Texas Secular Humanists

Found that the meeting location and time listed on our about page was out of date. That is now fixed. Apologies to anyone who has been confused by this.

Thanks to everyone who we saw tabling earlier today, and we hope you enjoyed our free facts! Each of them was guaranteed to be true, including but not limited to "The city of San Francisco is not a whale", "Pi is numerically larger than 3", and "the maximum road speed in Texas is 85 mph". Stay tuned for a volunteer opportunity with the White Rose Society that we'll be promoting soon.

Hey, everyone!

I hope you all have had a great and relaxing Spring Break! TSH is back with a vengeance, and by “with a vengeance”, I mean “the first day after Spring Break ends.” That’s right! We’re meeting tomorrow at 8 PM in GDC 1.406, which is in the basement, near the north elevators (which are the only way down to the basement). Kori will be giving the presentation, so I hope you’ll show up, since it’s bound to be a good discussion.

Again, 8 PM, GDC 1.406. If you have trouble finding it, there are digital directories right next to the elevators that’ll give you a map of the building.

See you there!

Reminder: We will not be meeting tonight. Our next meeting will be the first Monday after Spring Break, March 23rd.

However, the Secular Student Alliance at UT is meeting tonight at 5pm in Waggener 301! Check out the event page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1378793749086019/

As a followup to Tyler's presentation and referencing the comedic talents of John Oliver, here is an old summary of the issues affecting Net Neutrality that led to last week's decision on Title II. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Net Neutrality (HBO) Cable companies are trying to create an unequal playing field for internet speeds, but they're doing it so boringly that most news outlets aren't covering it...

Sorry for the late post, but now’s as good as time as any to remind everyone that we’re meeting tomorrow in GDC 1.406, which will be the classroom with the open door down the hall to the right as you come out of the north elevators (which are required to get down to the basement). Rick’ll be sharing details on how he hurt himself over the weekend, and we’ll be talking about preparations for tabling this week. Also, if you are interested in presenting, be sure to come by, as I’ll be putting together the revised presentation schedule for this semester (to take into account people’s changed schedules and the new biweekly format). And finally, an update on Net Neutrality, on which I gave a presentation last meeting.

Hope to see you there!
Tyler

Just in case people are lost, to get to the meeting, take the north elevators down to the first floor, then hang a right when exiting them. The room is the door with the recycle bin propping it open.

Hey, everyone!

It’s a new semester, and TSH is finally back. Our first meeting of the semester will be held in GDC 1.406, which is in the basement of the Comp Sci building. It’s a nice room. I like it. It has rolly chairs. The meeting time is Monday, 16 Feb (tomorrow) at 8 PM. No, that is not a typo. We’re moving the meeting time back an hour. That’s GDC 1.406 at 8 PM, Monday. Anyway, we’re kicking meeting presentations off with a discussion on Net Neutrality, presented by yours truly. There will also be plenty of important announcements, so be sure to come!

Hope to see you all there,
Tyler

Yesterday three young people were murdered in North Carolina, and all evidence suggest that the killings were religiously motivated: three Muslims were killed by a secular man. This is not morality. No religious or secular reasoning should convince someone to harm another person on the basis of their beliefs, and humanism exists for the religious and secular.

Man held for North Carolina killings A US man is arrested over the death of three Muslim students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, amid speculation over the motive for the killings.

In recent years the number of terrorist attacks linked with radical Islam have increased in the press, but it's important to remember that belonging to a religion doesn't make someone evil, an extremist, or deserving of attack.

Firebombs and pigs heads thrown into mosques as anti-Muslim attacks increase after Paris shootings Twenty-six mosques around France have been subject to attack by firebombs, gunfire, pig heads, and grenades as Muslims are targeted with violence in the wake of the Paris attacks.

For those of you that participated in the rationality activity this week, I did finally tally the conjunction fallacy results. Congratulations! You're rational!

The conjunction fallacy occurs when probabilities are estimated in a way such that P(A) < P(A∧B). That is, if you estimate the probability that A as being less than the probability that A and also B, you're committing the conjunction fallacy. This often arises when people employ stereotypes to estimate probabilities about people. For example, suppose that Stanley is quiet, keeps to himself, and is really into math. Now think about the following statements about Stanley:

1.) Stanley enjoys watching pro football
2.) Stanley is an accountant and enjoys watching pro football

Statement 1 is more likely than 2, because 1 is contained within 2, but many people will rank 2 as being more probable.

We had a "quiz" that was intended to gauge your ability to estimate probabilities rationally. Okay, really it was just intended to get you thinking about estimating probabilities before I talked about it, but the results are interesting too. It consisted of a series of statements, some of which were contained within the others, and you were supposed to say how much you'd be willing to bet on either $10, $100, or $10000. Here are the average ratios of your answers, for each A, A∧B pair, that is, the average P(A) / P(A∧B) (so > or = does not violate conjunction):

Obama disapproval / Obama achieves nothing and disapproval: 1.2
Rick and Robert argue / Rick and Robert argue with details: 1.33
Coin toss: HTHHH / THTHHH: 1.5
Smoking rates / smoking rates and cigarette tax: 1.2
Get hit by a meteor / get hit by a meteor once in each hand: 2500

All of these are greater than one (good), and nobody answered with a ratio less than one for any of the answers (really good!). I think the whole thing was put together awkwardly, and if I did it again, I'd make some changes. I do not think the questions were ideally phrased to get irrational answers, mainly because I did not employ the stereotypes about people, which tend to get strong results. I avoided this mainly because I wanted to use the betting method to get probabilities, and betting on whether Stanley is into pro football just seemed distractedly strange. Still, based on more careful studies, I expect that if you gave this to the general public you'd get a lot of people answering with ratios less than one.

Anyway, thanks to those of you that participated, and thanks for putting up with my presentation that was a little rough around the edges.

"Second, I think another important message is that people with different religions from your own (if you have a religion) may not be as crazy as you think. Having a credence that (say) the ancestors are alive and watching is very different from having a factual belief that the ancestors are alive and watching. It could be that the former isn't crazy, even if the latter would be. So I think that grasping this psychological distinction could foster a healthier level of understanding and curiosity toward others."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2014/10/20/357519777/are-factual-and-religious-belief-the-same

Are Factual And Religious Belief The Same? Commentator Tania Lombrozo considers a new paper that may help make sense of the coexistence of seemingly contradictory religious and scientific beliefs.