are learning anything, that antiquated notion has to go. We need to develop student's critical thinking abilities. We need find a way to retain the new teachers that are coming into this noble profession by providing them with support, resources, and development opportunities rather than throwing them to the wolves. We need to put legislative pressure and public pressure on the administrators and school boards to stop purchasing overpriced textbooks from greedy, profit-mongering publishers when other, legitimate sources of information are available. We need to push to our administrators to move into the 21st century and adopt more technology into our classrooms. We, for the first time in history, have the ability to develop truly experiential learning to our children and we elect not to. We need to put pressure on the government to stop letting politicians and bureaucrats make bad decisions about what is "good for our children", which is code for "how can we track the money?" and turn more of that power over to researchers and scientists who can make decisions about how a child learns best based on empirical evidence about learning and cognition from the best minds in the world. There are many, many things that we can do to improve the education system in America, but the adoption of another program that mandates standardized testing and forces teachers into a regimented methodology of instruction is not one of them. No, I will not support your petition. I will vociferously oppose the adoption of Common Core at every chance that I get. I beseech you, before lending your support to a program such as this, to ask yourself whom does it serve, the schoolchildren in the classrooms, or the politicians and the bureaucrats?

 

-- Johnathan Clayborn

 PhD Student, Educational Psychology

The Misinformation Bandwagon

[Johnathan Clayborn]

Admittedly, I don't want the news too much anymore. After being deliberately misrespented by a reporter too lazy to check her facts, or too interested in writing for the ratings, I've become disenfranchised with the "news", especially since they often report only half the story or make a deliberately skewed point. I often read foreign newspapers to see what they report and compare that to what the US news is reporting and realize that the truth is somewhere in the middle. I've been following the news about Flight 370 pretty closely because I find the story fascinating. But, there was another news story that recently wrapped up; Cliven Bundy, the cattle-rancher who had a standoff with the Beareau of Land Management in Nevada.

This story has blown up and made national headlines. It's certainly got a lot of people riled up. I don't purport to know the truth of the situation, but I do know that the news is not the only group of people who deliberately skew or mis-represent data; everyone else does it too. Most of us are quick to jump on the bandwagon and get fired up about something because our friends said that it was bad. Most of us never stop to look at the information objectively or consider the source or the truth before developing an opinion.

Now, I'm not going to get into a debate about who was right or wrong in this case, but let's examine some of the things that happened.

1. The BLM reported that Cliven Bundy's cattle were a hazard to the Desert Tortoise in the area. This is bogus. Back in August of 2013 the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center was killing the tortoises by the hunderds. It was so bad that there was even a Change.org petition to get the killing of the tortoises to stop. That was clearly an excuse.

2. I don't about the allegetions of who paid what to whom or not and I had trouble verifying that with actual documents, so I reserve the right to comment on that one.

3. There are allegations of BLM Officer misconduct, particularly where one of the officers threw a woman to the ground. Let's be real about that for a minute. Yes, the officer threw the woman to the ground. But, the woman was also stepping in front of a moving truck, putting herself at risk, which is a pretty damned stupid thing to do. On the one hand, you could argue that he was abusing her because he didn't let her get run over. Or, on the other hand you could argue that throwing her to the ground was an effort to keep her safe. Or you could just say "Meh, I don't care either way".  The fact that this woman is a cancer-survivor really has no bearing on the situation and is used as a pity-card to get sympathy.

4. There are allegations that the BLM was stealing Bundy's cattle. To be clear, the BLM removed the cattle that were grazing on the county's land, not off of Bundy's personal property as many assert. Bundy's grandfather bought the rights to graze and develop the land, allegedly, but that did not transfer ownership of the land to him. They don't own that land, they simply have rights to graze there. The BLM alleges that they own the land and the previous agreement is null and void. I don't know which is right, that's a matter for the judge, but from the opposite point of view, the BLM wasn't stealing the cattle, they were confiscating the cattle for trespassing on county land.

5. The most ridiculous thing that I've seen going around is that the real reason for the standoff was so Sen. Harry Reid can seize the land and sell it to the Chinese to build a solar-panel farm to sell us energy. Now, the source of this allegation is decidedly less-than-reputable, but given the obvious misdirection about the tortoises, I thought it worth investigating. I did find a page, listed below, about plans to develop a solar-power farm, however, I did not find any information linking that to Chinese developers or interests. Also, if you look at the attached maps of the planned area where the solar farm is to be developed, and compare that area to Bunkerville, where the Bundy Ranch is located, you will see that these areas are roughly 50 miles apart, so it doesn't make sense for them to seize his land for development of a solar panel farm that is 50 miles away.

The important thing to remember before getting all riled about events is to take a deep breath and examine the facts critically before forming an opinion. Just jumping on whatever people tell you at face value and propagating that information forward makes you no better than crappy reporters.  

References:

BLM - Solar Power: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/newsroom/2014/March/BLM_Seeks_Public_Interest_for_Solar_Energy_Development_in_the_Dry_Lake_Solar_Energy_Zone.html

BLM - Cattle Trespass:  http://www.blm.gov/nv/st/en/fo/lvfo/blm_programs/more/trespass_cattle.html

Change.org - https://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-planned-killing-of-desert-tortoises 

Chinese Solar Power - http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/harry-reids-last-roundup/

CNN - http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1119214?ref=feeds%2Flatest