Atheist Says Challenging Religion is ‘Cruel,’ Nonbelief is for the Wealthy

What Do You Think?

 

December 26, 2013 By Paul Fidalgo

 

David Strumfels -- I tried being in AA/NA (Alcoholics/Narcotics Anonymous) many times, but since they are religious-based organizations (though they often tried to deny it) and I cannot believe in "God" or anything superstitious, in the end I realized they had nothing to offer me.  Religious people, on the hand, did seem to get help -- if they were serious in their beliefs.  So the article below sparked my interest.  Unfortunately, I find the attacks on Dawkins' and other athiests ill-founded, and only reflect his own 16 year old mind; yet I think he is largely talking about a general principle, one that very well could be true.  There is nothing in the laws of nature that make believing an absurdity an absurd thing itself; it should be beneficial in many cases.

Chris Arnade has a PhD in physics, used to work on Wall Street, and now works with the homeless. He is an atheist, but just about none of the people in trouble that he works with are, calling them “some of the strongest believers I have met, steeped in a combination of Bible, superstition, and folklore.” In a piece he wrote for The Guardian, he seems to be saying that this is more or less how it should be. And why? Because it is in this religion and superstition that they find hope.

In doing so, he unfortunately invents a heartless atheist strawman:

They have their faith because what they believe in doesn’t judge them. Who am I to tell them that what they believe is irrational? Who am I to tell them the one thing that gives them hope and allows them to find some beauty in an awful world is inconsistent? I cannot tell them that there is nothing beyond this physical life. It would be cruel and pointless.

Is there anyone doing this? Is there any atheist activist or celebrity who is targeting the downtrodden and brazenly attempting to force the blessings of godlessness on them? Of course not.

Instead, many organized atheist groups and individuals trying to lend aid without any theological (or atheological) strings attached.

Arnade concludes that atheism is something that is really only tenable for those who “have done well,” or at least are not struggling to such an extent as the subjects of his work are. Certainly, it is easier to step back and take a critical look at supernatural claims if one is not constantly worried about one’s safety or ability to feed one’s family. Of course those who are desperate are more vulnerable to seeking a grain of hope wherever they can find it, even in the ephemeral or fictional.

Arnade recalls his 16-year-old self who, as he tells it, snidely turned his nose up at believers in fragile and desperate situations.

I want to go back to that 16-year-old self and tell him to shut up with the “see how clever I am attitude”. I want to tell him to appreciate how easy he had it, with a path out. A path to riches. 

I also see Richard Dawkins differently. I see him as a grown up version of that 16-year-old kid, proud of being smart, unable to understand why anyone would believe or think differently from himself. I see a person so removed from humanity and so removed from the ambiguity of life that he finds himself judging those who think differently.

I suppose Arnade has caught Dawkins lurking around, being extremely nasty to people in the streets, telling them how stupid they are.

Look, I understand that many atheists can be uncomfortable with confrontation of religious claims, and I even understand that one can take issue with the tactics or rhetoric of certain groups or figures.
None of them, not Dawkins, not Hemant, not the big atheist groups (including my own), and definitely not me, get it right all the time. (I’m kidding, Hemant, you always get everything right. Please don’t fire me.) The magic force field our culture has placed around religious belief and superstition makes every discussion and debate fraught with tension and tender sensitivities.

But Arnade makes a mistake by castigating atheism-writ-large as some heartless, elitist club of buzzkills and dream-crushers. For many, if not most of us, our decision to be public and active about our atheism and our opposition to religion stems from a desire to see the world at large lifted out of a morass of bad and oppressive magical thinking. Flawed as we are, we are trying to make things better.

If religion is giving desperate people hope, rather than shake a finger at those who argue against religion, perhaps we should be working as hard as we can to give these people something other than religion to lean on. Something real that actually solves problems, rather than mystical falsehoods.

To leave things as they are, to allow religion to continue its infestation in the lives of those who deserve something better, just because it seems like the nicer thing to do in the short term, I think that’s what’s patronizing and elitist.

Image via Shutterstock.

Welcome to the 'Era of Behavior'

by Dov Seidman      

December 29, 2013, 8:00 AM

As the world has gone from connected to interconnected to interdependent, I believe we’ve entered a new era.  What I call the era of behavior.  I acknowledge that behavior has always mattered.  What

I’m saying is that behavior now matters more than ever and in ways it never has before.  And what I mean by behavior – it’s not just doing the right principle, the responsible thing.  

 

Of course that’s fundamentally what I mean by behavior.  But every Tweet is a behavior.  Every email is a behavior.  We call these things communications and Tweeting and friending and unfriending.  But every email we write, collaboration is a behavior.  Innovation is a behavior.  How we lead is a behavior.  How we engender trust in our relationships.  How we say we’re sorry when we should.  It’s all behavior.  And the more connected the world gets, the more that every form of these behaviors and the more that leaders can create cultures where these behaviors can flourish and be scaled and be embedded into the DNA – the more these are the organizations that will succeed and, more importantly, achieve significance in their endeavors and therefore lasting enduring success.  So I believe that we have entered deeply the era of behavior.

 

Now I want to make a distinction when it comes to behavior.  Carrots and sticks.  The proverbial carrots and sticks, you know, bonuses and compensation and threats of punishment or discipline – they can shift behavior.  You know, we went through an election where tiny slivers of swing state voters received ads, were bombarded with ads trying to get them to shift from one camp to the other.  If you put a product on sale we’re shifting behavior.  Buy now, not later.

 

So we’ve scaled up marketplaces and mechanics of shifting behavior – left, right, forward, back, now not later.  But if you sit with corporate managers and you say, “What behaviors do you want from your colleagues, from your people?”  They say, “I want creativity.  I want collaboration, loyalty, passion.”  And they go on and on and on – responsible, principle of conduct.  These are not behaviors you can shift for.  You can’t say, “You two, go in the room and don’t emerge until you have a brilliant idea.”  “And you two from different cultures, go in a room and don’t come out but I’ll pay you double if you figure out how to truly collaborate and move us forward.  The behaviors we want today are behaviors that we elevate.  These are elevated behaviors.

 

And what’s elevated people since the beginning of time is a mission worthy of their loyalty.  A purpose worthy of their dedication.  Core values that they share with others that really animate them.  Beliefs that they believe are near and dear and a kind of leadership rooted in moral authority that inspires them.  So not only are we in the era of behavior where competitive advantage has shifted to behavior, we are in the era of elevated behavior and what elevates behavior are fundamental values that we share with others and missions and purposes worthy of our commitment and dedication that we also share with others.  

 

And twenty-first century leadership is about connecting with people from within.  And that’s what I mean by this notion that there’s only three ways to get another human being, a friend, a colleague, a worker, to do anything.  You can coerce them, do this or else.  You can motivate them with the carrot, with the bonus, with the stock option.  And fireable offenses, for example, coercion and paying people well – they continue to have their place.  But the freest, cheapest, most enduring, most affordable and cleanest form of human energy is inspiration.  

 

And when you inspire somebody, you get in touch with the first two letters of the word inspire – IN.  And what’s in us are beliefs and values and missions and purposes worthy of our commitment. And leadership today is really fast going from command and control with carrots and sticks as the mechanics of command and control to inspirational leadership.  Leadership that’s animated by moral authority that connects with people in an inspired way from within.  And I think twenty-first century leadership is about becoming an inspirational leader.

 

In Their Own Words is recorded in Big Think's studio.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Why America is NOT the greatest country in the world, anymore.

More Good News for Solar Power

Solar cell performance improves with ion-conducting polymer

Sep 04, 2013

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-09-solar-cell-ion-conducting-polymer.html#jCp

       

A dye-sensitized solar cell panel is tested in the laboratory at the School of Chemical Science and Engineering. Dye-sensitized solar photovoltaics can be greatly improved as a result of research done at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Credit: David Callahan

Researchers at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology have found a way to make dye-sensitized solar cells more energy-efficient and longer-lasting.

Drawing their inspiration from photosynthesis, dye-sensitized solar cells offer the promise of low-cost solar photovoltaics and – when coupled with catalysts – even the possibility of generating hydrogen and oxygen, just like plants. A study published in August could lead to more efficient and longer-lasting dye-sensitized solar cells, says one of the researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

A research team that included James Gardner, Assistant Professor of Photoelectrochemistry at KTH, reported the success of a new quasi-liquid, polymer-based electrolyte that increases a dye-sensitized solar cell's voltage and current, and lowers resistance between its electrodes.

The study highlights the advantages of speeding up the movement of oxidized electrolytes in a dye-sensitized solar cell, or DSSC. Also on the team from KTH were Lars Kloo, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry and researcher Muthuraaman Bhagavathi Achari.

Their research was published in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics on August 19.

"We now have clear evidence that by adding the ion-conducting polymer to the solar cell's cobalt redox electrolyte, the transport of oxidized electrolytes is greatly enhanced," Gardner says. "The fast transport increases solar cell efficiency by 20 percent."

A dye-sensitized solar cell absorbs photons and injects electrons into the conduction band of a transparent semiconductor. This anode is actually a plate with a highly porous, thin layer of titanium dioxide that is sensitized with dyes that absorb visible light. The electrons in the semiconductor diffuse through the anode, out into the external circuit.

In the electrolyte, a cobalt complex redox shuttle acts as a catalyst, providing the internal electrical continuity between the anode and cathode. When the dye releases electrons and becomes oxidized by the titanium dioxide, the electrolyte supplies electrons to replenish the deficiency. This "resets" the dye molecules, reducing them back to their original states. As a result, the electrolyte becomes oxidized and electron-deficient and migrates toward the cathode to recovers its missing electrons. Electrons migrating through the circuit recombine with the oxidized form of the cobalt complex when they reach the cathode.

In the most efficient solar cells this transport of ions relies on acetonitrile, a low viscosity, volatile organic solvent. But in order to build a stable, commercially-viable solar cell, a low volatility solvent is used instead, usually methoxypropionitrile. The problem is that while methoxypropionitrile is more stable, it is also more viscous than acetonitrile, and it impedes the flow of ions.

But with the introduction of a new quasi-liquid, polymer-based electrolyte (containing the Co3+/Co2+ redox mediator in 3-methoxy propionitrile solvent), the research team has overcome the viscosity problem, Gardner says. At the same time, adding the ion-conducting polymer to the electrolyte maintains its low volatility. This makes it possible for the oxidized form of the cobalt complex to reach the cathode, and get reduced, faster.

Speeding up this transport is important because when slowed down, more of the cobalt complexes react with electrons in the semiconductor anode instead of with the electrons at the cathode, resulting in rapid recombination losses. Speeding up the cobalt lowers resistance and increases voltage and current in the solar cell, Gardner says.

Explore further: Cobalt replacements make solar cells more sustainable

Journal reference: Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Provided by KTH Royal Institute of Technology
 

Prebiotic Molecules May Form in Exoplanet Atmospheres

on 2013/12/25 in Articles, Astronomy, Biology & Chemistry

                        

 

New research suggests that the building blocks of life — prebiotic molecules — may form in the atmospheres of planets, where the dust provides a safe platform to form on and various reactions with the surrounding plasma provide enough energy necessary to create life.

It's time to approve the full Keystone XL pipeline project.





Mark Green, Posted Dec 27, 2013 by Energy Tomorrow

http://energytomorrow.org/blog/2013/december/out-with-bad-arguments-in-with-energy-security#sthash.2u4Tw9oS.xwBwE5V5.dpuf

 

The long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline and whether President Obama will agree with a strong majority of Americans who believe that the full project is in the U.S. national interest landed on a couple of year-ending lists of top energy issues, here and here, no doubt reflecting the politics surrounding the pipeline’s five-year federal review.

Much of politicizing has been fueled by opponents who say stopping Keystone XL will stop oil sands development. The U.S. State Department disagreed in its most recent review, citing key economic factors that argue oil sands will get to market with or without the Keystone XL. The dynamic already is at work.

Last week, Canada’s National Energy Board recommended approval of the Northern Gateway pipeline to bring as much as 525,000 barrels a day of oil sands from Alberta to British Columbia. At the same time others are making plans to build loading terminals to service oil sands-bearing railroad cars. Demand for supply is driving the infrastructure needed to deliver that supply.
The question for the U.S. concerns the impact of Washington’s never-ending deliberation over the Keystone XL, even as other infrastructure for delivering oil sands moves toward reality.

First, remember that the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that oil and natural gas will supply 62 percent of our energy in 2040, reflecting their desirability as fuels based on availability, reliability and superior energy content. Second, Canada is our largest source of imported oil. Put those two together, and there’s a compelling argument that the U.S. should do everything it can to strengthen its energy partnership with our neighbor and ally.

Canada wants that partnership to grow, but it’s also looking at other options while Washington dithers over the Keystone XL. Platts reports:

The “landlocked” Canadian heavy sour crude, when the Northern Gateway pipeline comes online, will allow greater shipment of Canadian heavy sour crudes to Asia, the region in the world with the highest demand growth. China and Asia in total are expected to add slightly more than 3-million b/d of refining capacity between now and 2016, according to OPEC. Enbridge is expecting the Northern Gateway project to be in operation by 2018. … The Northern Gateway pipeline will reduce Canadian heavy sour crudes’ dependence on the US Midwest and Gulf Coast … “The need to reduce dependence on the US market is the key to ensuring Canadian heavy sour crudes obtain market value and not fall into a boom bust

cycle,” said a Canadian producer.

 

Oil sands development is an important part of strengthening U.S. energy security. We could see 100 percent of our country’s liquid fuel needs met domestically and from Canada by 2024 with pro-energy development policies – including full development of Canadian oil sands. That development is going to occur. The question is whether that oil will come to the U.S. or go to other markets.

The Keystone XL always has been a no-brainer in terms of jobs, economic growth and increased U.S. energy security. A recent editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal connected proposals to extend federal unemployment benefits with the benefits of pro-energy development policies, including approval of the Keystone XL:

The country needs jobs, not more jobless benefits. Congress and the White House have completely lost sight of this. Washington could take many steps to put Americans back to work almost immediately. President Barack Obama finally could authorize the $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline, a private-sector project that would employ thousands directly and thousands more through multipliers. Congress could open vast amounts of federal land to oil and gas exploration and allow states besides North Dakota to share in the country’s energy boom.

 

The Keystone XL has been studied – multiple times – and its economic and energy benefits are undeniable. It wouldn’t significantly impact the environment, the State Department has found – multiple times. Oil sands development is ongoing and will continue. All that’s left is seeing whether the U.S. be the beneficiary in jobs and energy.

About The Author

Mark Green joins API after spending 16 years as national editorial writer in the Washington Bureau of The Oklahoman newspaper. In all, he has been a reporter and editor for more than 30 years, including six years as sports editor at The Washington Times. He lives in Occoquan, Virginia, with his wife Pamela. Mark graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in journalism and earned a masters in journalism and public affairs at American University. He's currently working on a masters in history at George Mason University, where he also teaches as an adjunct professor in the Communication Department.



Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience

By JOHN MARKOFF, full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/29/science/brainlike-computers-learning-from-experience.html?_r=1&hp&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1388325631-0aOonXEwhcwXpU33VkB0kQ&

Erin Lubin/The New York Times

 

Kwabena Boahen holding a biologically inspired processor attached to a robotic arm in a laboratory at Stanford University.

 

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Computers have entered the age when they are able to learn from their own mistakes, a development that is about to turn the digital world on its head.       

 

The first commercial version of the new kind of computer chip is scheduled to be released in 2014.

Not only can it automate tasks that now require painstaking programming — for example, moving a robot’s arm smoothly and efficiently — but it can also sidestep and even tolerate errors, potentially making the term “computer crash” obsolete.       

 

The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system, specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. It allows computers to absorb new information while carrying out a task, and adjust what they do based on the changing signals.

 

In coming years, the approach will make possible a new generation of artificial intelligence systems that will perform some functions that humans do with ease: see, speak, listen, navigate, manipulate and control. That can hold enormous consequences for tasks like facial and speech recognition, navigation and planning, which are still in elementary stages and rely heavily on human programming.

 

Designers say the computing style can clear the way for robots that can safely walk and drive in the physical world, though a thinking or conscious computer, a staple of science fiction, is still far off on the digital horizon.

 

“We’re moving from engineering computing systems to something that has many of the characteristics of biological computing,” said Larry Smarr, an astrophysicist who directs the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, one of many research centers devoted to developing these new kinds of computer circuits.

 

Conventional computers are limited by what they have been programmed to do. Computer vision systems, for example, only “recognize” objects that can be identified by the statistics-oriented algorithms programmed into them. An algorithm is like a recipe, a set of step-by-step instructions to perform a calculation.

 

But last year, Google researchers were able to get a machine-learning algorithm, known as a neural network, to perform an identification task without supervision. The network scanned a database of 10 million images, and in doing so trained itself to recognize cats.

 

In June, the company said it had used those neural network techniques to develop a new search service to help customers find specific photos more accurately.

 

The new approach, used in both hardware and software, is being driven by the explosion of scientific knowledge about the brain. Kwabena Boahen, a computer scientist who leads Stanford’s Brains in Silicon research program, said that is also its limitation, as scientists are far from fully understanding how brains function.

 

“We have no clue,” he said. “I’m an engineer, and I build things. There are these highfalutin theories, but give me one that will let me build something.”

 

Until now, the design of computers was dictated by ideas originated by the mathematician John von Neumann about 65 years ago. Microprocessors perform operations at lightning speed, following instructions programmed using long strings of 1s and 0s. They generally store that information separately in what is known, colloquially, as memory, either in the processor itself, in adjacent storage chips or in higher capacity magnetic disk drives.

 

The data — for instance, temperatures for a climate model or letters for word processing — are shuttled in and out of the processor’s short-term memory while the computer carries out the programmed action. The result is then moved to its main memory.

 

The new processors consist of electronic components that can be connected by wires that mimic biological synapses. Because they are based on large groups of neuron-like elements, they are known as neuromorphic processors, a term credited to the California Institute of Technology physicist Carver Mead, who pioneered the concept in the late 1980s.

 

They are not “programmed.” Rather the connections between the circuits are “weighted” according to correlations in data that the processor has already “learned.” Those weights are then altered as data flows in to the chip, causing them to change their values and to “spike.” That generates a signal that travels to other components and, in reaction, changes the neural network, in essence programming the next actions much the same way that information alters human thoughts and actions.

 

“Instead of bringing data to computation as we do today, we can now bring computation to data,” said Dharmendra Modha, an I.B.M. computer scientist who leads the company’s cognitive computing research effort. “Sensors become the computer, and it opens up a new way to use computer chips that can be everywhere.”

 

The new computers, which are still based on silicon chips, will not replace today’s computers, but will augment them, at least for now. Many computer designers see them as coprocessors, meaning they can work in tandem with other circuits that can be embedded in smartphones and in the giant centralized computers that make up the cloud. Modern computers already consist of a variety of coprocessors that perform specialized tasks, like producing graphics on your cellphone and converting visual, audio and other data for your laptop.

 

One great advantage of the new approach is its ability to tolerate glitches. Traditional computers are precise, but they cannot work around the failure of even a single transistor. With the biological designs, the algorithms are ever changing, allowing the system to continuously adapt and work around failures to complete tasks.

 

Traditional computers are also remarkably energy inefficient, especially when compared to actual brains, which the new neurons are built to mimic.

 

I.B.M. announced last year that it had built a supercomputer simulation of the brain that encompassed roughly 10 billion neurons — more than 10 percent of a human brain. It ran about 1,500 times more slowly than an actual brain. Further, it required several megawatts of power, compared with just 20 watts of power used by the biological brain.

 

Running the program, known as Compass, which attempts to simulate a brain, at the speed of a human brain would require a flow of electricity in a conventional computer that is equivalent to what is needed to power both San Francisco and New York, Dr. Modha said.

 

I.B.M. and Qualcomm, as well as the Stanford research team, have already designed neuromorphic processors, and Qualcomm has said that it is coming out in 2014 with a commercial version, which is expected to be used largely for further development. Moreover, many universities are now focused on this new style of computing. This fall the National Science Foundation financed the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines, a new research center based at the Massachusetts Institute of

Technology, with Harvard and Cornell.

 

The largest class on campus this fall at Stanford was a graduate level machine-learning course covering both statistical and biological approaches, taught by the computer scientist Andrew Ng. More than 760 students enrolled. “That reflects the zeitgeist,” said Terry Sejnowski, a computational neuroscientist at the Salk Institute, who pioneered early biologically inspired algorithms. “Everyone knows there is something big happening, and they’re trying find out what it is.”