Transparent Eye

I do think organic farming methods may be better for the environment, but I’m skeptical that there is any health benefit to the consumer, and this article in the Guardian makes the point.

However, according to Krebs, an eminent scientist and principal of Jesus College, Oxford, there is still no reliable, peer-reviewed evidence to show that there is any clear health benefit to eating this ‘green’ produce.

‘The organic message can sometimes be a distortion from the more important messages,’ said Krebs. ‘If a parent is asking, “how can I improve the health of my children?” they may think, “Oh, I can give them organic food”. But that is far less important than the decision to feed them more fruit and vegetables, or the decision to give them less salt.’

The Humanist Small Group held its third meeting this afternoon at Andala Coffee House in Central Square, Cambridge. There were seven of us, and in addition to conversation, we enjoyed hot drinks and Middle Eastern food.

The main topic of conversation was how to develop direction and values in the absence of a holy book that gives us all the answers. I think we all agreed that we rejected the notion associated with some interpretations of multiculturalism that holds that all points of view are equal, and that religion is an equally valid interpretation of the world as science and should be above criticism.

I think we also all agreed that our approach should be evidenced-based. But then two points were made that show the limits of an evidenced-based approach.

1. Contemporary social science tries to emulate the physical sciences, but by their nature, social science studies contain many more confounding variables, and their conclusions are much less reliable than in the physical sciences.

2. Certain fundamentals cannot be proved, but must be assumed. For instance, policies that maximize health, wealth, or happiness are probably better than those that do the opposite, but that’s ultimately a matter of feelings. Some people might hold the view that dissatisfaction is a spur to achievement. Once we understand what we fundamentally value (for instance, to be happy) we can then use an evidence-based approach to try to bring this about (e.g. maximize happiness in society).

We had some general agreement on this abstract level, but a considerable divergence of viewpoints once we got into the nitty gritty. The discussion touched on John Rawls, Ayn Rand, Kant, and Epicurus, the latter of whom turns out to have been the opposite of the hedonist image associated with the word Epicurean.

I think we mostly agreed that there are aspects of humanism buried within religion, such as the Golden Rule, and that sensible ideas that originate in religion could be carried over to secular values, while the elements that cannot be justified rationally should be discarded.

We got into a discussion about whether people should feel they have a duty to others or whether it all comes down to self-interest, enlightened or otherwise. Deontelogical ethics came up.

We also talked a bit about education, the sexual preferences of Ancient Athenians, neuroscience, whether god figures originate in parental attachments.

I’ve never liked the home schooling movement, which besides a few hippies is mostly a Christian movement to keep students from being “polluted” by mainstream culture and “infected” by Darwinism. In California, it’s now being used to keep teenage girls pure until they can be married.
Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling – New York Times

Of more than 90 Pakistani or other Southeast Asian girls of high school age who are enrolled in the Lodi district, 38 are being home-schooled. By contrast, just 7 of the 107 boys are being home-schooled, and usually the reason is that they were falling behind academically. As soon as they finish their schooling, the girls are married off, often to cousins brought in from their families’ old villages.

This piece in Harvard Magazineabout healing collective traumas seemed too squishy at first, but got better later in the article.

Unfortunately, parents pass their own traumas on to children, sometimes unintentionally, but sometimes as an ethnic history that is meant to prevent a repetition of the trauma (e.g. persecution). It’s often meant well, but this really does inflict suffering on children, and can be a barrier to reconciliation among groups.

The crusading governor of New York, who I have admired for his prosecution of white collar crimes on Wall Street, appears to by a hypocrite on the order of Reverend Dimsdale from The Scarlet Letter, having prosecuted prostitution rings only to be exposed as a client himself.
Spitzer Is Linked to Prostitution Ring – New York Times

In one such case in 2004, Mr. Spitzer spoke with revulsion and anger after announcing the arrest of 16 people for operating a high-end prostitution ring out of Staten Island. “This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation with a multitiered management structure,” Mr. Spitzer said at the time. “It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring.”

I am interested in how Humanists can construct positive values without reference to scriptures. I do not wish to be a moral exemplar myself, however. I think I’m a decent guy, but that’s a lot of pressure.

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I found an entry in The Buddhist Blog discussing Buddhism and Secular Humanism. I’m between these two poles, finding humanism intellectually appealing, but finding more than a few secular humanists to present themselves as “attack dogs” and not being very appealing as people.

I find that Buddhism and meditation do nourish my soul or spirit (not that I mean anything supernatural about that) and put me in a positive frame of mind. But a lot of Buddhist writings lack in the way of critical thinking, in my view. Stephen Batchelor’s Buddhism Without Beliefs has the best balance.