Is lust an emotion?

Would you call lust an “emotion” or a “drive”? In either case, would “revulsion” be its best opposite?

Thimerosal does NOT cause autism

A definite study puts the total kibosh on the old autism conspiracy-theorist canard.

The findings came from a look at children diagnosed with autism in California from 1995 to 2007. It found that the number of autism cases continued to rise through that period even though the preservative thimerosal — nearly half of which is made of ethylmercury — was removed from most vaccines in 2001.

The data “do not show any recent decrease in autism in California despite the exclusion of more than trace levels of thimerosal from nearly all childhood vaccines (and) do not support the hypothesis that that exposure (to it) during childhood is a primary cause of autism,” the study concluded.

Unfortunately, that won’t stop most conspiracy-theorists from beguiling deceiving parents of autistic children, if not about thimerosal, then about something else.

Gurus, authoritarianism and recovery groups — not just an AA phenomenon

For years, beyond its religious emphasis, a major complaint many people have had about Alcoholics Anonymous (and NA), is the idea of “sponsorship.” While the idea of a mentor to help in one’s sobriety, especially if truly voluntarily chosen, may be an idea of worth, in reality, especially with it being a quasi-requirement of AA/NA, it is easily abused.

Predatory-minded sponsors can easily become controlling and manipulative to minds in the midst of trying to clear themselves of the fog of alcohol and/or drugs. Or, people who aren’t official sponsors can do some of this. The predatory nature can come in with sexual manipulation, establishing a power base in a local support group for the sponsor, and more.

Even outside the official sponsorship idea, gurus can set themselves up with new insights on the best way to get clean/sober, etc. And not just inside individual groups.

The name “Clancy” is well known for propagating an entire subset of groups within AA.

Many critics of AA have observed that, sociologically, it’s a place of redemption for people who washed out of their local Lions Club, or something similar.

But, it would seem the problem is related to recovery groups and personalities susceptible to addictions, and not 12-Step models of recovery.

Several examples from the world of “secular recovery” will suffice.

One is Jack Trimpey, founder of Rational Recovery. Trimpey, as though he were the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Recovery, has, in essence, declared recovery groups null and void. He has said alcoholics/addicts who continue to go to such groups are, in essence, still weak.

Then, you have Marty Nicolaus, founder of Lifering Secular Recovery, an offshoot of Secular Organizations for Sobriety. LSR ostensibly was founded as a separate recovery organization after a Nicolaus-led lawsuit against SOS over some serious recovery issues, such as “single-substance sobriety,” failed in court.

I’ve talked to enough people in LSR besides Nicolaus to not doubt that SOS needed a fire under it (to which its founder, Jim Christopher didn’t repond), and there were grounds for the lawsuit. However, I’ve also talked enough to people in SOS, and done enough analysis on my own, to know that personality issues, including Nicolaus’ personality, were involved.

And, at the individual meeting level, “control freaks” and other types have popped up in my LSR experience too. This is true for online meetings as well as face-to-face ones.

That said, I reject the idea of “the addictive personality” as many people (often not really addicts) use it. But, to the degree addiction exacerbates personality traits, and less desirable ones in some people, and recovery groups give them a platform to spew this out, this is a worrisome phenomenon.

THE STABLE IN BETHLEHEM

A mythical child-god
Poops his pants in a stable;
Shit-stained swaddling clothes
Give lie to pristine legends
About an almighty become cuddly child.
Persian astrologers
Have shit-strewn straw flung in their faces
By the laughing, sinless son of god
As they describe their horoscopes
About the purported inscrutableness
Of it all.

Religious Right numerology lunacy

Because Isaiah 35 says: “A highway shall be there,” a small group of churches is proclaiming I-35 the “Highway of Holiness” across the six states it traverses.

First, where’s U.S. 35? Or various state highways 35?

Second, this is the most stupid example of numerology since people kept pushing for U.S. 666 to be renumbered as 491, saying the number of deaths on the road showed it was “Satan’s highway.”

The nutbars neglected many hills, narrow shoulders, curves, and, above all, drunk Navajos, as being primary factors in all the vehicular deaths.

Yet another empirical swift kick in the pants for Charles Murray and “The Bell Curve”

Romanian children moved from orphanages to foster care show a 12-15 point gain on IQ, if placed before the age of 2.

So much for that high heritability of “q,” a mythical intelligence factor that’s never even been proven to exist.

Scott Atran does a disservice to “new atheism”

Anthropologist Scott Atran, an atheist himself and author, most notably of In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, but a strong critic of the so-called “New Atheists,” even to the point of approaching talking about the “ineffability” of religious belief, was recently in an extended conversation with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris about their critics of the degree of harm religion causes.

The discussion also included side points on the validity, and degree of validity, of ideas of evolutionary group selection vs. individual selection.

Here’s my take on the whole thing, which is well worth a read.

The “new atheists” are right, in my opinion and empirical observation, that religion is harmful from the standpoint of groups, whether that be individual religious groups, faiths, sects, etc. other social groups, or the largest group of all, Homo sapiens. However, that then said, Atran is right that religion can be very valuable for the groups holding on to it.

That said, religion may well still have value for individuals. The psychological value of greater control that religion appears to give, greater control through its apparent, even if now known to not be real, explanatory value is still strong. But, its value minus its detriments is fading, especially in countries scientifically advanced not named the United States.

That said, the cohesiveness value of religion for groups still appears to offset those detriments in this country. But, as the United States exhausts its natural resources, faith-based stances from a fair amount of more literalist Christians on environmental issues, blank-check defense of Israel, and other items, will certainly grow more costly, especially to individuals within religious groups as individuals.

And, that said, while not dismissing David Sloan Wilson’s ideas on group selection, as many of the Dawkinses of the world do appear to do, and while noting that Darwin himself discussed group selection, ultimately, individual selection trumps group selection. Genes are passed on at the individual level.

So, Atran is somewhat right in an oblique way. Until individuals feel for their own selves the costs of religious belief, especially of a literalist or semi-literalist fashion, at the individual level, individuals won’t break out from the group benefits they get.

But, contra Atran, since at the group level, we have a conflict between in-group value and out-group cost for religion, Dawkins, Hitchens, etc., are absolutely right to expose the cost that religion imposes on outgroups.

In the U.S., the amount of tax deductions for religion would be one example. From President Bush on down to school superintendents, the increasing preference given to “faith-based” social organizations to perform government services, the cost religious groups impose on other groups, as well as individuals, across metagroup swaths of society is a big issue.

In other words, not as individuals within a particular group, but religious groups as “individuals” within metagroups, there is a huge, highly legitimate “free rider” issue.

In other words, let David Sloan Wilson talk about group selection with religion. He’s hoisting himself by his own petard.