Good Reason

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Category: BYU

Published papers that are giving me the fits right now

23 October 2011 / / 4 Comments

There are a few pieces of research that are giving me a bad case of skeptitis: an inflammation of the part of the brain that makes us skeptical. I’m not saying I have the expertise to refute these, but something about them doesn’t smell right, and that makes me feel twitchy. See if you don’t agree.

Number 1: More Facebook Friends Means Bigger Brain Areas, U.K. Study Finds

A strong correlation was found between the number of Facebook connections and the amount of gray matter, or brain tissue responsible for processing signals, according to research led by Geraint Rees, a senior clinical research fellow at University College London. The results, based on magnetic resonance imaging of 125 college students’ brains, was published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

This reminds me of Dunbar’s primate brain size hypothesis: Primates that have bigger brains have larger social networks. But I think this is meant to apply on the species level, not on the individual level. Sounds fishy.

Number 2: BYU study: Hearing profanity may lead to more aggressive acts

BYU researchers found that middle school students who watched TV and played video games with profanity were more likely to use profanity. And dropping swear words was in turn related to being physically violent and aggressive in how they treat others.

The results were published Monday in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ peer-reviewed journal Pediatrics.

“It’s not like you hear profanity in the media and go and punch somebody. I think of it as a trickle-down effect,” said Sarah M. Coyne, a BYU assistant professor of family life and lead author of the study. “It represents a lack of respect for parents or whoever you’re using it towards. It’s like a slippery slope. You start using it, and it becomes associated with other aggression.”

This one sounds like a theory that your mom might make up, and the fact that this study comes out of the BYU doesn’t help the credibility. It’s very easy for someone to accept a conclusion when it’s something they already believe.

Does swearing really represent a lack of respect? Sometimes, but it could also be used to establish solidarity between people in a social setting. Does the study reflect that usage? How did this get past peer review? Is something broken at Pediatrics? What is an “assistant professor of family life”?

I don’t know if swearing leads to aggression, but I do know that junk science makes me want to jack someone in the gut.

Number 3: Origins of human language: They differently talked

“The man killed the bear” may seem like the obvious ‘right’ way to structure a sentence to an English speaker, but a linguistic duo suggests that the original human language did it differently, saying instead “The man the bear killed.” In a paper in a recent edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they dispute the assertion by some linguistics that the original human language was organized by Subject-Verb-Object, as English is.
…
Many comparative linguists believe that it’s simply not possible to know what languages were like further back than 6,000 or 7,000 years ago. But [Merritt] Ruhlen and [Murray] Gell-Mann believe it’s possible to make inferences about language going back much further, by studying the broad outlines of all the world’s languages.

It is possible to reconstruct past languages by looking at what current languages are like, and if you’re a historical linguist, this is the kind of thing you might do for languages from 1,000 or more years ago. But this gets harder to do the farther you go back, and by about 6,000 or 7,000 years, it’s awfully hard to separate the signal from the noise. Ruhlen and Gell-Mann are trying to go back perhaps 50,000 years, and tell us what the word order of Proto-World is like. This would be very hard to do.

Take a language family like Indo-European. Lots of languages are SVO (or Subject-Object-Verb), lots are SOV, and some have more or less free word order. It would be very difficult to select just one as the indisputably correct word order, and that’s for a language group that’s been well-studied and well-documented. Proto-World? That’s gotta be guesswork.

Am I off-base? Do any of these papers sound fine to you? Put it in comments.

I’m in the Trib.

20 March 2011 / / 3 Comments

Well, hot dog. Good Reason has been noticed by the Salt Lake Tribune, with a snippet of the ‘Flame-Retardant Tabernacle Jesus‘ post appearing within its august pages.

Not everyone was so impressed. Former Utahn Daniel Midgley, an ex-Mormon atheist who writes the blog Good Reason — goodreasonblog.blogspot.com — argued that those who find anything miraculous in the fire are “cherry-picking” the facts.

“One might wonder why the Mormon god would allow a church building to be destroyed by fire as he watches, pitiless and indifferent to human affairs,” Midgley wrote. “One might even wonder what message he intends to send. Perhaps an Old Testament-style message of anger and vengeance! The fire and destruction symbolic of the wrath to come. … But wait! It’s a Christmas miracle!”

In Midgley’s view, those who saw God’s hand in the scarred painting of Christ were using the same sort of broken logic that would allow some to see a “miracle” in a plane crash in which hundreds die and one person survives. Believers are quick to make such connections, Midgley wrote, “because in the face of disaster, there are only two possible outcomes — either your faith is boosted or your faith is boosted more. You have to admire their optimism, at least.”

I like the sound of ‘Former Utahn’, but does it count if you were only going to BYU? Will my LDS relatives notice my name and discover I’m an ex-Mormon atheist? Of course not. They all read the Deseret News.

Anyway, a big hello to all Tribune readers! I hope you either chortle with unholy mirth, or are offended. Either way, have a look around and comment if you wish.

Why is BYU so important to the LDS Church?

18 March 2011 / / 4 Comments

Some interesting documents are coming out of Canada these days. Because it’s registered as a charity, the LDS Church is required to report statistics about its spending. (Love the transparency. America, you could work on this.)

This caught my attention:

3) In 2009, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Canada gave $40,000,000 to BYU Provo. In other words, 57.9% of the money received from the wards that year.

Wow. Forty mil per year going to BYU, and that’s just from Canada. I wonder how much it’s netting in total.

One might wonder why the Mormon Church sees fit to pour that kind of money into a university. You could argue it’s to promote the fiction that faith and science are somehow compatible. I know that sounds like a strange principle to spend so much money on, but the Templeton Foundation spends big money just to promote that view. But in BYU’s case, I don’t think that’s the reason.

I think it’s about ‘Bubble creation’.


This is a good intro to bubbles.

Beliefs don’t last long in isolation, especially false ones. They need constant propping up. Communities of belief typically use some form of communal reinforcement — they constantly affirm the group’s beliefs, telling each other how true they are, and to some extent controlling the information available to members of the group.

I call this “the Bubble”. Inside the Mormon Bubble, it’s comfortable and non-challenging. Criticisms from the outside are muted, and affirmations amplified. The Bubble is absolutely vital to maintaining religious faith, especially for uni students, who are just being exposed to new ideas and (le gasp) scientific inquiry.

So BYU functions as a Mormon Bubble for uni students who have just left their parents’ home (which is often a Bubble itself) or transitioning to or from the mission field (another Bubble). You also find yourself in a largely Mormon dating pool, from which you may select a mate and create another Bubble in the form of an LDS home. That kind of Bubble can last for the rest of your life, and serves to propagate LDS memes as more people are raised in Mormon Bubbles.

Without a Bubble Factory like BYU to take young Mormons through that transitional period in their lives, I don’t know if the Mormon Church would survive. Certainly its leaders see it as vital enough to pour millions into it, and I don’t think it’s all for the benefit of science.

What I tell my children about sex

5 March 2011 / / 6 Comments

Sometimes you want to talk about sex, and sometimes it is thrust upon you. Like this week, when a BYU basketball player was nixed off the team for an ‘honor code violation’, which turned out to be consensual sex with his girlfriend.

Some people are congratulating the BYU for standing up for old-fashioned values like sexual repression. It ties in neatly with a recent article by K-Lo of the National Review about her longing for a new sexual revolution, except without the sex. Others are congratulating BYU for upholding their ‘honor code‘ at great cost to themselves. Of course, the BYU ‘honor code’ has as much to do with honor as an ‘honor killing‘ does — in both cases, it’s about social control.

And that’s the real thrust of this issue: The Mormon Church (and to varying degrees, the rest of Christianity along with many other religions) claims the right to control the sexual behaviour of other adults, and for some reason these adults allow them to have that right. The church claims this right in the name of moral purity or social order, but I think it’s really because sex competes with the church. Sex makes you feel good, and this is a challenge to a church that wants to be the only source of good feelings — indeed, a church which enshrines good feelings as the highest form of evidence. So they try to take over sex by controlling the conditions under which it occurs.

Sex is normal. Critters have been bonking each other since there was bonking. But if you do something perfectly normal that the church has prohibited, and you admit that what you did was wrong, then they’ve got you. You owe them now. They hold the keys to your forgiveness, your imaginary salvation, and your entry into Fictional Heaven. But only if you hand them the right to control that most personal part of yourself.

(Especially to young Mormons: Your bishop has no right to take you behind closed doors and question you about your sexual or masturbatory habits. This is creepy behaviour. Tell him it’s private.)

I endured a Mormon upbringing, which meant that I was loaded with messages about sexual guilt from since I was about yay-high. The messages were also strangely vague. When I asked my mom about sex, she threw me a book about animal reproduction, which was confusing. Was I supposed to have sex, or amplexus? My dad’s advice was gruff, but simple: “Don’t do the Marriage Thing.” He said sex was a priesthood ordinance. (I asked him if that meant that if you got the words wrong, you had to start again? He smiled at this, despite himself.)

My advice to my boys has been different. I hope that they get all the love they could ever wish for, both in body and heart. But the pursuit of love must be conducted with responsibility.

The responsibility I’m talking about takes four forms:

Take care of your body, and those of others.
Take care of your heart, and those of others.

The first two are related:

Take care of your body, and those of others.

This means if you’re sexually active, don’t have unprotected sex. Condoms are available at my place, and the boys know where they are. They know this because recently I was looking for something in a bathroom drawer, and hollered, “I can’t find anything in this drawer for all the condoms in here! I wouldn’t mind if they disappeared!” Clumsy, but effective.

Care for your body also means that if you are sexually active, you occasionally get tested for HIV, chlamydia, and all the other nasties that are out there. Don’t be Patient X.

Take care of your heart…

Taking care of your heart could mean a lot of things. I think of it as not getting involved with people who are bad for you, either because they’re using you at your expense, they’re mean or careless with your feelings, or they’re physically or verbally abusive. Value yourself enough to not have a sexual relationship with people who are wrong for you. The cost is too high.

…and those of others.

Look out for the feelings of other people. The philosopher Martin Buber described two kinds of relationships: ‘It’ and ‘You’. This applies to sex. You can have sex because you like the person (a ‘You’ relationship), or you can have sex because you like the sex (the ‘It’). I think either’s fine, but your goals have to match those of your sex partner.

That means taking the time to DTR. Define the Relationship before having sex, and make sure you both want the same thing. If she’s having a ‘You’ experience, and you just want ‘It’, then there’s a mismatch. Best to let it go. There are lots of people that you can find ‘it’ with. Otherwise, you’re just screwing someone over, and that’s not taking care of other people’s hearts. I’m pleased to say that I’m on good terms with people in my past because I took the time to DTR.

I think this advice is much more helpful than the ‘Never Never’ advice I got as a young man. Talking about sexual responsibility instead of sexual avoidance allows that young people are likely to engage in sexual behaviour, and reduces the likelihood of negative consequences.

So my message is: When you’re ready to have a sex life, have a good one. But do so responsibly. I’m here to help, but if you don’t want to talk to me, talk to someone you trust. And I hope you have some great experiences.

Spell check madness at the Daily Looniverse

8 April 2009 / / 3 Comments

Can anyone at BYU score me a copy of the Daily Universe from a couple of days ago?

Thousands of issues of Brigham Young University’s student newspaper were pulled from newsstands because a front-page photo caption misidentified leaders of the Mormon church as apostates instead of apostles.

An apostate is a person who has abandoned religious faith, principles or a cause.

The photo in The Daily Universe on Monday was of members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a governing body of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, at the weekend general conference.

The caption called the group the “Quorum of the Twelve Apostates.” The mistake happened when a copy editor ran a computer spell check and apostate was suggested as the replacement for a misspelling of apostle.

Make sure you follow the Apostates. A message from the Crotch of Jesus Thrust in Leather-gay Pants.

Mormon Studies fellowship, but not where you’d guess

17 January 2009 / / Comments Off on Mormon Studies fellowship, but not where you’d guess

The University of Utah is offering a fellowship in Mormon Studies.

“It’s a matter of academic justice,” said Bob Goldberg, the center’s director. “There would not be a question if we were in New York City and wanted to establish a course in Jewish studies, or in Chicago, Baltimore or Boston and wanted to start a course in Catholic studies. This is a perfect place to do research on Mormonism. To me, it’s a no-brainer.”

The U.’s is the first such fellowship in the nation, but joins a growing list of colleges that offer some coursework in Mormon studies, including Claremont College in southern California, Utah State University, Vanderbilt University and the University of North Carolina, to name a few.

Sounds interesting, but what’s even more interesting is that you can’t do a degree in Mormon Studies in the one place you’d think you could: BYU.

Why not? Well, perhaps a few ideas. There’s a certain distrust of learning in the LDS Church, unless it’s specifically dedicated to meeting the needs of the organisation instead of, you know, facts. This suspicion was written into the Book of Mormon, and it’s worked its way into General Conference. Dallin Oaks, an LDS apostle, famously warned of the dangers of ‘symposia’ (meaning those clever Sunstone rascals). Here’s the money quote.

I have seen some persons attempt to understand or undertake to criticize the gospel or the Church by the method of reason alone, unaccompanied by the use or recognition of revelation. When reason is adopted as the only—or even the principal—method of judging the gospel, the outcome is predetermined.

He doesn’t say what the ‘outcome’ is, but it can’t be good. So Oaks is implying that trying to understand the Church using reason instead of — what? whisperings of a spirit being? some guy telling you? — will cause you to reject religious doctrine. An interesting admission, and a huge warning sign that you’re dealing with an enemy of reason.

Church leaders have periodically slagged off Mormons who research into the church’s history. One leader, Neal Maxwell, trivialised the scholarly efforts of thinking Latter-day Saints as “intellectual bungee jumping“. (A prominent Mormon apologetics institute was subsequently renamed in his honour.)

So it’s not likely that the LDS Church (via its official university) will make a place for scholarly Mormon research anytime soon. They don’t seem to think their faith can stand scrutiny, and with that I fully agree.

John Morley said it well:

Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

Education in reverse

8 November 2008 / / Comments Off on Education in reverse

Does it seem strange that a university would deny a degree to an otherwise capable student just because he’d been booted from his church? Then you’ve never been to BYU.

Chad Hardy was excommunicated for producing the edgy yet cheeky ‘Men on a Mission‘ calendar. Well, religion is religion. But now BYU has placed his communications degree on hold even though he’s fulfilled all the requirements. Somehow that doesn’t seem right. What are they trying to turn out over there? Competent professionals, or think-alike alumni that will one day donate big bucks to the alma mater? Oh. Guess I answered my own question.

In the words of the BYU official:

Your graduation application will be placed in a “hold” file and your name will not be resubmitted for graduation. If in the future you are reinstated as a member of the Church in good standing, you are invited to contact my office regarding your possible eligibility for the awarding of a degree.

For some reason, Mr Hardy’s not accepting the gentleman’s awfully decent offer. You can read about his impending legal struggles (and possibly contribute to his legal fund) at his website.

Award for most loaded ‘generally’ in a news article

10 January 2008 / / 2 Comments

I got a BA in International Relations from the dear old BYU, and somehow the CIA failed to hire me. Probably because I became a real linguist instead of a “linguist”, which is what they used to call an “interrogator”. But this article from BYU NewsNet explains why the campus was always awash in G-men (or perhaps they were just G-men impersonators):

The CIA, FBI and National Security like to recruit from BYU because of its honor code and the lifestyle of most of its students, according to Kinjo. They said that if a person drinks, does drugs, has explicit sex or gambles, it can put them in a compromising position. Generally, BYU students don’t get involved with those things.

I can neither confirm nor deny!

So explicit sex is right out. What other kinds of sex is there? Can you have implicit sex? Because I can tell you right now that a lot of that was going on.

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