Click Banner For More Info See All Sponsors

  • The Gospel According to Dixon RSS Feed

    Article: The Gospel According to Dixon #16: Eyewitness to Bad Memory 

    by
    Dixon
    Published on 04-09-2013 11:48 PM
    Article Preview

    by Dixon Wragg
    WaccoBB.net

    Column #16: Eyewitness to Bad Memory

    In my last three columns (1), I discussed limitations on certainty. Now let's look at two more, related sources of "certainty" that nearly all of us trust too much: memory and eyewitness testimony.

    Like just about everyone else, I grew up thinking memory is sort of like video recording. We might lose parts of a "data file", or even whole files, and what images we have may be out of focus so that details are obscured, and we may have difficulty retrieving data, but memory is supposedly a fundamentally faithful reproduction of our experience.

    It wasn't until the "Satanic Ritual Abuse" (SRA) scare of the 1980s-90s, which was based largely on claims of "recovered memories", that I noticed much controversy about the nature of memory. One result of that moral panic was research showing that false memories could be implanted (2), and     ...
    Read More Read More

    The Gospel According to Dixon #15: Are You Certain? 

    by
    Dixon
    Published on 02-01-2013 01:53 AM
    Article Preview

    by Dixon Wragg
    WaccoBB.net
    Column #15: Are You Certain?

    The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man,
    but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
    ~ Bertrand Russell

    Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
    ~ Voltaire

    The minute one utters a certainty, the opposite comes to mind.
    ~ May Sarton

    In my last couple of columns (1), we've been looking at various forms of misinformation and fallacy that render dubious so much of what we think we're certain ...
    Read More Read More 7 Comments

    The Gospel According to Dixon #12: Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Hellfire 

    by
    Dixon
    Published on 02-03-2012 05:05 PM
    Article Preview

    by Dixon Wragg
    WaccoBB.net

    When I was fifteen, my mom gathered us kids around the table for a momentous announcement. At that point we had been Mormons for five years (Mom and the kids, that is—Dad wasn’t a churchgoer). Mom had recently been visited repeatedly by fundamentalist Christian “Missionaries to the Mormons” and they had succeeded in wooing her away from Mormonism and back into fundamentalism, the religion of her youth. So her announcement to us kids was that she’d been shown some doctrinal errors in Mormonism and from now on she’d be taking us, not to our accustomed Mormon church, but to Calvary Bible Church instead.
     ...
    Read More Read More

    The Gospel According to Dixon #11: Heard Any Good Anecdotes Lately? 

    by
    Dixon
    Published on 01-03-2012 01:31 PM
    Article Preview

    We’ve all heard plenty of these tales: “I was troubled by (depression / indigestion / leprosy / the heartbreak of psoriasis / whatever) for years. I tried everything, but nothing helped. But then I met (Reverend / Swami / Doctor) Ironbeard, and just one session of (energy healing / crystals / potions / pills / quantum laser / shamanic techniques / powdered tiger penis / whatever) cured me! Plus, my sex life has improved, I’ve stopped snoring, and it leaves no bathtub ring!”



    When such little stories, or “anecdotes”, are offered as evidence for something, that’s called anecdotal evidence (no surprise there). Often, most or all of the evidence proffered in support of a claim is anecdotal, and most of us, at one time or another, make decisions based on anecdotal evidence. Sometimes, it’s     ...
    Read More Read More 9 Comments

    The Gospel According to Dixon #10: Evidence and Proof 

    by
    Dixon
    Published on 10-29-2011 02:26 PM
    Article Preview

    by Dixon Wragg
    WaccoBB.net

    One of the common ways people short-circuit meaningful discussion is by taking the position that evidence and proof are irrelevant to them. They may claim that they don’t think about evidence when deciding upon beliefs, instead apparently feeling that beliefs form inside them through some magical process divorced from grosser concerns like evidence and proof, the clunky mental mechanisms of less enlightened souls. People tell me, for instance, that any logical critique of their belief is irrelevant at best, because it’s not about “linear” logic (“linear” being a term they use for proper logic, with the implication that it’s inferior to some vague alternative logic that     ...
    Read More Read More

    The Gospel According to Dixon #9: The Role of Intuition 

    by
    Dixon
    Published on 09-07-2011 03:18 AM
    Article Preview

    by Dixon Wragg
    WaccoBB.net

    I believe in intuition and inspiration.
    --Albert Einstein

    You’re hiking and reach a fork in the path. You start down the right-hand path, then unaccountably change your mind and go down the other one. By making that decision, you’ve avoided a nasty encounter with a grizzly bear.

    You’re driving to work, constantly making decisions--little adjustments of the steering wheel, pushing down or letting up on the accelerator, braking--with little or no conscious awareness. In fact, your conscious attention is pretty much focused on an interesting radio show all this time.

    You meet someone who, to all outward appearances, seems nice, but you have a bad feeling about this person. He would, in     ...
    Read More Read More 17 Comments

    The Gospel According to Dixon #8: Let's Argue! 

    by
    Dixon
    Published on 08-09-2011 08:25 PM
    Article Preview

    by Dixon Wragg
    WaccoBB.net

    There’s a lot of argument about argument. Many argue that we shouldn’t argue, oblivious to their self-contradiction. Others, including myself, insist that argument, done properly, is a path to enlightenment. How can we make sense of this contentious issue?

    I’m glad you asked. We can start, as in so many cases, by defining our terms. So much of the argument about argument comes from confusion about what we mean by the term.

    To most, “argument” has a negative connotation. It involves two or more ego-trippers closed-mindedly battling with words, each trying to “win” by drubbing the other into submission.

    But there’s another meaning of “argument” which is commonly used in the scientific and rationalist ...
    Read More Read More 8 Comments