#Reason Over #Resist, Charles CW Cooke and David Frum

Around this time last year, I began a self-imposed experiment. I wanted to see if a diet of center-right conservative thinking could rattle my default center-left leaning.

Perhaps it was the hyper-politicized environment of 2016, perhaps it was reading Daniel Oppenheimer’s wonderful Exit Right, but I realized that I had never given conservatism serious thought, or, for that matter, thought very deeply about my own or any political ideology. Instead, I had engaged in the common and intellectually lazy shortcut of relying on cultural cues—Fox News is silly, ergo conservatism is silly; conservatives are religious fanatics, ergo conservative ideas are baseless; Jon Stewart makes fun of Republicans, ergo … you get the idea.

So, ashamed at myself for this lack of rigor, I decided to binge for a year on the National Review. And while I won’t be naming my cat “Buckley,” I did learn an awful lot and can positively recommend the experience. In part thanks to this experience, I’m ending 2017 feeling more ideologically objective and independent than I’ve ever felt.

I’m also, I’ve noticed, much more dismissive of the #resist movement than my leftist friends and colleagues. This is not to say I support Trump—I adamantly do not. But it is to say that I’ve felt witness to a kind of hysteria infecting both right and left #resistors, in that they seem all-to-ready to immediately believe specious claims (see the recent CDC “banned words” story) and cannot under any circumstance allow themselves to agree with or praise anything that comes out of the Trump administration.

Charles CW Cooke, editor of National Review Online and something of a new hero for me, exhibits this in his recent piece on fellow conservative Jennifer Rubin. Cooke’s humble argument, abstracted from the focus on Rubin for a moment, is simply that if Trump does something in line with your previous policy preferences, it’s suspect if not absurd for you to then take the opposite position simply because you abhor Trump’s character.

This seems entirely reasonable to me, but not to David Frum, who is so convinced of Trump’s collusion-guilt and threat to Democracy that he enters the debate to imply that Cooke is taking his position (again…that position is described above) not out of prudence and a general regard for skepticism, but out of cowardice and economic self-interest. You see, Frum is already sure that Trump is guilty of collusion, so the only possible explanation for Cooke not joining the chorus of #resist hysterics is that it might alienate the Trump loyalists and, I suppose, reduce subscriptions to the National Review Online.

Let’s lay aside the ridiculous accusation of economic self-interest from someone promoting an all-cap-titled book called TRUMPOCRACY for a moment, and look at just what Frum is criticizing: prudence, skepticism, and the withholding of judgement without evidence.

Read this, from Cooke:

I had an interesting conversation last night with a fellow critic of President Trump’s. He was irritated that I had insisted that those watching the Comey situation remain “skeptical but not hysterical.” Now, he said, is “the time to be hysterical.”

I’ve been trying to understand why he was so vexed, and I think I’ve worked it out: He has assumed — and built into his thinking — that there is a huge Russia scandal in the background of all this. And I haven’t. I certainly think it’s possible that this goes deeper, and I remain as mistrustful toward this administration as I ever was. But I’m not going to credit theories about Watergate-level conspiracies without evidence, and my friend is. That’s the line that divides us.

That being so, his approach makes sense. If, like my friend, you are convinced that Trump is guilty and that we are just waiting for the smoking gun, you will work backwards from that point and conclude that Trump is obviously getting in the way of the investigation, and that this is obviously Watergate. If you aren’t sure that there is a big scandal looming, you’re likely to be circumspect and happy to watch it play out as a process.”

Now imagine the filter through which one must be viewing the world to interpret the position Cooke is taking as unreasonable. Frum literally excerpts phrases like “skeptical but not hysterical” and “if you aren’t sure that there is a big scandal looming, you’re likely to be circumspect and happy to watch it play out as a process,” as indications of Cooke’s naiveté at best or craven posturing at worst. (Cooke responds here).

What Cooke is doing is simply saying one should be consistent on considered ideological positions and that we do not yet know the extent to which, if at all, Trump’s campaign acted improperly during the election. Thus, why scream about it as if it were already shown to be true? Why abandon principles? What other situation would that be advised in? Who is the threat to due process and the rule of law here, Cooke, or #resistors who have already made up their minds (for almost epileptic shock-inducing example, see Laurence Tribe)?

I’ll be as happy as a clam if Trump loses the 2020 election—or if true crimes are uncovered that lead to impeachment—but I’m not willing to throw away #reason for the sake of #resist.

Canaries in the Coal Mine: Murray, Peterson, Singer, and Free Speech

First Milo. Then Murray. Then…Singer and Peterson? Has the free speech canary died in the coal mine?

It’s 2017 and humanity faces a multitude of challenges. The usual specters of poverty, violence, inequality, and tribalism rear their heads (though at largely lower levels relative to the past). And added to our plate we find the uncertainties of global environmental change, surges in population, looming automation, increased political polarization, religious fundamentalism, and resurgent nationalism to name a few (you’ll forgive me if I’ve left out your favorite worry).

But the challenge I find myself most agitated over lately is the diminished respect for free speech on college campuses.

By now of course you have seen or heard about the incident at Middlebury College involving Professor Charles Murray and Allison Stranger. The former was shouted down and unable to deliver his (invited) talk without moving to a separate room, and the latter was physically assaulted by a member of the un-satiated student mob. Murray can legitimately be considered a “controversial” speaker, having co-authored The Bell Curve, which includes a chapter related to possible average-IQ differences attributable to race. However he is not a “white nationalist” as he was incorrectly described by the increasingly unreliable Southern Poverty Law Center, and was not even at Middlebury to talk about The Bell Curve, but instead his 2012 and pertinent-to-the-times book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010.

Disturbing as it was (particularly the cult-like chanting which you can see here), I did not despair, considering this an isolated incident of naïve activism on the part of mostly well-intentioned students.

But perhaps it was I who was being naïve.

This afternoon I was shown a video of University of Toronto psychologist Jordan B. Peterson similarly confronted by a group of students at McMaster University. As I read their “NO HATE SPEECH” poster boards and heard their shouts of “SHUT HIM DOWN”, I had the sinking feeling that the canary in the coal mine of free speech had just slumped over.

Peterson, insofar as I can ascertain, is not a controversial speaker of the Murray sort (unless you are one of those sexpots energized by questioning the validity and value of archetypical forms in mythology and religion). And Peterson is certainly no Milo. Thus, I realized that the no-speech movement on college campuses is in fact closer to the Salem-analogies than I was originally ready to admit. Labeling speakers as unworthy of a platform, or as “offensive” has become a weapon, and no one is safe. Are you a college student feeling inadequate, bored, or self-righteous? Wait for someone to be invited to speak on your campus—truly anyone, as the Peterson example shows, will do—and feign to take offense at something this individual has said or written, no matter how far in the past, the context, or the person’s overall body of work and character. Presto! You have yourself a protest, a taste of the 60’s that you hold so dear, and complete assurance that you’re a good person.

And in case you’re tempted to call me melodramatic, consider another report in which a Q&A by the moral philosopher and inspiration for the Effective Altruism movement, Peter Singer, was similarly disrupted. If you know Singer’s work, you’re likely asking yourself something along the lines of: Am I in a Joseph Heller novel or How on earth can students be protesting, much less attempting to shut down, a talk by such an objectively thoughtful, rational, and ethical person?

Jonathan Haidt provides some help in understanding this phenomenon by explaining that we may be looking at a paradigm shift in higher education discourse and morality, isolated mostly to social science departments at elite private universities. He discusses this shifting moral order on campus in this interview with Frank Bruni and elsewhere, explaining that in contrast to the traditional university ethos based on teaching multiple perspectives and encouraging debate among them, the new moral order assumes certain perspectives as correct, then filters all other discourse through that lens. The result is that many of today’s students seem consider their points of view beyond reasonable objection, and thus feel justified shouting down speech because they know it’s wrong. The problem, of course, is that they don’t know it’s wrong. And they don’t know it’s wrong because they have rejected the surest defense to delusion: frequent exposure to new or different ideas. Most disturbingly, it seems that in some cases students are so intellectually lazy that they don’t even take the time to confirm whether the person they’ve decided to disagree with in advance actually holds the views they disagree with. If someone’s accused of being a witch, they must be a witch; no need to investigate.

So this stark reality (noticed perhaps late on my part) has convinced me forevermore that even very good ideas are fragile and not to be taken for granted. And free speech is a very good idea. It is in fact one of the few ideas I have trouble seeing another side to. So much so that I had to overcome embarrassment at writing this post in the first place, feeling it akin condemning an obvious platitude like, say, stealing is wrong and acting otherwise leads to a society most would not be happy in. The best defense of free speech can be found by Mill (On Liberty)—which I encourage you to read at this instant—but then you also have Hitchens, Van Jones, and many others today and through the ages. Digest the argument of the marketplace of ideas, and then tell me: what harm can come from hearing speech that you disagree with, so long as you are armed with the very same freedom to argue against it?

All of this is not to suggest, in some demented way, that I consider free speech comparable as a life or death matter to those considerable challenges facing humanity listed above. And it is not to suggest that I disagree in principle with the intentions of many of the aforementioned activists (or, “delayed adolescents” if I’m being harsh), insofar as they dislike racism, sexism, and the like. But it is to suggest that free speech is worth defending loudly and with conviction. And it is to suggest that free discourse is the best way to solve those considerable challenges.

Incidents like Middlebury, McMaster, and surely more soon, are worth sounding the alarm over—and I hope you’ll help sound it.

Other People’s Philanthropy: Why Gladwell is Wrong About Higher Ed Giving

Esteemed essayist and bad debater Malcolm Gladwell has now entered the podcast game. And as one would expect, he’s already a formidable player. His new series, Revisionist History, is good. I’ve listened to three episodes so far and enjoyed each. However, I take issue with his criticisms of higher-education giving in Episode Six: My Little Hundred Million. Thus, a new post.

My Little Hundred Million is the third in a series on higher education, a topic Gladwell is evidently passionate about. The episode condemns the relatively recent philanthropic phenomenon of multi-billion dollar gifts to universities that already have enormous endowments. Think Stanford, Harvard, MIT, University of Chicago, Columbia, etc (you can see a list here). Gladwell’s argument is that a major gift will have more impact if bestowed on a college or university system that needs the money more. This was the logic behind Hank Rowan’s $100 million donation to a small university in New Jersey (shunning his alma mater, MIT), which essentially kicked off the modern trend of billionaire gifts to universities.

(At least, I think that’s Gladwell’s argument. In the podcast, he curiously never makes the more obvious moral argument: that that type of philanthropy could be better spent on, say, helping feed the hungry, ala effective altruism. If he had, I would be more sympathetic to the criticisms. Instead, it seems like he thinks it should still go to higher education, just to less endowed institutions.)

As usual, Gladwell attempts to add assurance to the argument he’s examining by tying it to some kind of named social science theory or statistical analysis. This time, he connects the idea to David Sally and Chris Anderson’s popular analysis on “weak-link” and “strong-link” players in soccer (see their book, The Numbers Game). Essentially, in certain sports, having weaker players hurts your overall chances of winning more than in other sports. Think about soccer. There are very few opportunities to score, so mistakes by weaker players have a proportionally higher impact. Then think about basketball. There are many opportunities to score. So typically, one dominant player–Michael Jordan, say–can make up for the weak links on the team. Therefore, having a few weaker players isn’t going to have as big of an impact in basketball as it would in soccer. Basketball is a strong-link game. Soccer is a weak-link game. Gladwell apparently sees higher education giving as a weak-link game, and is appalled by the prevailing strong-link mentality of donors and universities.

And in some ways, Gladwell may be correct. I think often about philanthropy, particularly philanthropic efficiency and effectiveness. There is certainly waste and there is certainly mis-allocation of funds. But to make a strong call on the rightness or wrongness of a gift, you first need to agree on the 1) goals of the donor, 2) the timeline of impact, and the 3) type of difference the donor is trying to make. Gladwell doesn’t examine any of these in his criticisms, particularly of Phil Knight’s $400M gift to an unnamed graduate program at Stanford, initiated by outgoing president, John Hennessy. Instead, Gladwell assumes the goals for himself. He takes it for granted that donors should or do have the same goals, timeline, and types of impact in mind as he does. This leads to an overly broad conclusion and what is certain to be bad advice to billionaires in many instances: don’t give to top universities.

Why is it bad advice? Let’s examine the conclusion in the context of goals. What if my goal, as a donor, is to cure a particular type of cancer as fast as possible. Should I not give to a top-tier research institution like MIT? Would it be better to give to a small state school, with hardly any medical infrastructure to speak of? In which instance is my goal most likely to be accomplished in the shortest amount of time? I think the answer is obvious. The same would go for a number of different scenarios.

In My Little Hundred Million, we don’t hear from a single billionaire donor to a large university. Gladwell seems to assume the donors’ goals are (or should be) his goals: namely, supporting a “rising tides lift all boats” theory of education that will ultimately, in his view, lead to better economic output on the whole. Sure, that’s a fine goal*. But we don’t know if the donors have the same goal. And it’s their money. They’re smart people. Maybe they have a good reason or argument. Without talking to them about their objectives and rationale, it’s silly to broadly condemn, and Gladwell slips into a kind of simple, self-righteous moralism. It’s as silly as if I were to condemn him for not immediately giving his notoriously high speaking fees directly to, say, the Against Malaria Foundation**. After all, $80,000 for a speaking gig would buy some 18,000 mosquito nets in the DRC and Malawi, likely saving or pro longing hundreds of lives. Isn’t that better than spending money on podcast production?

In any event, I still recommend the podcast. But even more strongly recommend that you listen with a critical ear.

*Though I’m far from convinced by the economic output argument…wouldn’t the U.S. have a better chance of staying competitive if we gave more to universities that are already on the cusp of major innovations, rather than ones that need to catch up?

**The Against Malaria Foundation, petulance aside, is an excellent charity.

Stranger in a Strange Land: Christopher Hitchens’ Visit to Texas

One of life’s small pleasures these days is stumbling upon previously unseen video content of the late great Christopher Hitchens, usually in the form of C-SPAN interviews, obscure television specials, or public debates (though I must have seen most of the latter). Typically, when I find a new gem, I hesitate before watching it. Hitch passed away in 2011, and so discovering content of his that I’ve not yet seen is a bit like drinking from a vintage cask of wine: I only have so many glasses to enjoy before it’s dry.

But tonight, I found a video that I couldn’t resist gulping down immediately. In 2004, Hitchens served as the host for a one-hour television special called “Texas: America Supersized”, originally airing on something called the Trio network (1994-2006). The special is narrated, written, and presented by Hitchens, who travels across the immense state—in heavy duty pick-up truck—trying to discover what Texas values are, where they came from, and, with a “Texas posse” in the White House, whether they might be fated to become American values.

It’s a bit striking to see Hitchens act as a neutral television host, and more than striking to see him try on cowboy boots and straddle a horse. This is a different Hitchens than we’re used to. Non-confrontational, overly polite, observational, and noticeably devoid of opinion. There are strains of criticism jetted in, but always in the words of interviewees, including filmmaker Richard Linklater, novelist Larry McMurty, and author Molly Ivins. In one scene, Hitchens sits nervously in a chair listening to a clear nut-case with an assault rifle sputter on about communists in Washington and the second amendment. I suppose the assault rifle may have impeded a rebuke in any case, but it’s jarring to see Hitchens sit still in the presence of people he disagrees with. One almost wishes there was a follow-up special where he could share his uncensored opinions, which may have been too rude, or erudite, for Trio’s intended audience.

I must say, though, that Hitchens and his producers did a fantastic job covering the essential aspects of Texas life, the oddities that make it unique, and all in just under an hour. I moved to the state four years ago and this documentary would have made a terrific welcome video. Hitch covers business, wild-catting, ranching, the rodeo, the pledge(s) of allegiance, the smallness of the Alamo and the bigness of the Capitol, and, most importantly, football. He even covers the sprawling, endless maze of Texas suburbs—driving through a residential cul-de-sac in Plano (just north of Dallas), where, if you can image it, he looks more out of place than on horseback. Hitchens interviews the old and the new guard, from Boone Pickens to former Senator Florence Shapiro to the Castro brothers. He spends time with Larry McMurty at his bookshop in the Texas panhandle, letting him get out the gibes at W in the most mild-mannered voice you’ll ever hear (quite similar to John Updike, actually): “Yankee patrician”, “oligarch with a dictatorial temperament”, “worst president in my lifetime”, etc. At the beginning of the special, the three distinct strains of Texas culture are summed up nicely (by Molly Ivins, not Hitch) as religiosity, anti-intellectualism, and machismo.

On the whole, nothing in this documentary rang false about Texas. I grinned throughout the whole thing, reliving my culture shock, vicariously, through Hitch. I couldn’t be more delighted to have found it.

So, save the video for a rainy day, or go grab a six pack of Lone Star and enjoy.

Getting the Narrative (Robert) Wright: On Islam and the West

I’ve been trying to pinpoint what bothers me so much about Robert Wright’s new article in the New Yorker. I think it’s this: I respect Wright as a writer and thinker, and therefore, when he comments on the relationship between Islam and terrorism, I’m always mildly hoping to have my mind changed about one or another aspect on this issue–but it never is.

In, “The Clash of Civilizations That Isn’t“, Wright warns of the dangers of walking straight into a self-fulfilling prophecy—that is, by engaging in too much exaggerated rhetoric about the fundamental struggles between traditional Islam and Western values, we risk deepening fault lines and creating a true clash of civilizations that could lead to more violence and/or to us freaking out again (e.g. the Iraq invasion) and making things much, much worse. Who are the spreaders of said narrative? There are the obvious Fox News crazies and right-wing war hawks, but Wright is more concerned with traditionally left-of-center and credible outlets, going after, in particular, Roger Cohen’s “Islam and the West at War” op-ed in the NY Times, and Graeme Wood’s popular piece, “What ISIS Really Wants” in the Atlantic.

The immediate objection to get out of the way is Wright’s conflation of Cohen and Wood’s two different arguments. They are not, if you read them, saying the same thing or engaging in the same narrative. Cohen’s piece is more expansive, using blanket terms like the “Muslim world” and suggesting that the combined jihadist movement is a result of Islam the religion, politicized or otherwise. On the whole, Cohen’s piece is not as wrong-headed as Wright tries to make it sound—the broadness of its title is the most controversial part. If Wright had stuck to Cohen’s article, I wouldn’t have been so off-put, but he had to drag in Graeme Wood’s piece, which I think should be largely exempt from Wright’s criticisms.

Wood’s article is not a narrative about Islam and the West. It is not an op-ed. It is researched journalism that confines itself rather painstakingly to ISIS’s interpretation of Islam. It is not expansive, it does not pontificate on Islam itself, or Islam as a whole, or the Muslim world. It does not say the West is at war with Islam. It is about ISIS and their interpretation of Islam. The article is clear that this interpretation is exotic, an aberration even among jihadist groups (the most interesting part, for me, was seeing how wide a gap there is between ISIS’ ideology compared to, say, Al Qaeda’s), and an interpretation criticized by the majority of Muslims. One must exert much effort to misconstrue Wood or even Princeton scholar Bernard Haykel as arguing that ISIS’ interpretation represents “true Islam” (though true masters of misinterpretation can do it). So what is Wright objecting to then? That ISIS is motivated by religion? Is that controversial? Wright seems to think so:

But what did Wood mean by saying that ISIS is ‘very Islamic’?

He rested this claim about the deeply Islamic character of ISIS largely on the views of a single scholar, Bernard Haykel, of Princeton. Haykel’s main point seems to have been that ISIS isn’t just making up an ideology and grafting it onto Islamic beliefs. ISIS draws (if selectively) on the Koran and later Islamic texts; indeed, if you went back far enough in time, you would find its views more widely accepted by Muslims and Muslim scholars than has been the case in recent centuries.

First, this “single scholar” business. Does one need a scholar at all to tell you this? ISIS itself tells us, again and again via a social media infrastructure rivaling Silicon Valley start-ups, that its primary motivation is Islam (rather obviously an uncommon, “ahistoric” version of Islam, though Wright complains that this qualification was left out of Wood’s article). ISIS explains, intricately, carefully, gleefully, that it’s doing what it’s doing because of deeply held, absolutist religious beliefs. To quote the Almighty Will Ferrell, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills when this is denied or questioned. I can entertain the argument that some jihadist groups might be exaggerating their devotion to Islam, using it predominantly as a tool without actually being all that devout—but ISIS? Have you watched, listened, or read a single thing about ISIS if you’re making that claim?

Yes, there is always a risk that, bolstered by an over-simplified narrative, the West will engage in more foolish military undertakings in the “Muslim world”—will freak out, will do something stupid, and more people will die. But the answer is not to shut down the narrative, the answer is to get the narrative right.

We are not at war with Islam, though there are clear, tangible divides between the values of traditional Islam and the values of the West (that’s why the over-simplified narrative exists in the first place). Just today, a poll was released showing that “24% of British Muslims say violence against cartoonists who draw Muhammad is justifiable“. (Incidentally, when Wright argues that the most effective tactic against extremism would be to stop U.S. policies like drone strikes that promote radicalization, I wonder what he suggests cartoonists should do?). Rather, we are at war, as reformer Maajid Nawaz would say, with Islamism—or, the desire to impose Islam, any version, on others. That is the correct narrative. That is the prophecy which has already been fulfilled. And that is the ideology we have to understand, not ignore, if we want to successfully combat extremism.

Just so everyone understands that I do really like Wright, just disagree with him on this topic, I want to plug one of his books: if you like science, particularly evolutionary psychology, you will love The Moral Animal. I was sad to finish it.

Check the original source! How so many writers got the facts wrong after the Maher vs. Affleck Islam debate

Today I’m excited to share a guest post by someone who has been instrumental in correcting several statistical errors in popular media reports regarding Pew’s 2013 report: The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics, and Society. We’ll call this person Fred, and he’s currently the author of a new blog, Empethop.

Fred’s post below shows how one survey response from the report in particular—the percentage of Egyptian Muslims favoring death for apostasy—was widely misinterpreted and incorrectly cited by numerous writers in the wake of the controversial debate between Bill Maher, Sam Harris, and Ben Affleck on an October 2014 episode of Real Time.

I was one such author who lazily reported that Maher’s claim that “like 90%” of Egyptian Muslims favored death for apostasy was wrong, and that the actual figure was 64%. My source was Max Fisher’s 2013 article in the Washington Post. Fred, a reader of this site, brought it to my attention that Fisher had been wrong, and that the source Pew report cites 88%, not 64%. Fred’s efforts eventually led to the correction that you currently see in the Washington Post article.

The 64% figure, however, is still widely cited. I hope Fred’s article below helps explain why the error was made, how it spread, and why it’s so important to always check the original source. The version below is abridged, but you can read the full article at Fred’s blog (the unabridged version contains a much more thorough discussion of the statistics from the Pew report).

Most importantly, I want to thank Fred for his vigilance in pursuit of accuracy. Enjoy…

A Fact-Check of Bill Maher and His Critics: A Closer Look at Pew’s (2013) Survey Report

By Fred, via Empethop

January 2015

In an episode of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, October 3, 2014, Maher and his guests engaged in a heated argument about the extent of fundamentalist beliefs among Muslims and the contention that many liberals are unwilling to criticize those beliefs. In the subsequent controversy, some journalists and other writers took up the important task of fact-checking the claims made in that now famous debate. One of the most often attempted corrections deals with Maher’s claim that a Pew study showed “like 90%” of Egyptian Muslims support death as a punishment for leaving Islam. Many who try to correct him allege that the correct Pew figure is 64%. This article fact-checks those claims and a few related ones by looking to the original Pew source documents, researchers, and data. I’ve documented this fact check in detail here.

The Pew Research Center survey report most often cited in this controversy is titled The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics, and Society (April 30, 2013). In the Complete Report (April 30, 2013) and in the Topline Questionnaire, in a table on page 219 are shown the percentages of Muslims in each country listed, with each kind of response to Q92b, “Do you favor or oppose the following: the death penalty for people who leave the Muslim religion.” The table on p. 219 shows that 88% of Egyptian Muslims favored the death penalty for apostasy, 10% opposed it, and 1% didn’t know or else refused to answer. The table shows a wide range in support for the punishment, from about 1% in Kazakhstan to 88% in Egypt, with support in most countries below 50%. Note: I will be referring to the Complete Report throughout this article, so readers should keep it available for viewing.

Pew also published a brief article by Sahgal and Grim (July 2, 2013), highlighting some of the extreme restrictions on religion in Egypt. They wrote (parentheses are theirs): “Egyptian Muslims also back criminalizing apostasy, or leaving Islam for another religion. An overwhelming majority of Egyptian Muslims (88%), say converting away from Islam should be punishable by death.” A Pew study in 2010 found that 84% of Egyptian Muslims supported death for apostasy.

To provide verification that the data summaries on p. 219 are of the general samples of Muslims, I contacted the primary researcher of this (2013) study, who confirmed that 88% of Egyptian Muslims favored the death penalty for apostasy, and that the apostasy question was asked of all Muslims surveyed in the countries on p. 219. (Some contact information was removed at Dr. Bell’s request).

Pew made available to the public (June 4, 2014) the Data Set from which the percentages shown in the 2013 Complete Report were produced. Using freely-available statistical software, I’ve produced tables that will help clarify some issues about the numbers. In Table 3a, below, I show a cross-tabulation summarizing the percentages of the total, of Q79a (rows) by Q92b (columns) for Egyptian Muslims. (Following Pew’s instructions, I added the weight variable in the calculations). Q79a asked respondents whether they favored or opposed making sharia law the official law of the land in their country (see pp. 46 and 201, Complete Report). 74% supported sharia, and 86% of those who supported sharia favored the death penalty for apostasy (p. 55, Complete Report). Readers can compare the totals of the rows and columns in Table 3a with the rounded numbers for Egypt on pages 201 and 219, respectively, of the Complete Report to find that they do match up. Note that the “don’t know” and “refused” responses are merged in Pew’s report, but are separate in Pew’s data file.

In Egypt, less than 1% (.86%) overall opposed both official sharia and death for apostasy, while about 64% (63.80%) of Egyptian Muslims overall favored both. Note that the percentage for that latter response combination should not be confused with the percentage of Egyptian Muslims overall who favored the death penalty for apostasy (88.46%). Unfortunately, that confusion was made in a widely-cited secondary source.

A Major Source of the Error

That influential secondary source was a Washington Post article by Max Fisher (May 1, 2013) originally titled “64 percent of Muslims in Egypt and Pakistan support the death penalty for leaving Islam.” In the original uncorrected version (May 1, 2013), Fisher wrote:

“Although Pew [April 30, 2013] does not provide direct statistics for the share of Muslim respondents who support executing Muslims who convert to another religion, it does indicate the share of Muslims who support sharia and the share of these pro-sharia Muslims who back this policy. I’ve used this to extrapolate the data charted at the top of this page…”

By his own account, Fisher acted on the beliefs that Pew didn’t provide the statistics for the overall samples, and that he could extrapolate them from the limited information that he did have. Apparently, he overlooked or didn’t read adequately the report materials, available from the opening page, which do provide the statistics for the overall samples. For each country that he included in his calculations, he apparently multiplied the proportion supporting sharia (e.g., for Egypt, .74) by the proportion of sharia-supporters favoring death for apostasy (.86 for Egypt) to get what he described as the percentage of Muslims who supported the death penalty for apostasy (for Egypt, about 64%, or 63.64% based on multiplying the rounded numbers). As can be seen from the cross-tabulation of the data for Egypt in Table 3a, he obtained (a rough estimate of) the percentage of Egyptian Muslims who favored both official sharia and death for apostasy, not the overall percentage who favored death for apostasy.

Fisher presented his numbers for most of the countries in a red bar plot erroneously titled “Share of Muslims who support the death penalty for leaving Islam.” In the text of the original article, he referred to his numbers as “Pew’s data”:

“According to Pew’s data, 78 percent of Afghan Muslims say they support laws condemning to death anyone who gives up Islam. In both Egypt and Pakistan, 64 percent report holding this view. This is also the majority view among Muslims in Malaysia, Jordan and the Palestinian territories.”

On p. 219 of Pew’s (2013) Complete Report, the table shows that 79% of Muslims in Afghanistan and 75% of Muslims in Pakistan favored death for apostasy.

On October 15 (2014), I emailed the Washington Post, notifying them of the erroneous apostasy numbers in Fisher’s May 1, 2013 article (and in another article by him, dated May 2, 2013), providing them with a link to the Complete Report, and citing page 219. On about October 28 or 29, they made a partial correction to Fisher’s May 1, 2013 article, changing the title and stating in the text that 88% of Egyptian Muslims favored the death penalty for apostasy. However, the corrected article contained other errors, including a new error stating that 62% of Pakistani Muslims favored the death penalty for apostasy. (For a summary of my attempts to get various sources to correct their numbers, see Appendix III in my detailed article).

Some sources reported Pew’s (2013) apostasy numbers correctly. I haven’t done a thorough search, but here is a brief, casual, non-scientific sample of people who got the apostasy numbers right: Eugene Volokh (May 2, 2013); Andrew Bostom (May 4, 2013); Shadi Hamid (2014); and Nicholas Kristof (October 8, 2014).

Many people from multiple sides of the debate over Maher’s comments made or relayed the 64% error, and many cited Fisher’s (May 1, 2013) Washington Post article as though it were a valid presentation of the Pew (April 30, 2013) results [see Appendix IV in my detailed article]. Many writers went further, relying on Fisher’s article in attempting to correct Maher’s “90%” claim [see Appendix IV in my detailed article]. Here is a typical attempt, in this case by Dean Obeidallah at CNN Opinion (October 7, 2014):

“Maher then cited a Pew Research poll that he claimed found that 90% of Egyptians supported the death penalty for those who left Islam. I’m not sure where Maher got his numbers, but a 2013 Pew poll actually found only 64% of Egyptians supported this — still alarmingly high, but not 90%…”

He mentions the Pew (2013) study but links to the May 1, 2013 Washington Post article. Obeidallah’s article remains uncorrected (as of February 8, 2015), though he apparently ignored a correspondent’s attempt to correct him on twitter on October 9^th and 17^th, 2014.

Aslan Spreads the Error, Adds More Errors

In the debate in the weeks following Maher’s comments, Reza Aslan appeared often in the popular media. In an interview on “All In with Chris Hayes” (October 13, 2014), Aslan apparently accepted the same false assumption used in the original Fisher (May 1, 2013) article, as shown in the exchange below on MSNBC (The relevant part of the video clip begins at about 2:50):

Chris Hayes: I want to cite this poll that Bill Maher and Sam Harris, who is an atheist author who was on Bill Maher, who sort of have, have built a lot of this around. This is a Pew Research poll. I think it was conducted in 2013 of different views. This is views of Egyptian Muslims: 74% of Egyptian Muslims say sharia should be official law—that is, of course, sort of Qur’anically-derived religious law—and 86% of those say that there should be a death penalty for converts, for people who leave Islam. Now, that’s about 60% of folks when you multiply those two—64% that—when you multiply those two together. Now, that’s a troubling polling result, I think both you and I would agree, right?

Reza Aslan: The second number is a troubling poll result. The first one, you have to understand that those very same, that very same poll showed that of that 70-something percent, there was a massive diversity of views of what they even meant by sharia. We’re talking about marriage and divorce laws, and inheritance laws, as well as penal laws. But you’re right. 64% wanting the death penalty for, for converts out of Islam is incredibly frightening, until you read the rest of the poll wherein 75% of Egyptians also wanted religious freedom. If that sounds like a contradiction, it is, because religion and religious-lived experience is full of contradictions. So, 64% wanting the death penalty, that’s scary. But, of course, in neighboring Tunisia, it’s about 12%. In, let’s say Lebanon, it’s 1 in 6. In Turkey, it’s 5%.”

Hayes’ multiplying of the two percentages to get 64% is consistent with Fisher’s extrapolation; Pew didn’t do that in their report. Aslan strongly implies, to the naïve viewer, that he’s read from the same Pew (April 30, 2013) report, particularly when he says “that very same poll showed that…” and “until you read the rest of the poll, wherein…” In addition to Aslan’s 64% error for Egypt, page 219 of the Complete Report shows that his 12% for Tunisia and 5% for Turkey are incorrect; Pew’s figures are 18% and 8%, respectively. His errors for Tunisia and Turkey are not large. What’s more significant about them—together with his 64% error which is quite large—is that they suggest that he is unaware of p. 219 of the Complete Report (or Topline Questionnaire). (I deal with his claim of “75%” support for “religious freedom” in the next section, below)

Aslan’s approximation for Lebanon, phrased as “one in six,” happens to be consistent with the 17% on p. 219 of the Complete Report, though “one-in-six” is not uniquely linked to 17%. In a later interview with Hartmann, discussed below, Aslan describes the figure for Lebanon incorrectly as “10 or 9%,” which supports the idea that he hadn’t read p. 219.

Aslan also spread the 64% error via Twitter: “64% of Egyptians favor death for apostasy. 75% of Egyptians favor full religious freedoms. That contradiction sums up how religion is LIVED.” (October 13, 2014). When the author of Uncertainty Blog challenged Aslan’s 64% figure, Aslan tried to correct him, replying “@uncertaintyblog nope. 64%,” and adding a link to the original Fisher (May 1, 2013) Washington Post article. Aslan had also spread the error via AslanMedia (Facebook, October 11, 2014), citing another Washington Post article that, at that time, contained an erroneous presentation of Pew’s (2013) apostasy and adultery numbers.

Aslan revisited the apostasy numbers in an interview with host Thom Hartmann (October 20, 2014) on the program “Conversations With Great Minds,” shown on Russia Today (RT). The relevant section in Part 1, below, starts at about 3:00 into the linked video [my brackets]:

Hartmann: “When people like Sam Harris [and Bill Maher], for example, attack Islam, they often point to last year’s Pew study of the Islamic world. From the Western point of view, that study showed some pretty shocking stuff, like how 86% of Egyptians, and 76% of Pakistanis, support the death penalty for [struggles with the word] apostasy—am I, I always mangle that word but—”

Aslan: “For apostasy, yeah.”

Hartmann: “Apostasy. Thank you. How should we interpret this study and others like it?”

Aslan: “Well, first of all, those numbers are incorrect. It’s actually 64% of Egyptians who support the death penalty for apostasy, which is outrageously high. But it’s also not very instructive, either about Egypt or about the larger Muslim world. For instance, in neighboring Tunisia, the number is like 11%. In Lebanon, it’s about 10 or 9%, I believe. In Turkey I th— it’s less than 5%. So what some Egyptians believe is not instructive of the larger Muslim world. But it’s even more complicated than that, because the exact same poll that showed that 64% of Egyptians favored the death penalty for apostasy from Islam, also indicated that 75% of Egyptians want full religious freedoms for all Egyptians in the country. And if that sounds like a contradiction, that’s because it is a contradiction.”

Hartmann evidently didn’t have the appropriate data prepared, and did not question Aslan about his numbers. Aslan conveys firm confidence about the numbers, matter-of-factly “correcting” Hartmann with the 64% figure, and talking about the complication of the religious freedom result that appears to contradict the apostasy result. Again, he gives the impression, to the naïve viewer, of someone who has read the Pew survey. Note the downward migration of Aslan’s numbers for Tunisia and Lebanon, and the change in phrasing for Turkey, since his interview with Chris Hayes. I’ve summarized in Table 4 the relevant Pew (April 30, 2013) and Washington Post (May 1, 2013) numbers for comparison with the various numbers Aslan mentioned in the two interviews.

Do 75% of Egyptian Muslims Support Religious Freedom?

In his Washington Post (May 1, 2013) article, Fisher wrote:

“…majorities of Muslims in the countries surveyed, sometimes vast majorities, said they support religious freedom. That includes, for example, more than 75 percent of Egyptians and more than 95 percent of Pakistanis. It might seem like a glaring contradiction. And it is a contradiction…”

Like the 64% figure for the apostasy question, the figure of 75% (or the phrase “more than 75%”) support among Egyptian Muslims overall for religious freedom is not mentioned in the Pew (2013) report. Note that Aslan’s talking points from the Hayes and Hartmann interviews about the 64% apostasy figure and the 75% figure for religious freedom that “sounds like a contradiction…is a contradiction…” seem to come from Fisher’s article.

For its measure of Muslims’ support for the religious freedom of non-Muslims, Pew uses responses from two questions, Q10 and Q11, where the latter is a follow-up to the former. Here are the questions:

Q10: “And in our country, how free are people from religions different than yours to practice their religion? Are they very free to practice their religion, somewhat free, not too free, or not at all free to practice their religion?”

Q11: “…And is this a good thing or a bad thing?”

If a respondent answered “very free” to Q10, and said that that was “a good thing” in response to Q11, Pew deemed that pair of responses to indicate support for the religious freedom of non-Muslims. On pp. 63 and 172 (Complete Report), Pew shows data for Muslims who said, in response to Q10, that non-Muslims were “very free” to practice their (non-Muslim) faith in their country (e.g., Egypt). That subset is 31% of Egyptian Muslims overall, as Pew indicates on pages 62, 63, and 172 of the Complete Report. Of that 31% of Egyptian Muslims, 77% said that non-Muslims being very free to practice their faith was a “good thing” (p. 63). 77% of the 31% subset is 24% of Egyptian Muslims overall. The table for Q11 on p. 173 shows that 24% of Egyptian Muslims overall said non-Muslims were very free and that that was a good thing. (I summarize those results for Egypt in cross-tabulated format in Table 5, below). In other words, applying Pew’s own measure of Muslims’ support for the religious freedom of non-Muslims, we find that only 24% of Egyptian Muslims overall support it. Fisher appears to have taken the 77% of the subset as “more than 75 percent” of Egyptian Muslims overall. His “95 percent” claim for Pakistan also involves the same kind of error. Aslan reported the same error as did Fisher for Egypt, possibly due to having misread or not having read the original report, or due to having relied on Fisher’s article.

Summary

According to Pew (April 30, 2013), 88% of Egyptian Muslims support the death penalty for people who leave Islam (p. 219, Complete Report). That happens to be close to what Maher claimed. His critics who claimed that the Pew figure in question was 64% were in many cases relying on an erroneous secondary source from the popular media instead of reading the original Pew source with due diligence. Those who claimed that 75% (or more) of Egyptian Muslims supported religious freedom seem to have not read (or to have misread) the Pew (2013) report, which indicates that 24% of Egyptian Muslims overall supported “religious freedom” for non-Muslims (p. 173, Complete Report). This article highlights the perils of relying too heavily on secondary sources, and the need for due diligence in evaluating claims.

Read the full article here.

Ben Affleck vs. Sam Harris on Real Time (And Some Poll Fact-Checking)

UPDATE 2: This story, as you know, has gotten quite a bit of play since the video aired. You can find various defenses of both Maher/Harris and Affleck on the interwebs, but I’ll link to a few here that I think are worth reading.

“Can Liberalism Be Saved from Itself” (SamHarris.org): Harris’ postmortem on the collision. He too was a bit taken aback by Affleck’s hostility.
Andrew Sullivan – normally a foe – defends Harris, et al in a short blog post at The Daily Dish.
“Maher 1, Ben Affleck 0” – Pro-Maher/Harris piece by Michael Tomasky at The Daily Beast.
“The Diversity of Islam” by Nicholas Kristof a the NY Times (Kristof was on the show in question)

UPDATE: I re-watched the video this morning and agree with my initial assessment. I did want to fact check some of the poll’s both Maher and Harris cited (see below). Both were more or less correct. The internet is always a mixed bag, but it does look to me like a slight majority agrees that Affleck came off a bit foolish and clearly didn’t listen to or understand Harris’ argument. Anyway, they seem to have reconciled backstage (check out the comments on Harris’ feed for a reaction from his fans vs. the comments on someone like Reza Aslan’s feed for reactions from those crying bigotry):

It’s been an hour and a half since I finished watching tonight’s episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, and I’m still a little distraught.

For those of you who haven’t yet watched, the panel included Michael Steele, Nicholas Kristof, and Sam Harris, though you will hardly notice them because the fourth guest, Ben Affleck, was too busy acting like a drunken frat guy who thinks speaking loudly or passionately means you win the argument. He went completely bananas on Sam Harris, at one point calling him a bigot and suggesting his view of Islam was equivalent to racism (this is all from memory so I’ll rewatch and correct myself if I need to…Kristof also subtly defended the charge that Maher and Harris’ arguments* were close to racism). I’ve never seen someone misunderstand an argument as badly as Affleck did, and on top of that, I’ve never seen someone be so rude on Real Time (on Real Time!). Harris, who’s a pretty calm and measured person, simply couldn’t get a word in over Affleck’s belligerent ranting. It was one of the most tense panel’s I’ve seen on the show, and even Bill (who argued and interrupted his fair share as well) seemed caught off guard by it.

Take a look here:

(In case that video stops working, this link should have it as well).

Anyway, I now have a pretty low opinion of Affleck, and feel fortunate that most of what I have to hear him say is scripted by someone else.

*Maher and Harris aren’t equally careful in their criticisms of Islam, so part of the tension during this episode may have been lumping their respective views into one. Maher has a tendency to generalize a bit more in my opinion, while Harris is on record countless times admitting that the vast majority of Muslims are obviously not violent, etc, etc. But regardless, they are both criticizing ideology (the principle victims of which are overwhelmingly Muslim), so the ludicrous charges of bigotry or the even more ridiculous charges of racism against both hold no water.

FACT CHECKING THE POLL CITATIONS

Unlike Affleck, both Harris and Maher offered poll evidence to support their claims that radical Islam is indeed a significant problem and is not simply a “fringe” issue. But were their citations correct?:

Harris: “To give you one point of contact, 78% of British Muslims think that the Danish cartoonists should’ve been prosecuted.” This is correct. Source: http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/291. Note that the link to the full report is broken, so if anyone finds it please send. Also note this isn’t a Pew poll, so I think it’s reasonable to question the reliability to some extent.
Maher: “I can show you a Pew poll of Egyptians–they are not outliers in the Muslim world–that says like 90% of them believe death is the appropriate response to leaving the religion.”
- Update: Many have reported (and I did so originally) that this was an exaggeration from the actual figure of 64%, taken from this Washington Post article by Max Fisher. However, this seems to be an error. Originally pointed out by a reader of this post, the 2013 Pew Report on which Fisher is basing his figures shows, on page 219, the general sample for Egyptians favoring death for apostasy: 88%. It appears that Fisher worked off of page 55 of the report and multiplied the 86% sub-sample (for Egyptians Muslims who favor Sharia) by the general sample of Muslims who favor Sharia (74%), to arrive at 64%. He didn’t seem to notice (and I didn’t either) that page 219 shows the general sample. For the skeptical, just cross-check the countries and figures on page 55 with those on page 219. You’ll find that they’re different (meaning they are two different data sets), and that, as you would expect, most sub-sample figures are higher than general sample figures (since again, the sub-sample is looking at Muslims who favor Sharia). Egypt is an exception to this, where the general sample figure is higher than the sub-sample, though only slightly. See also this 2010 Pew Report, asking a similar question of Egyptian Muslims and getting a figure of 84% (page 14).

Harris also puts forward an estimate for the proportion of “jihadists” and “Islamists” among all Muslims (essentially the extreme believers), as 20%, but admits this is more or less a guess based on a number of different polls. I’m not sure which polls he is referring to, but the same Pew report above does cite 8% of Muslims in the U.S. as believing suicide bombings are sometimes or often justified, and much higher figures for many countries. Some people have cited that the respective number for all Muslims believing this is 28% and for U.S. Muslims , 19%, but these, as far as I can tell, are wrong. The first figure, if it exists, doesn’t come from the Pew report (they give no cumulative estimates for all Muslims), and the second seems an incorrect interpretation of the data, where they have simply subtracted the number that said suicide bombing was never justified (81%) from 100%, and assumed the rest said it was okay, which is a completely incorrect way to interpret poll results (sometimes people refuse to answer, etc).
And just for fun, let’s analyze Affleck’s claim that: “ISIS couldn’t fill a Double-A ballpark in Charleston, West Virginia…” That seemed a little wrong to me, as the number of ISIS fighters in Syria alone has been estimated at 50,000 (also I’ve been to a lot of minor league baseball games). So, I took an average of the capacity size for 31 different Double A (AA) ballparks across the U.S., and got a figure of 7,565. Then I simply divided that number into the most recent estimate of ISIS’s size I could find, cited here at 80,000 (combined from Syria and Iraq). The result? The members of ISIS could easily fill up more than 10 Double-A ballparks in Charleston, West Virginia.
Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution is True has posted some notable charts from the Pew report, along with comments about the episode. Check out the “Must a Wife Always Obey Her Husband?” results.

Guest post: Reza Aslan goes after Bill Maher

Jerry Coyne was kind enough to share a short rant I wrote about Reza Aslan’s recent appearance on CNN. Here is the post is full. If you’re not already following Why Evolution Is True, you should be:

Why Evolution Is True

Just a short while ago I put up a post and video about Bill Maher going after Islam on his show. Maher’s words were prompted by the Pennsylvania kid who was arrested for “desecrating” a statue of Jesus; Maher’s point was that in a Muslim country (if they even allowed statues of Muhammad, which they don’t), the kid would have been killed. The video on that post has now been removed from YouTube, but another one has sprung up here.

On Monday, Reza Aslan, the Great Muslim Apologist, went on CNN to attack Maher and defend Islam, and a reader sent me the link along with a critique of Aslan’s critique. Usually readers just send me links and a few words, but when a reader gives me a longer take, I always worry about unconscious theft of ideas if I post the link with my own commentary. If my take is similar…

View original post 849 more words

Judging a book by its cover: a review of Sam Harris’ Waking Up

Waking Up is a difficult book. You may be tempted to assume, by its conspicuously short page length and tranquil, sky-blue cover, that it will be light reading, but light reading it is not. Sam Harris, author, horseman, skeptic-extraordinaire, has set out to discuss the inherently difficult topic of the nature of consciousness, particularly in its relation to contemplative practice and – for sad lack of a better word – spirituality. For the novice (and that’s me), digesting the non-duality of consciousness and the elimination of self made for a tough, but enjoyable journey. I’ll spend the next few minutes discussing why I felt it worthwhile.

First, a little more on what I mean by difficult. It’s not that there are loads of technical descriptions or assumed knowledge by the author – it’s that the nature of what’s being discussed, subjective experience, is just hard to connect with. Consider this short excerpt: “Subjectively speaking, there is only consciousness and its contents; there is no inner self who is conscious.” It doesn’t matter how deftly or how many ways someone describes something like that to you, to grasp it at all you need to at least glimpse it yourself. Oftentimes throughout the book I felt like Harris was taking great pains to describe a stranger to me in physical detail, and then asking me to go out and find said stranger in a crowded gymnasium. Flatly, it’s hard, both for the teacher and the student. Harris is aware of the difficulty, hence the constant encouragements throughout the book to put into practice what he’s describing – to actually take time out of your day to meditate and practice mindfulness. The second complication is that one needs to have thought somewhat deeply about the nature of consciousness before, otherwise much of the book – particularly chapter 2 – will be difficult to comprehend (for a crash course on the “hard problem” of consciousness, I recommend Steven Pinker’s article in TIME). These two in combination had me on the frustrating edge of comprehension for much of the middle of the book, only to lose it all a moment later. Fittingly, this seems to mirror the experience of beginning contemplatives, who struggle mightily, for hours or even years, to take the first steps toward enlightenment.

But struggles often lead to reward, and while I was initially skeptical of the book, I had that bittersweet feeling of melancholy as I finished its final pages, not wanting it to end. If nothing else, Waking Up has piqued my interest in contemplative thought and meditative practice – concepts I’ve dabbled with but never to any serious degree. Even if one reads the book and never again sits cross-legged on a cushion to meditate, there are useful self-help tips that can be applied almost immediately. For example, the basic act of mindfulness, or being aware of the present moment, can be used to assuage negative emotions and thoughts. The next time you are feeling angry, take a second to just notice that you are feeling angry. Just pay attention to the feeling. The same can go for anxiety, loneliness, etc. You’ll find that the act of awareness will almost immediately relinquish the negative effects of the emotion – it’s quite difficult to stay angry when you are concentrating on how angry you are. (I was happy to see this technique discussed, as I’ve been doing a version of it since I was a kid, without knowing it was connected to anything called mindfulness). Along with tips like these, there are also short descriptions and exercise on how to meditate (you can find Harris’ guided meditations here), backed up by evidence supporting the health benefits, which are primarily cognitive. At its core, that’s what Waking Up is – a self-help book. Harris, who seems to have led an interesting life traveling far and wide in search of transcendent experiences, is here relaying what he’s learned – all within a rational framework – simply because these practices interest him and have helped him personally by reducing, not entirely but in small bits, suffering.

Perhaps most importantly, Harris has staked a very public claim on turf formerly thought to be the exclusive domain of the religious (or at least the wacky). By writing Waking Up, one of the most famous skeptics of our generation has swiftly divorced the meditative and contemplative practices from their traditional, often irrational foundations in Eastern religion and co-opted them into a rational framework aimed at inducing psychological well-being. It’s perhaps not surprising that, old as they are, some religious traditions have managed to make insights into human happiness and suffering, and once we slice away the supernatural baggage, there’s something left that even the fiercest skeptic can find useful. The old idiom, “even a broken clock is right twice a day” passed through my mind more than once as Harris summarized religious traditions dealing with enlightenment and transcendence. In addition to self-help, the overriding theme of the book is that one doesn’t need religion to lead a spiritual life. This, I think, is particularly important today as more and more people question the foundations of their religions but do not leave due to the perception that humanism, skepticism, atheism, etc are devoid of transcendence or spirituality. Harris’ book then, is timely, and I hope an inviting argument for those who feel they have been missing something in their lives since leaving religion, or for those who haven’t yet left.

Of course, some people have never felt a yearning for the spiritual life. And for those folks? Well, Waking Up is still worth the price of admission, if for nothing else than Harris’ 13 page take down of NDE-peddler, Eben Alexander (Dr. Heaven). While it doesn’t fit quite smoothly into the rest of the text (at times the book is clearly a mash-up of previously written material), Harris offers, next to Esquire’s piece, perhaps the most comprehensive criticism of Alexander’s ludicrous claims to have proven that we survive our deaths. If the premise of Waking Up seems too gushy for you, and you miss the good old excoriations of patent nonsense, then fear not: Sam Harris is still your guy.

And with that, I (whatever “I” even means anymore!) end, and encourage you to read other reviews, or check out the first chapter, available for free online. Now, off to meditate. Namaste.

No, Obama, ISIL Does Not Have a “Nihilistic” Ideology

I think the entire world is shocked and appalled by ISIL’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. This afternoon, President Barack Obama spoke about the killing, and did a good job of expressing our collective anger and sadness. So all in all I was pleased with the statement, but one thing has been bugging me all afternoon…

Why wasn’t there any criticism of religious fundamentalism? Obama completely whitewashed the role religion is playing in ISIL’s actions. Instead of acknowledging that these are religious extremists killing in the name of Islam, Obama obscured the issue, saying that “ISIL speaks for no religion” and blaming their “nihilistic ideologies”. The first quote is understandable – he was simply trying to say that ISIL does not represent the majority of practicing Muslims around the world (and that is certainly true). However, in other ways it isn’t an accurate statement. ISIL is clearly speaking for Islam, at least in their own way. And the second statement, that ISIL is fueled by a “nihilistic ideology”, is simply wrong. ISIL is not a group of nihilists. They are group of extremists guided by an explicitly religious ideology.

To ignore the role religions is playing – in fact, to tacitly deny religion is playing a role – does humanity no favors. We have to examine problems objectively, and if religion is at the bottom of a group of people’s justification for committing horrendous acts, we have to acknowledge that and respond accordingly.