is tv violence bad for us - really?

Photo: Webshots

You've probably had discussions about whether on-screen violence has any impact on people's behaviour. But I'm guessing the discussions were inconclusive, because you thought the scientific jury was still out. Yep, me too.

Well, New Scientist magazine has recently reported on the matter, and surprise, the scientific information has been around for 50 years, and getting clearer.

So what is the answer?

"Modern media such as TV and computer games are changing our minds, and the more we are exposed to them the greater the changes. They are making us smart and better at some tasks, but worse at others. And there is no getting away from the fact that on-screen violence fosters off-screen violence."

Looking a bit closer reveals the following:

1. Electronic media, and other technologies, change the way we think, and, ultimately, the way our brains are actually wired. This is natural, and can have both beneficial and detrimental effects.

2. Beneficial effects of TV, video games and computers can include:

• they can increase our abilities to solve problems and take in information;
• gaming experience is the best predictor of surgeons' skill at keyhole surgery (more even than the length of training or the amount of experience!);
• TV can be very educational and increase knowledge more than reading, especially in people of lower IQ.

3. The average US schoolchild will have watched 8,000 murders and 100,000 violent acts on TV before they leave elementary school (generally pre-teenage years). The figures will be way higher if they have access to cable TV, video games or films.

4. The harm caused by TV definitely outweighs the good, and video games are even worse (because they are interactive, and often reward aggressive behaviour). Problems caused can include:

• the amount of TV watched during childhood correlates with reduced attention spans and loss of sleep;
• high levels of TV viewing may contribute to verbal and physical aggression, sleep difficulties, obesity and associated long-term health problems, and attention and learning difficulties;
• double the amount of TV watched in childhood and on average you'll increase the likely occurrence of ADHD (attentional deficit hyperactivity disorder) by a 25%;
• a university psychologist who has written a book summarising 50 years of research on violence says it is clear that violence on TV has raised the level of violence and aggression in society;
  
• the relationship between TV and violence seems to go both ways - watching TV increases violent behaviour and violent people tend to watch more violent programs;
• it's not just children who are affected, for TV seems to increase aggressive behaviour over time - young adults who watched more TV as teenagers commit more aggressive acts in later life;
• children have long-term memories of violent acts, which can lead to later imitation, desensitisation or feelings of vulnerability.

Two obvious questions remain.

1. Why don't we do more about it? Some people say that the entertainment industry has fought the public understanding of these conclusions in the same way that the smoking lobby denied the links between smoking and lung cancer. But it may also be that we just don't want to be bothered changing and giving up some parts of our entertainment.

2. What can we do about it? Obviously limit children's, time in front of the TV, especially violent programs (which can include cartoons), but also discuss with children, and keep TVs and computers out of bedrooms. And just maybe we should change our own viewing habits too. For more on this see www.tvtroubles.com or www.mindscience.org.

Check out the New Scientist article and editorial from the 21 April 2007 issue (it was late arriving in my local library!).

only our imagination will bring us home?

Ever wondered what makes things right or wrong? Is it God, or is it what works best, or is there something within each of us that tells us? Do right and wrong change?

Aussie-born Professor Margaret Somerville is founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill University in Canada, and she recently released a book which addresses some of these questions.

Somerville believes each of us has a set of innate ethical principles, many of which we share with others, built around respect for nature, the natural and life. However she believes that "liberal individualism", which is the dominant value of western culture, is no longer adequate for our brave new world, especially the advances in medical and reproductive technology. She is concerned that in the rush to give adults everything they want (abortion, in vitro fertilisation, genetic engineering, perhaps even "designer children"), we have virtually ignored the rights of children to know, and live in a family with their biological parents.

Photo from Webshots

She argues we need new approaches to ethics, especially reproductive and family ethics, and that ethics be built around recognising the natural as "sacred". She uses the old Aussie phrase "going on the wallaby" (referring to itinerant farm workers living rough in the bush and following wallaby tracks) and says we need to go on a search for new ethics: "We're in a great hot desert and we're looking for something along these trails."

She suggests three basic birth rights: "children's right to know the identity of their biological parents; children's right to both a mother and a father, preferably their own biological parents; and children's right to come into being with genetic origins that have not been tampered with." Thus she believes we should disallow medical technology that puts "our common humanity at risk".

She is wary of a reductionist scientific view of humanity, and encourages us to keep our imaginations open to the "awe and wonder" of things science cannot explain. She believes "science will give us many answers, but only our imagination will bring us home."

I agree that science alone cannot tell us what is right and wrong, but perhaps we need more than imagination. What do you think? Where do you get your ethics from?

Check out reviews of Somerville's "The Ethical Imagination: journeys of the human spirit" in the Sydney Morning Herald, christianity.ca, The Other Librarian, or read about the original lectures which led to the book in the McGill Reporter.

prepare to be amazed

Check out the amazing 3-D artwork of pavement artist Julian Beever. His chalk pictures are drawn so that they appear 3-dimensional when viewed from the correct angle. In this photo (copyright and used with Julian's permission) the man, I presume the artist, is standing on one of his pavement pictures - you can still see the paving slabs.

Julian has been around for a while, but I have only recently come across his work, so I'm guessing others may not have seen these pictures either. Check out his website, or go direct to some of his best works including:

• a giant Coke bottle
• Batman & Robin to the rescue
• the artist - seeing double
• playing in puddles
  
• the artist, on top of the world
• the world from side-on - showing how he does it
  

religion wars

It wasn't so long ago that religion was a subject you didn't discuss - it was a private matter. It was also boring - who would want to talk about that? But in the last few years God is very much back on the agenda, with a number of high profile and militant atheists publishing virulently anti-God books (as others have noted), and regular articles about religion in newspapers and magazines.

And so last weekend in the Sydney Morning Herald there was an essay by Christopher Hitchens (originally published in slate.com), in advance of his forthcoming book, God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.

Hitchens does not attempt to disprove God, although he briefly indicates his view that there are four reasons to disbelieve:

• it "wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos";
• it combines "the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism" [the view that the self is all that can be known to exist] - I'm afraid I can't understand what he is getting at here;
• "it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression"; and
• "it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking."

But after this brief, and unargued, opening, most of the essay is a diatribe against what he dislikes about religion, including .....

• "Religion spoke its last intelligible or noble or inspiring words a long time ago". Religion is "man-made", it is "vanity" to think we are part of a divine plan and accordingly he mocks the idea of prayer.
• Religion cannot be reconciled with modern science, and so requires repeated modification as new discoveries are made. "How many needless assumptions must be made and how much contortion is required to receive every new insight of science and manipulate it so as to 'fit' with the revealed words of ancient man-made deities."
• He criticises believers for their "stupidity" and "pride", and describes church attendance as gathering "every seven days to grovel and wallow in our unworthiness".
• "Religion poisons everthing". "Religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow."

Interestingly, in another section of the same newspaper there was a report on a survey of church attendance in Australia. In two articles, Linda Morris reported:

• attendance at "mainstream denominational churches" still appears to be declining while Pentecostal church attendance is still growing;
• up to one third of all churchgoers are "recent recruits", indicating that many people, especially young people, are still moving from unbelief to faith, with many moving on to train for ministry; and
• new recruits, and churches generally, seem to be fired by a new commitment to "help their communities and do charity work".

Then in today's SMH, Rachel Kohn has a column in which she argues that the high profile atheists like Richard Dawkins, Michel Onfray and Christopher Hitchens (though he is not mentioned specifically) have misrepresented the facts. Her main points:

• Atheists put their trust science and scientists to build a brave new world. However, referring to historian Michael Burleigh's book Sacred Causes, she discusses the atrocities of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Eastern Europe and Mao's China and warns of "the readiness of 'rational' scientific types to help mad regimes to deliver untold suffering to millions".
• Michel Onfray portrays religion as "a litany of horrors, from superstitious beliefs to organised oppression, while believers are compelled by infantilism, hallucination and a fear of death", but Kohn argues: "his caricatures make it hard to imagine that religious organisations could provide the network of socially responsible services to the public that they do or produce the army of volunteers who lend a hand to the needy."
• Richard Dawkins may deride "people waving their hands and singing 'praise Jesus'" as irrational, but she points out that "if Germany in 1933 had been invaded by people in prayer singing 'praise Jesus' instead of Nazis in jackboots it would not have presided over the worst mass killing in history."

It seems likely that militant atheism will continue to press the point, and that our western culture will become more critical of those who believe their religious or spiritual beliefs are actually true. At the same time, it seems that people are tiring of the dogmatism of science which appears to lead to dehumanising view of life, so perhaps "softer" spirituality and religion presented in more sensitive ways have an easier future.

It is notable that most of the arguments (from both sides) in the articles referred to above are based on how believers behave, and whether the end result has a good or bad effect on society (for more on this, see road tests). For me, as for Dawkins, the most important question is "what is the truth?", but I'm inclined to think that argument will not be how the matter will be settled.

I can't help thinking that the future of christianity in western culture will depend more on whether believers can demonstrate that their way is loving, caring, serving. That's the challenge!

are people getting better?

It's a topic most of us have discussed at some time or other - is the world getting to be a better place or are we going downhill?

Maybe it depends on our basis for judging. But one good way to judge is surely how people treat each other. So, are we treating each other better or worse than people did generations, or even centuries ago?

In an article in the Sydney Morning Herald recently, Steven Pinker pulls together some evidence that suggests that, overall, we're less violent than we used to be.

• It seems we murder each other much less than we used to centuries ago - in European countries at least. For example, the homicide rate in England has fallen from 24 per 100,000 in the 14th century to 0.6 in the mid 20th century, an enormous change.
• The twentieth century, which included the regimes of Stalin, Hitler, Mao Xedong and Pol Pot plus two World Wars, certainly led to more deaths (perhaps 130 million) than in any previous century (for details, see this reference). However it isn't clear whether this is true if the calculation is done as a percentage of the world's population at the time. Certainly Pinker claims that the death rates from conflict were much higher in tribal societies than in the 20th century.

In other ways, Pinker argues we have become much more humane worldwide, especially in western societies. He lists cruelty for entertainment, human sacrifice, slavery, conquest, genocide, torture, political assassination and rape in war as examples of behaviours that are much less prevalent than they were centuries ago.

It isn't clear what is happening here. Are we becoming more humane? Do stable nations create conditions where people are safer and better off, and so peace is simply advantageous? Or is it just a matter of the "global village" enlarging our perspective of who is "one of us"?

It would nice to think we are becoming more ethical, but I can't help feeling that while there is a welcome improvement in aggressive behaviour, we have become more selfish in other ways (e.g. see my previous post, personal peace and affluence).

look up at the skies!

Nebulae are enormous cosmic clouds of dust or gas. Astronomers often modify the colours in their photographs of nebulae to facilitate their analysis, but producing amazing images in the process.

Here are some photos of nebulae, courtesy of NASA.

Butterfly nebula

Great nebula

Reflection nebula

Cone nebula

Does there have to be a reason for everything?

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!”
Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur"

mate vs mate - the sequel

When I posted about Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath on April 5, I said that "I'm only aware of one occasion when the two have discussed their very different views". But now, the sequel!

I have become aware of another recent discussion at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival on March 26 this year, and available for download as two MP3 files from TimesOnline.

In a moderated discussion that was very much controlled, the two were able to exchange only brief comments. To begin, Dawkins outlined his views that the existence of God is very much a scientific question, that it is highly unlikely that God exists, and that religion has done a lot of harm. McGrath countered with some brief criticisms and a quote from US sceptic Michael Shermer to the effect that for every evil committed by religion there are 10,000 acts of kindness, and that much good is done in the name of religion. Dawkins agreed, surprisingly in light of his previous statements.

The ensuing discussion covered whether religion can answer any questions better than science, where we get our ethics from, reasons for belief, miracles and different religions. I can't say I found it all that enlightening - it was too short - but it was interesting to hear them speak. Dawkins pressed his points more, whereas McGrath tended to speak more generally

Who was the winner? Well it wasn't a debate, but Dawkins came over better - he was polite, more succinct and direct, and mostly knew what he wanted to say. McGrath was also polite, but sometimes wordy and indirect. The format didn't allow many matters to be contested, so Dawkins got away with a common but fallacious definition of faith and some broad, unsupported statements about religion not having any answers. McGrath avoided making such bald statements, but at the cost of taking longer to say less. I still think McGrath is one of Dawkins' most effective critics, but this "debate" did not illustrate that.

Listen for yourself by downloading both MP3 files. But probably reading their comments on the internet will be more informative - e.g. Dawkins and McGrath.

science & god

I have only just come across this.

Late last year, Time magazine published parts of a discussion between famed atheist and biologist, Richard Dawkins, and christian biologist, Francis Collins. Dawkins is a professor at Oxford University and is the author of many books, including recent best-seller The God Delusion. Collins is the head of the National Human Genome Research Institute in the US where he has headed a 2,400-scientist team that has mapped the 3 billion biochemical letters of our genetic blueprint, and author of the best selling book The Language of God.

Two scientists with impeccable credentials, two totally opposite beliefs about God.

The discussion covered such matters as whether religious faith is compatible with science, in particular evolution (Collins is an evolutionist); whether the occurrence of a universe 'fine-tuned' for life is best explained by God, or a natural explanation; the resurrection of Jesus; the origin of our moral sense; and the ethics of human stem cell research (which Colllins supports).

Comments on the discussion have tended to label it a "debate" and make judgments on the "winner". Even sceptics admit that Collins came over as the more pleasant, but believe Dawkins "won" the intellectual debate.

But I don't see it that way. It wasn't a debate, just a discussion (for example, neither scientist got to choose the topics - they were each asked specific questions - so criticisms of either for not proving their (dis)belief in God miss the point). I felt both explained their views clearly and that Collins did not lose anything in comparison.

Such a brief discussions can never be more than rudimentary, but on three matters, I felt Collins was quite convincing.

1. He is living proof that a top scientist can also believe in God. It seems silly to say otherwise.
2. On the question of the design of the universe, Dawkins' two options of either the "multiverse" (the theory that there are literally zillions of universes, and we were the one in a zillion that had the right conditions for life) or alternatively that perhaps "these six constants are not free to vary. Some unified theory will eventually show that they are as locked in as the circumference and the diameter of a circle" still do not convince me.
3. I thought Collins demonstrated an approach to ethics more in accordance with what we generally experience and believe than did Dawkins.

But you can check it out for yourself. Read excerpts of the debate from Time magazine, a review by an atheist and by a christian. You may also like to read about recent interviews with both men.

the flabby country?

We Aussies tend to think it is other countries that eat too many Big Macs and become supersized, but a new study shows alarming obesity trends in Australia.

Photo: PDPhoto.org.

A 20-year study of 5000 young people has shown that:

• in 1985, when they were children, 9% were overweight and 1.5% were obese;
• in 2005, when they were in their 20s and 30s, 40% of men and 20% of women were overweight, and 13% of both genders were obese;
• boys who were obese as children are 5 times more likely to be obese at age 30 than healthy weight boys; for girls, the risk is 9 times.

Experts conclude that hormonal changes, poor diet, lack of exercise (partly caused by increased computer usage) and increased consumption of fast foods may all be contributing causes to this alarming trend.

The study was carried out by Professor Alison Venn from the Hobart-based Menzies Research Institute, and seems to show that adolescence is the key period of life where excessive weight gain occurs. However the figures may illustrate an increasing problem in society that just happens to be occurring in adolescence in this particular generation.

Researchers have found that obesity is a major factor in other health matters. for example, 90% of Type II diabetes is preventable if people maintain a healthy weight.

But what should be done? Obviously most of us need to be self disciplined enough to change our lazy eating and exercise habits. But this is unlikely to be enough.

Research in the UK, reported in "in touch", indicates that trying to change individual behaviour across society is not very effective. Far better is to try to change "patterns of food production, marketing, and social norms of consumption" by improving the availability of affordable and nutitious food, making it easier and safer for people to walk for exercise, and finding some way to reduce the availability of junk food in locations where it is not necessary, and its aggressive promotion for profit (popcorn in movie theatres anyone?). Jamie Oliver's crusade for better school food in the UK showed us some of this.

So obesity is not just a problem for individuals, especially parents. Politicians and society need to begin to address our "‘obesogenic environment’, where consumption (of food and many other things) is promoted as the pathway to prosperity, health and a happy life, but actually drains our prosperity into avoidable health care expenses, threatens our health and wellbeing, and shortens our lives." We need to think a little harder about what life and happiness are really all about.

Read more from the Sydney Morning Herald, ABC Radio and "in touch".

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth .......
We're idiots, babe. It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.
Bob Dylan, "Idiot Wind", 1974

is there life "out there"?

Artist's impression of another exoplanet (NASA) - I don't have a picture of Gliese 581C I can use.

Most people have wondered sometime about whether there is any intelligent life "out there" in the universe. (Some wonder whether there is intelligent life on earth, but that's another story!) Even if there is, it is unlikely we will ever know, because the universe is so vast and electronic communication, travelling at the speed of light, can take hundreds of years to reach us, even from relatively nearby parts of our galaxy.

So there is special interest when an exoplanet (a planet not in our solar system) is discovered relatively close to us. If scientists are able to determine its distance from its sun, it is possible to calculate its surface temperature and therefore the possibility that water may exist in liquid form, one necessary condition for life as we know it.

As reported in Astronomy magazine, a recent discovery is an exoplanet orbiting the star Gliese 581, which at 20.5 light years away is among the 100 closest stars to earth. Gliese 581 is a "red dwarf", smaller and cooler than our sun. The exoplanet, the third to be discovered in this system, is only one and a half times bigger than earth, is 14 times closer to its sun, which it orbits every 13 days, and could contain liquid water. It is considered to be the most similar to earth of any of the 100 or so exoplanets discovered so far.

Is there life out there? Some believe it is likely that there are many planets supporting life in the billions of galaxies we know about, others believe the number will be small, perhaps even that we are alone. It is unlikely that Gliese 581C (the name of the exoplanet) will contain life, but it is sure to be on the list for futher investigation.

the world can sleep easier tonight! : )

Many big show business names have offered support to the campaign to address global warming, but now some real muscle has joined the fight! Yes, Spinal Tap has re-formed, and is on the campaign trail, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald.

It has taken the rock heavyweights a little time to realise the extent of the problem ("Nigel thought it was just because he was wearing too much clothing." says film-maker Rob Reiner), but now the band is rocking out with their new single, Warmer than Hell, and a scheduled appearance at the London Wembley Live Earth concerts organised by Al Gore in his crusade against global warming.

Truly the world can sleep a little easier tonight. : )

personal peace and affluence

A recent study reported in today's Sydney Morning Herald suggests Sydney's most affluent people may be among the most selfish in South East Asia. A survey of the richest 20% of 5 cities showed that Sydneysiders' highest saving and spending priorities were for their own pleasure, such as retirement, travel and new hobbies, well ahead of their children's education and leaving an inheritance for their children, which are generally the highest priorities in the other cities.

There may of course be reasons other than selfishness for these preferences, but the study does support the conclusions of other observers, such as psychologist Oliver James, who visited Sydney recently and met people who were affluent but, he felt, had empty lives.

Author Francis Shaeffer observed decades ago that the main ethical values of modern capitalist society were "personal peace and affluence". Psychologist Ed Diener said: “Materialism is toxic to happiness”.

I think we mostly all know that focusing our lives and energies on becoming wealthy does not bring satisfaction and wellbeing (see how to be happy? for more detail on this), so why do we so often fall into the trap?

cosmic jackpot?

Photo: NASA

I have long been a fan of physicist and author Paul Davies. Books like "About Time" and "The Mind of God" are excellent scientific reading from a well credentialled theoretical physicist and cosmologist which also touch on bigger questions like "how and why does the universe exist?" and "is there any objective meaning to our lives?".

Davies has written several books on the "anthropic principle", the scientific observation that the fundamental laws and values of the universe appear to have been "fine-tuned" to support life. If such fundamentals as the force which binds protons and neutrons together in the nucleus of the atom, the strength of the gravitational force, or the relative masses of protons, electrons and neutrons, were varied by sometimes extremely small amounts, life, planets, stars and even the universe itself would not exist. Thus the odds against this fine-tuning occurring by chance are unbelievably enormous.

This has led some people to suggest that the universe was deliberately designed by a god, a conclusion Davies himself came close to endorsing in "The Mind of God" (1993). Now Davies has just released a new book on a similar subject, "Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe Is Just Right for Life", and based on reviews, he seems to have weakened in his support for "the god explanation". He does still tend to believe in an undefined "life principle" in the cosmos, but admits that this "is something I feel more in my heart than in my head." And his main emphasis is on finding an explanation for the universe from within the universe.

Some people just say that the laws and values had to take on some values, and why question it? But if the fine-tuned design is accepted, there seem to be four main scientific hypotheses for this:

• There is some underlying fundamental reason for these values that we just don't know yet.
  
• The multiverse: if there was not one universe but absolutely zillions of them, the odds of one of them being just right for life may not be so high. But there is no evidence for the multiverse and it seems somewhat far-fetched to believe in zillions of universes. Davies rejects this option, because in his view it raises more problems than it solves.
• If there are advanced cultures somewhere in the universe with advanced computer technology, they could develop a simulation of the universe (sort of like "the Matrix" writ huge). Since the universe is so huge, it is likely this may have occurred, and therefore quite likely we are all virtual people in a virtual universe. Fanciful (to say the least) as this hypothesis may seem, some people are postulating it, and Davies touches on it too. But it seems to me that this option isn't useful, because it still doesn't explain the origin of the "real" universe where this advanced civilisation is supposed to exist.
• A fourth option is that the fundamental laws and values of the universe are not fixed as commonly thought, but somehow "evolved" in a way that allowed life to begin. The mechanisms of biological evolution (mutation and natural selection) will not be relevant here, but Davies speculates another mechanism. He suggests that just as quantum physics seems to allow backwards causation in time (things in the present cause things in the past), contrary to normal reason, so the same may have occurred in the universe. Way back not long after the big bang, life in the future caused the laws to evolve in ways that would lead towards that life. It may come as no surprise that critics say this idea is even more wild, speculative and unjustified (perhaps even unjustifiable) than the alternatives.

I find all this quite fascinating, but I can't help feeling that if the multiverse, a "Matrix" universe, or backwards causation, are the best scientific theories around, the god hypothesis doesn't look so wild at all.

Check out reviews of Davies' new book at Amazon and on the "Reality Conditions", the "Uncertain Principles" or the "Reference Frame" blogs. Read about the Multiverse, the "Matrix universe" and time in quantum physics. Or check out Paul Davies' home page or the April/May 2007 issue of Cosmos which includes an article by Davies on this topic.

hear their heartbeat

Fighting and genocide in Sudan has been a terrible feature of our world for several decades. A friend of mine was an aid worker in Africa maybe 25 years ago, and the Sudan was considered too unsafe then for his organisation to attempt to bring help to the suffering people of southern Sudan.

In the last decade, the western region of Darfur has been in the news as hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes, victims of Arab militias who burn villages, destroy livestock and water sources, kill and rape. More than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003. Amnesty International says that there is "incontrovertible" evidence that the Sudanese government and military are supporting these militias by supplying them and by bombing villages.

Now, as reported in the Melbourne Age newspaper, Google Earth has joined with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in a project to publicise this genocide and hopefully bring effective pressure to bear to stop the killing. Google Earth provides high resolution satellite imagery that allows users to zoom in on Darfur and see the destruction for themselves.

It would be good to pass on these links to others and so give greater publicity to the people of Darfur's plight.

We hear their heartbeat In the trees Our sons stand naked Through the walls Our daughters cry See their tears in the rainfall." U2, "Mothers of the Disappeared"

is there anybody in there?

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tundraboy/303703384/

How much are we responsible for what goes on in our brains?

In an article in The Sydney Morning Herald entitled "Grey Matter" (April 6-8 2007), Jeffrey Rosen discusses how current neuroscience is impacting on our understanding of human behaviour. In particular, neuroscience is being used in criminal trials as defense teams use brain scans to argue that if the defendent's brain can be shown to not be functioning in a normal way, they cannot be held responsible for their actions.

This makes you wonder whether we control our brains or they control us, whether our minds are our brains or something more. Joshua Greene, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard University: "To a neuroscientist, you are your brain; nothing causes your behaviour other than its operation. If that's right, it radically changes the way we think about the law." Greene says we should "abandon the idea of retribution, the idea that people should be punished because they have freely chosen to act immorally."

However, as Rosen points out, "since all behaviour is caused by our brains, wouldn't this mean all behaviour could potentially be excused?" Stephen Morse, professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania insists "brains don't commit crimes; people commit crimes". He argues, for example, that the differences in murder rates between youths in Scandinavia and the US indicates that it is more than just immature adolescent brains that determines behaviour.

The article raises some deep questions about how our minds and selves relate to our brains, questions which inner and outer space will return to again.

mate against mate?

In the last six months, Oxford University biologist Richard Dawkins' latest book, The God Delusion has been near the top of the non-fiction best seller lists. I haven't read it, but you can read Richard's summary of his ideas here.

Dawkins' strong anti-God views have generated much comment. The atheists love it and the theists criticise it, as you might expect - Wikipedia has a summary of comments. I won't quote the obvious for and against responses, but there are a few interesting ones - believers who give Dawkins some credit or non-believers who find his views simplistic and erroneous. Here is a sample:

• "[if discussions about disagreements between science and religion] are to be worthwhile, they will have to take place at a far higher level of sophistication than Richard Dawkins seems either willing or able to muster." H. Allen Orr, Professor of Biology, University of Rochester.
• "11/2 cheers for Richard Dawkins. There's so much to applaud in Richard Dawkins. Such as his rage against bad religion. But he's out of his depth in his new book, The God Delusion, when he attacks all forms of faith." Stephen Tomkins, Ship of Fools website.
• "The more they [card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins] detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be." Terry Eagleton, Marxist and Professor of English Literature at Manchester University in "Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching".

Now Dawkins' fellow Oxford academic and long time critic, Alister McGrath, has co-authored a response to "The God Delusion", a book titled (you guessed it!) "The Dawkins Delusion". McGrath has previously published "Dawkins' God", which critiques Dawkins' views on religion (read a summary of his views here) and "The Twilight of Atheism" which charts what McGrath sees as the rise and decline of atheism over the past 200 years from a historical perspective. Predictably, his new book has been greeted with scorn by atheists and approval by believers.

The critics say that McGrath does not offer any argument to support his belief in God, but this appears to miss the point. McGrath has already attempted that elsewhere. In this book, rather than discussing reasons to believe in God, McGrath appears to be analysing Dawkins' thought, and discussing whether religion is really the source of so much evil and whether its elimination would make the world a better place - read McGrath's own summary here.

While Dawkins seems to me to be more comfortable as a writer than as a debater, McGrath seems to be the type who would relish a full-on debate. I'm only aware of one occasion when the two have discussed their very different views, during the TV program "The Root of All Evil?", but unfortunately the discussion was not included in the final program.

In recent times, it seems that atheism has become much more militant, and the belief-unbelief debate seems to have become much more polarised. Both believers and unbelievers can read about science and religion from experts writing from their own perspective and which don't necessarily represent their opponents' views fairly. Each side can have firmly held views on the falsity of the opposing view, when in fact they lack any real understanding of it. Writers are viewed as authoritative, not because of their learning, but because their views are known in advance to be "acceptable". It seems to me to be a pity.

So, granted the criticism of Dawkins' lack of understanding and scholarship even by those who otherwise agree with him, I can't help feeling it would be a pity if people who read Dawkins uncritically don't read McGrath as well.

Read more on the track records of religion and unbelief, or on the reasons why people believe and disbelieve.

marriage strategies

Living together before marrying is now a common choice for many people. In 1975 only 16% of couples lived together prior to marriage, but in 2001 the percentage had risen to 72%. There are many reasons why people choose this path, but one reason is the expectation that this will increase the likelihood of a successful relationship. "They think 'try before you buy' minimises the risk of divorce" says University of Queensland researcher, Belinda Hewitt.

In a paper presented in October 2006, Hewitt examines the subsequent divorce rate of couples who cohabited prior to marriage and those who did not, and concludes that couples who live together are significantly more likely to divorce - 72% more likely in 1975, reducing slightly to 63% more likely in 1995. She concludes: "cohabiting before marriage is not an effective strategy for minimising the risk of marriage breakdown." However she concedes that the risk appears to be diminishing slowly, so that at some future time the risk of marriage breakdown may be the same in the two groups.

Photo: http://family.webshots.com/album/549090438yyXTLU?start=0

Hewitt speculates on why this is so, and concludes that one of the likely reasons may be "differences in values and beliefs" between the two groups. "Those who cohabit ... are less conventional in their attitudes towards relationships and marriage or have lower levels of commitment to marriage" - religious beliefs or membership of ethnic minority communities may be reasons for this difference in attitude. Another reason given by other experts is that "attitudes towards acceptance of divorce were more positive after a period of non-marital cohabitation than they were prior".

Two other aspects of marriage have recently been reported.

• Another paper co-authored by Belinda Hewitt reported that "women in indirect marriages (marriages that are preceded by a period of cohabitation) spend less time on housework than women in direct marriages (marriages without a preceding period of cohabitation)."
• In an article in several Australian newspapers Jacqui Taffel reported on a slight trend for married couples to live apart to reduce the tensions of sharing the same space while still maintaining the relationship.

It seems that we are in the middle of a huge "real time" experiment in relationships and marriage, with sometimes unpredictable outcomes.

earth hour - the sequel

Photo: http://flickr.com/photos/kelliejane/440679118/in/pool-earthhour/

It seems that I underestimated the effectiveness of Earth Hour last Saturday evening, based on observations in Sydney's southern suburbs. True, our Anglican Church, which has a youth service and dinner on Saturday evening, turned off its lights and had dinner by candlelight, but not many houses seemed to take part.

But even though only 65,000 houses and 2,000 organisations registered to participate, polls indicated more than 2 million people (half of Sydney's population) switched off their lights, with many turning off appliances and TVs as well.

Estimates of the overall impact are still being made, but in the normally brightly-lit CBD offices, entertainment venues, advertising signs and public icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House had lighting turned off, and energy usage for that hour was estimated to be 10% reduced. For photos and details, see the Sydney Morning Herald's report.

The originators of the idea, environmental organisation WWF, hailed the first Earth Hour as a success, and foreshadowed a world-wide Earth Hour in 2008.

earth hour

This Saturday evening, March 31, in Sydney Australia at least, many of us will be marking "Earth Hour" by turning off our lights between 7:30 pm and 8:30 pm, as a sign of our commitment to reducing glonal warming.

In a way it's only a token, but the public and political recognition of the reality and consequences of global warming has jumped in the past year, no doubt due to Al Gore as much as anything else, so Earth Hour helps keep the issue in the public mind.

the happiest person in the world?

Neuroscientists believe they can measure how happy a person is by measuring the activity in the left and right cortex of the brain. Heightened activity on the left is associated with pleasant emotions, but on the right indicates negative emotions.

Of the few hundred people tested so far, the scores generally ranged from +0.3 (negative emotions) to -0.3 (happy). However one man has scored -0.45, making him the happiest, or most peaceful, person tested so far. He is French Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, he has just released a book titled Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill, and you'd have to think he may know something about the subject. I haven't read the book, but I've read a few newspaper interviews and reviews.

Ricard distinguishes between happiness (which we might also call wellbeing, and is a fairly settled state of mind) and elation (which is more transitory and related to pleasure), and says that developing happiness is a skill we all can learn. Keys to happiness include:

• don't allow circumstances or other people to determine your state of mind;
• avoid anger - "anger is a destructive emotion";
• practise meditation, or, as Ricard prefers to call it, mind training, daily and learn to manage your thoughts - think about past happy occasions and identify what it was that made you happy;
• if necessary, participate in a program of stress reduction.

Cynics and critics argue that being happy isn't very interesting or challenging, and a life of peaceful acceptance doesn't provide the energy to change things in the world that should be changed. But Ricard seems to have a strong sense of social justice and contibutes the profits from his writing to charities.

Although Ricard is a Buddhist, believers in other religions and non-believers should not ignore his insights. Some people believe Christian prayer, acceptance of God's will and forgiveness have a similar effect as meditation, and secular "positive psychology" teaches similar approaches to being happy.

Perhaps the biggest question I have is whether we should make happiness in life our goal, or whether our aim ought to be something, or some cause, greater than ourselves, which positive psychology says is the greatest single factor in a happy life. But I feel Ricard would agree with that.

• Read more about Matthieu Ricard and his book.
  
• Read a summary of what makes people happy.
• Read more about the research that found Ricard to be exceptionally happy, a summary of positive psychology or visit a positive psycholgy website.