I've been a bad person in that I haven't been updating recently here. I've been on YouTube with a few videos, but plan on updating in both spots now.

I've been listening to debates between theists and atheists for a while now, and for the most part, I have heard most of the arguments. A recent episode of Conversations from the Pale Blue Dot was with a Christian philosopher that debated/discussed the efficacy of the Kalam Cosmological argument with William Lane Craig. Linked from the show notes post is a radio interview with William Lane Craig.

Their discussion was good, but I wanted to hone in on something from that interview. At 14:40 in the audio, the conversation follows about the "first cause" in Kalam's argument:

Interviewer: Bill, you argue that we can recover some attribute about the cause just by conceptual analysis. What would this cause of the universe be like. Well, it couldn't be material because it brought about matter. It couldn't be spacial because it brought about space. It couldn't be subject to time because it brought about time. [...] Are you saying he has some trouble with that?

Craig: Yes, he didn't dispute that the cause would have to be timeless, immaterial, and spaceless because it brought time and space into being. But he wanted to dispute my inference that the cause would be personal, and one of the arguments that I give for the personhood of the first cause [...] is the following argument: there are only two candidates that I know of in the philosophical and scientific literature for entities that can exist timelessly and immaterially, and that would be either an unembodied mind (consciousness without a body) or else an abstract object, like a number, a mathematical object. But mathematical objects don't stand in causal relationships. [slight chuckle] The number 7 has no causal impact upon anything. It is part of the definition of abstract objects that they are causally effete or causally impotent. They don't stand in causal relations. That implies therefore that the cause of the origin of the universe must be an unembodied mind. And therefore the cause of the universe is a personal being.

And Wes' response to this was just to say, "Well, how do you know these are the only two alternatives? Maybe there's some timeless, immaterial entity that we don't know of."

Interviewer: Well give it to us, I mean...

Craig: Exactly, I thought that was a very weak response. I said, "Fine, tell me what it is, I'll include it in the list." But there is no non-ad-hoc candidate in the philosophical and scientific literature, apart from minds or abstract objects that I know of. Nor could he name one.

Emphasis added by me. You can see in his own language where we have an argument from ignorance and an a false dichotomy. We have an example here of a merging of two logical fallacies: the argument from ignorance and the false dichotomy. I've dubbed it the unknown false dichotomy.

Examining the Unknown False Dichotomy

To examine why this reasoning is flawed, all we need to look for is some past beliefs that were argued, "it must be this or that" and the actual answer turned out to be some third option that no one had thought of.

The most impressive example that comes to mind is from Einstein. Prior to Einstein, light was argued that it was either a particle or a wave. One one side, you had people pointing to the photoelectric effect proving that light was made of particles. On the other side, you had people arguing that it was wave-like due to the famous double-slit experiments. There were only two proposals at the time, and both had their supporters. But as Einstein demonstrated, there's a wave-particle duality. The elusive third option that was previously unknown.

This example clearly demonstrates the mentality at the time: it can't be a wave because look at the photoelectric effect. It can't be a particle because look at the dual slit experiments.

But we're missing the other side of the unknown false dichotomy, because if you asked these scientists if they could be wrong, they would most certainly say, "Yes, there's clearly something we don't understand." Unlike Craig, they recognize that just because we haven't thought of another possible answer doesn't mean it must be one of the existing answers. Reality doesn't always fit our pre-defined views, and we must be ready and open to discovery of anything that fits the bill more precisely than any other view.

The key thing to remember is that in reality we have to deal with probabilities, not absolute truths. Just because our understanding of wave-particle duality fits our measurements right now doesn't mean that we have a 100% true theory on the way light works. But when we look at what happened before the big bang, if "before" even makes sense, we can't make any assumptions. When someone claims, "I only know of X possibilities, and since it can't be (X-1) possibilities, it must be the last one!" they've gone about trying to prove their point by disproving all the counter claims. But just because you've rejected all the other claims doesn't make yours true without actual evidence.

We have no evidence of anything prior to the big bang, and therefore our state of mind should not be one that we assume a specific truth, but rather an open mind ready to accept whatever any evidence we may garner can show.

Call me naive. Call me what you will. Watch this clip:

I don't see sexism. I just don't see it. I *can see how someone might take it as sexist, but let's dissect what he's saying:

• First example
• • Random girl approaches in a hotel bar and "wants to spend time with you"
• • Be skeptical, she's most likely a prostitute (especially in Vegas)
• Second example:
• • Suppose you're being hit on in a bar.
• • She then says, "You're very interesting, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm a Pisces."
• • He says you have two choices
• • • Tell her that astrology is bunk and offend her
• • • Ignore it and move on

The first example clearly is a joke and lies directly in the stereotypical setting for the "confused person doesn't realize he needs to pay" experience. It also is an allusion to an episode in season 2 of Big Bang Theory where this situation happens.

The second example is with what some people take exception. But Bill Prady phrased the situation very specifically. He didn't say, "If any girl approaches you, you can either tell her astrology is bunk or ignore it." He specifically says if a girl happens to tell you more about herself and the first thing she mentions is her sign, you can either ignore it or let her know how you feel about astrology.

It's very similar to any situation where I'm talking with any gendered person, and they bring up religion. Depending on who this person is and how much I want the conversation to continue, I will either change the subject/say something non-committal or tell them I'm an atheist.

Let alone he wasn't being sexist to any of the women attending TAM7, unless you happen to be someone who would introduce yourself as your astrological sign. If you are, you need to seriously get caught up on your reading.

What I really feel is going on here is confirmation bias. I think there's a lot of situations that can be considered "gray area" for any number of topics, including sexism or racism. When something triggers that notion that is similar to what you're expecting, you assume it was what you were expecting. I feel that a lot of the movements often claim injustice when the offense wasn't really there.

I'm not saying that every claim of injustice is unwarranted -- far from it. I realize we still battle with sexism and racism. There is legitimate concern to be had when people are sexist or racist and harm others, whether it's emotionally or physically. But I think that before anyone makes a claim as severe as calling someone sexist, one should consider the arguments skeptically and thoroughly before coming out with the claim.

But perhaps I'm misunderstanding why this is considered sexist. If so, please leave a comment and let me know, because I'm utterly clueless right now.

I got back from The Amazing Meeting 7 (TAM7) on Tuesday. This was my first TAM, and I had a great time. I wanted to share some highlights, and hopefully encourage more people to come next year. TAM is a conference where skeptics get together to discuss different topics that are currently affecting the world. The most prominent one this year was probably the Anti-vax movement.

This year 1,007 people were officially registered when James Randi stood up to give his opening remarks. This was a huge crowd, but I did run into a lot of the people I was hoping to meet. On Thursday after I arrived, I went to Red Rock Canyon with a skeptic couple I met on the JREF Forums. It's amazing to see what was created in only 6,000 years.

It was hard to get pictures that did the scale justice. If you've never been to Red Rock, it's a must see. It's only $5 per vehicle, and is totally worth the scenic drive. That night was the "meet and greet" where I started to make some friends. I did end up meeting up with Matt Dillahunty for a few minutes before going our separate ways. While we were both there, we tended to go our own paths syncing up once in a while.

The original plan to do some recorded interviews fell through as it was realized a little too late that the speakers could only be booked by going through the TAM organizers, and by the time we inquired, they were basically all booked. That was actually OK with me, because I enjoyed having the flexibility of doing whatever I wanted to :)

I got great seats for the Jamy Ian Swiss, Banachek, Mac King, and Burke show that night. A few moments after I sat down in the second row, none other than Randi himself is seated right in front of me. A few minutes after that, Penn comes up and talks to him for a few minutes.

The show was hilarious and mesmerizing. As a skeptic I know nothing magical is happening, but I can't figure out how in the world they do their tricks. Mac King was great, and I will be going to see his full show, but what stumped me the most was Banachek. It appeared that he was able to guess people's full names, birth dates, and more. I haven't a clue how it works.

Later that night in the lounge, I happened to take a great picture of Brian Brushwood from Scam School:

Day 1 - Friday

Friday morning started off with a live taping of The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe. Shortly thereafter, Randi gave his introduction in which he explained his absence as of late.

During a routine medical examination more than a month ago, it was discovered that I had a nasty visitor inside me – yet another stunning example of Intelligent Design at work, friends. My doctors went in and removed it, and things are looking up again.

While he is certainly looking his age, his spirits were high through the conference.

Up next was the keynote delivered by Bill Prady, co-creator of The Big Bang Theory. It was a very entertaining talk, and it's refreshing to have a TV show written by people who love science, and it shows in the dialogue. He showed some highlights from the show, and talked about some of the stories behind the characters. It was a great way to kick off the show.

The next part of the day that amazed me was the conversation between Jamy Ian Swiss and James Randi about some of his previous stunts and gigs. Would you believe that he was part of Alice Cooper's videos and built some of the effects?

That night was the SGU dinner, which was very delicious. I was able to meet Jay Novella and briefly Evan Bernstein. Technically I "met" Rebecca because she was the reason Evan left our table so quickly. Unfortunately my paths never crossed with Steve Novella.

After the dinner was Dean Cameron's Nigerian Spam Scam Scam. This was by far the most I laughed all weekend. It is a reenactment of the all-too-common Nigerian 419 scam letters, to which he replied and kept dragging them along. Apparently he always replies with the same line to start off the exchange: "Great! Do you have any toast?"

While it's hilarious to read, it's great to see it acted out with great timing, voices, and facial expressions.

After that George Hrab gave a slightly condensed version of his songs for the elements (a short song written for each of the elements of the periodic table).

Day 2 - Saturday

During the Saturday Morning breakfast, the SGU was scheduled for another live taping. After showing their spoof ghost hunting show video (which hasn't been posted yet AFAIK), things took a surprising turn when Sid Rodrigues stood up and proposed to Rebecca Watson.

Adam Savage of the Mythbusters gave an extremely moving and wonderful talk about his failures getting to where he is now in life. It was this talk that made me 100% sure I was going to buy the DVDs when they're available.

The Magic and Skepticism panel was also excellent. DJ Grothe asked questions and the magicians responded. The questions centered around ethics, when is it OK to lie, etc. It was very interesting to hear them talk about how to structure their magic shows so that they come across explicitly as "tricks" and nothing supernatural.

The Skepticism in Broadcasting panel was equally as entertaining and interesting.

And of course, Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer finished up with a great talk about why the world will not end in 2012.

Day 3 - Sunday

Sunday was a light day that started with paper presentations, which were all done very well. But the big focus was on the Million Dollar Challenge.

This was the first challenge I had watched, and there are many write-ups already, so I won't go into details about what exactly happened -- she failed. What was fascinating to me is that she flew on her own dime out to Vegas without ever trying the test protocol on her own. I would think that anyone who was about to spend that kind of money would double check that the protocol they agreed to would still let their "powers" work.

It was boring, yet extremely fascinating. Everyone was extremely quiet -- apparently the audience watching the stream over the internet didn't even realize there was a crowd of 1,000 skeptics in the room. Of course she's already bickering about the test not being fair, but she did agree to it all.

But the real highlight to me of the day was an auction item that I was a partial winner of -- four people went to a planetarium and observatory with Phil Plait for the evening. We started off by eating a quick dinner, and then watching his Bad Astronomy planetarium show, which despite his uncertainty, was done quite well and was entertaining. The stars were out by then, and we made our way out to the telescopes.

Unfortunately the observatory was right by two baseball fields, and the lights were on full blast for most of the night. But it was still a great experience, having our astronomy questions answered first hand and observing a few globular clusters and binary stars. If anything it confirmed my desire to delve into astronomy more.

Conclusion

Even though I tried to keep my summaries short, you can see how much stuff is jam packed into the TAM experience. If you don't walk away with anything else from this post, definitely mark your calendars next year for TAM 8. I'll be trying my best to make sure I'm there.

Sorry for the long outage, I've been having a crazy busy summer. I'm trying to finish up a lot of work before I'm off to TAM, but as I was walking my dog the other day, I was listening to the latest episode of The Non-Prophets. In it Dennis reads out part of an email from someone named Jim they received. If anyone knows who the author is and if they have a website, please let me know so I can link to them.

I play drums in a rock band for fun, and I've decided I need to help the global financial crisis by buying a new set of drums. Anyway, I was busy setting them up, all excited, when I dropped my tuning key -- a small key, a few centimeters across used for setting up and tuning the drums. Something that drummers always lose.

I watched it bounce to the floor, and under my kick drum pedal. I got down on my hands and knees and found the key under the pedal, resting on the pedal base plate. However, it was sitting perfectly in a drum-key shaped rubber hollow. It had fallen in into a special spot designed by the kick pedal designers to store the drum key.

I was amazed. The key holder was a clever and useful design and I only found it because I accidentally dropped my drum key, and it fell into it. I have a mathematics degree, and I knew this was not impossible, but certainly improbable. However, I was quite excited about how I discovered the secret storage place. The odds were very low, so I knew it would make a great story to share about how I found it.

I want you to pause here, and ask yourself what assumption you personally would have drawn from that experience. Same as me?

Because a while later, I was packing up the drums and found a drum key on the floor. It was the one I had dropped. The rubber hollow already had another spare drum key in it by those very clever kick pedal designers.

Now I, a very scientifically minded person, automatically assumed the incredibly high odds of it falling-perfectly-into-its-mold hypothesis, rather than the very obvious spare-key-already-in-place hypothesis. In both cases, I jumped to the less probable conclusion.

This is a perfect anecdote to use to ponder: when should you be skeptical of highly improbable events? The discussion ensues, and they highlight most of the good points:

• Since his skepticism would have only wasted his efforts when all he needed was a drum key, his conclusion jumping wasn't harmful.
• Someone might be too skeptical if they were to look an additional 10-15 minutes after they found the spare key.
• A true-believer is someone who would later find the other key and continue to proclaim that the original key was the one in the mold.

So, how would you have reacted? I found this story fascinating because I jumped to the same conclusion -- probably partially a result of his choice of words. However, I think I would have also came to that conclusion initially as well.

I'm going to be attending two conferences this year, maybe three if dates line up correctly.

First up is The Amazing Meeting 7 (TAM7) organized by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Through The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe Podcast, I came to realize how great of a meeting this was. With the potential to meet Penn & Teller, James Randi, Phil Plait, Adam Savage, as well as many other distinguished people, I made it a goal to attend this year. I finally booked my tickets about a month ago. TAM is from July 9 through 12 in Las Vegas.

Next, I found the Atheist Alliance International Convention with Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher headlining, and many other noted speakers including people I admire such as Jerry Coyne and Eugene Scott. I'm extremely excited about this conference and the prospect of potentially being able to see Dawkins speak in person. This conference is held in Los Angeles from October 2 through 4.

Lastly is the Texas Freethought Convention which is still being organized. If the date is the same as last year, I unfortunately will most likely be out of town. However, if I'm in town, I'll definitely be there.

For the past few months I've been monitoring for various speakers that I would love to see. The top of my list includes Dawkins, Hitchens, and Ehrman. It's incredibly hard to find a schedule for Hitchens -- I wish the man would put together a simple website. Hell, I would volunteer to post and host an official website with a calendar of events.

To illicit some feedback, I have a few questions for the few readers I get:

1. Are you attending any conventions this year, especially the ones above?
2. Who in the atheist/skeptic/freethought movements are you most interested in hearing speak?

Hopefully through these conferences I'll be able to put a face to many of the bloggers I've come to read and appreciate, as well as possibly meet some of the more influential public figures like Dawkins and Hitchens.

As a medically obese person, I've struggled with weight loss. None of the diets really made sense, and even though I lost 45 pounds on Atkins, I never understood why, and it bugged me. There were theories, but I hadn't ever seen a strong study show why the diet actually does work for people.

My current hypothesis with one data point (myself) is that Atkins counting carbs wasn't right, and that "ketosis" wasn't the key, but rather it was all about keeping your blood sugar levels steady throughout the day. This happens to mirror Atkins quite well, but with the side effect that you look at glycemic load instead of net carbs.

Today I noticed a news report Factors Other Than Genes Could Cause Obesity, Insulin Study Shows. Reading through it, it shows a strong correlation with what my hypothesis was.

Findings indicate that the faster a cell processes insulin, the more fat it stores.

Other researchers have suggested that certain "fat genes" might be associated with excessive fat storage in cells. However, the Purdue researchers confirmed that these fat genes were expressed, or activated, in all of the cells, yet those cells varied drastically - from nearly zero in some cases to pervasive in others - in how much fat they stored.

Combine this with the existing knowledge of how we regulate insulin in the body: we reduce "simple" carbohydrates by limiting intake of high-glycemic foods.

As I've been starting back up my quest of removing high-glycemic foods partly for health and partly for weight loss, I'm happy to see studies coming out lining up with my suspicions about being healthy and losing weight.

This was a point I struggled with as I started becoming more skeptical of things, and more trusting of science and medicine. Where do you draw the line of what to be skeptical about? All along I knew that Atkins worked better for me than a specifically low-calorie diet did, and no one could explain why. If I were to trust established science which hadn't really researched this as much as you are to led to assume, why didn't it work for most people (referring to many studies referenced in Rethinking Thin and Good Calories, Bad Calories)?

Anecdotal evidence is some of the worst evidence, and so while I was trusting of my hunches, I'm glad to see scientists investigating this further.