Last night I came across a great article explaining how smart people are just as susceptible to bias and false beliefs as anyone – and, in fact, how smart people are more adept at justifying these false beliefs:

“Smart people will usually be able to brush off criticism since they are convinced they are right and, due to their thinking abilities, can probably out-argue most criticism even if the criticism is right.”
- The Dangers of Being Smart

This fits perfectly with my own thoughts on members of Mensa, where I found many people with astounding IQs clinging to horrendously stupid beliefs:

I was appalled at how many Mensans are in to what we collectively term ‘New Age’ spirituality. From astrologers to energy healers, from psychics to homeopaths, Mensa boasts a frightening abundance of people who have thrown every last remnant of rationality and common sense overboard and have committed themselves entirely to plainly ridiculous ideas.

Not only that, I got the distinct impression that these people felt that their membership of Mensa – their high IQ – was a vindication of their beliefs. “I’m smart,” they seem to argue, “so what I believe is right.”

Now I am of course keenly aware that I’m not immune to this conceit either, and that there’s a strong possibility my own beliefs are equally flawed and that I use my own intellect to justify them, even when faced with valid criticism.

Unfortunately, being aware of bias and prejudice does not make you immune to it. That’s something we’d all do well to keep in mind, I reckon.

I saw Prometheus yesterday. It’s definitely a film that needs to be properly digested.

Below my thoughts on what I liked, what I didn’t like, and some theories about events in the film and possible answers to some of the questions arising from the film’s plot.

SPOILER ALERT. If you have not yet seen Prometheus, don’t read any further. Read the rest of this entry »

I have a confession to make: I haven’t read the Iliad. I have a lovely modern translation sitting on my bookshelf in a boxed set with The Odyssey, but I’ve only managed a few chapters of the Iliad before other – and, let’s be honest here, less difficult – books beckoned and I abandoned that most illustrious classic.

My fascination with the story of Achilles and the fall of Troy is undiminished, though. I’ve read alternative takes on this enduring epic saga, including a great science-fictionisation by Dan Simmons (for all his flaws as a person, Simmons sure knows how to write epic prose).

And now I can add another re-imagining of The Iliad to my list of completed reads: The Song of Achilles.

At first (and entirely erroneous) glance it might seem to be little more than a homo-eroticised fanfic version of the Iliad told through the perspective of Patroclus. But a book that wins prizes is not to be dismissed so casually. Especially when the Kindle version costs less than a fancy sandwich from Marks & Spencer.

So I bought it, downloaded it to the Kindle app on my iPad, and started reading last night. At about half past midnight I stopped reading. Not because I needed to sleep – though I certainly did – but because I’d finished it. I finished it in one night not purely because it’s not a huge book, but also because it’s addictively, mindbogglingly good. The very definition of a page-turner (or, more accurately on the iPad, a page-swiper).

The Song of Achilles manages to pay tribute to the original classic, give its own original spin to the ancient tale, and be immensely fun to read as well. The characters are well-drawn and multi-layered, the story flows with a rapid pace but commands the right level of detail, and the prose can be almost poetic at times.

In short, it’s a fantastic book. It’s not just a great re-imagining of the Iliad, it’s also a superb stand-alone work. Even if you’re not familiar with the Iliad, or if don’t like Homer’s grand tale, and/or if you couldn’t stand Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 Hollywoodisation of it, I would nonetheless recommend you give The Song of Achilles a try.

Unless, of course, you’re a homophobe. In which case you should fuck off and stop reading my blog.

The few bits of criticism levied against The Song of Achilles that I managed to find seem to focus on the decision of the author to portray the relationship between Patroclus and Achilles as homosexual. This is an odd complaint to make, in light of our knowledge that homosexual relationships were fairly commonplace and not particularly controversial in ancient Greek times. And I have to say, despite academic arguments on either side, the whole story makes more sense to me if Achilles and Patroclus are lovers.

Anyway, all this just boils down to one thing: I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone. Go and buy it. I mean it. And when you’ve read it, let me know what you think.

Recently some alarming facts about justice and imprisonment in the USA have been highlighted. These facts are not new discoveries as such, but worryingly few people know about them.

First there’s this study about wrongful convictions in the USA, which paints a pretty grim picture of the American justice system:

“The US criminal justice system is a broken machine that wrongfully convicts innocent people, sentencing thousands of people to prison or to death for the crimes of others, as a new study reveals. The University of Michigan law school and Northwestern University have compiled a new National Registry of Exonerations – a database of over 2,000 prisoners exonerated between 1989 and the present day, when DNA evidence has been widely used to clear the names of innocent people convicted of rape and murder.”

The fact that thousands of Americans are jailed for crimes they did not commit is not particularly surprising, if viewed in the larger context of the country’s highly profitable private prison system:

“In the past few decades, changes in sentencing laws and get-tough-on-crime policies have led to an explosion in America’s prison population. Funding this incarceration binge has been an enormous drain on taxpayer dollars, with some states now spending more to lock up their citizens than to provide their children with education. It’s difficult to spin anything positive out of that scenario, but as it turns out, even this blackest of clouds has a silver lining – silver as in dollars, that is, for the private prison industry.

In 2010, two of the largest private prison companies in America, GEO Group, Inc and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) generated over $4bn dollars in profit between them.”

Both these articles are just scratching the surface of this deeply worrying trend in many western democracies to impose ever-stricter sentences on minor crimes, and to utilise the resulting prison population for capitalist gain.

In effect this is a new form of slavery, aimed at imprisoning as many of the lowest echelons of our society in order to use them as involuntary cheap labour. It’s a new way to maximise corporate profits through exploitation of the lower classes, as these will be the most likely to serve extensive prison terms for often minor crimes.

As we all know, rich men can pillage and loot for billions and get away with a slap on the wrist, while the poor serve decades in prison for petty theft. Our justice systems are not blind, we are not treated equally under the law. The more money you have – i.e. the higher your social class – the lower the punishment for your transgressions, if there is any punishment at all.

We see the same unsavoury trends beginning to take shape here in the UK. This form of government-approved corporate slavery is among the worst excesses of capitalist greed, and it should be resisted at every step.

I’ve hinted at my views on philosophy before. Summarised I think modern philosophers are undeservingly arrogant and accord themselves a level of prestige in intellectual spheres that they don’t actually deserve.

But it’s only recently that I think I figured out why this is. When you view philosophy in its proper historical context, their increasingly loud screeching – especially on matters where science is making progress in leaps and bounds – is revealed as the desperate pleas of an intellectual pursuit rapidly being made obsolete.

As was pointed out to me on Twitter by Sander Tamaëla, the early philosophers were the scientists of their days. They tried to understand how things worked, and why they worked the way they did. They were restricted to the tools of their age, which meant they had little to rely on except their own minds.

As a result of this limited toolset, philosophers put conscious thought in the center of their discipline. It was all they could rely on at the time, and ever since it’s been the axle around which the entire philosophical discourse of the past few millennia has moved.

So philosophers have been building pedestals to their champion, the conscious mind, for thousands of years. And now, thanks to the advances being made in neuroscience and other disciplines, they’re finding that this proclaimed champion is actually a bit of a dud.

Our conscious mind is not in charge. Free will is pretty much proven to be mostly – if not entirely – illusory. We are not enlightened creatures.

And philosophy, as the herald of consciousness’ greatness, is struggling to accept it. Which is why philosophers are spending an awful lot of energy trying to discredit the scientific advances that are hinting at philosophy’s obsolescence.

From the rather untenable – and frankly ridiculous – posturing of philosophy as the purest of all scientific endeavours (evidenced in this Infinite Monkey Cage podcast) to their shrieking rebuttals (peppered with logical fallacies) in the neuroscience debate, philosophy is obviously in distress.

It’s reminiscent of the desperation with which religion has grasped at as-of-yet-unexplained phenomena as evidence for the existence of God. This is called the ‘God of the gaps‘ argument, in which religion finds increasingly small areas where science has not yet been able to provide enlightenment. Philosphy is doing the same, wrangling itself in to the ever-narrowing gaps of knowledge that science is rapidly breaking open and exploring.

While I believe there is a role to play for philosophy in scientific discourse, it’s not nearly as big a role as philosophers wrongly think they ought to play. It’s time they realise that their best days are behind them, and that they should stop trying to artificially inject themselves in to every discovery that further gnaws at their crumbling foundations.

This is the age of science, and philosophy would do well to keep pace.

If you don’t know who Marie Curie was, you probably shouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place. I’ll assume you’re all at least passingly familiar with this historic figure.

What you may not be aware of is exactly how epically awesome Marie Curie really was. This is a woman who, at the turn of the 19th century, when feminism was pretty much non-existent and most women around the world did not even have the right to vote, managed to become a widely renowned and respected scientist.

Science, in those days, was considered a strictly male endeavour, and I can only imagine the depths of bigotry and sexism Marie Curie had to overcome in her voyage to become a scientist that was taken seriously.

Then, in 1903, she wins a Nobel prize, the first woman to do so. Her role in the discovery of radioactivity earns her the Nobel Prize for Physics. Remember, this is at the start of the 20th century, when women were on the whole not taken particularly serious as scientists.

But it gets better. In 1911, she wins a second Nobel Prize. This time it’s the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, which she received for her discovery of the radium element. That made her the first person – not just the first woman, but the first person in the history of mankind – to have won two Nobel prizes in different disciplines. Only one other person has since matched that feat.

Marie Curie died in 1934 from the effects of radioactive poisoning. She literally gave her life in service of her craft. When her remains were transferred to the Panthéon in Paris in 1995, she became the first – and so far only – woman to be entombed in the Panthéon on her own merits.

Regardless of her gender, Marie Curie was one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. And when you do take her gender in to account, the fact that she was such a great scientist in a day and age when sexism was the norm, we can only conclude that she was without doubt one of the greatest human beings to have ever lived.

Marie Curie was truly, epically, awesome.

I am increasingly convinced that I’m living in the wrong country. My current status as a resident of the United Kingdom means that I could potentially go to jail for nothing other than speaking my mind online.

Those who know me know that I tend to have very vocal opinions that are often expressed with an abundance of profanity. I rarely hold back, and I swear often and loudly.

Apparently that is enough to get me sent to jail, should the wrong person choose to take offence and make a case of it. That is not an exaggeration. There are abundant examples of people going to jail for nothing more than saying something rude on Twitter or Facebook. Some prominent examples:

Facecook riot sentences: Two men are sentences to four years(!) in prison for posting messages on Facebook calling for riots. As those riots never materialised, these two men are effectively jailed merely for saying something online.

Twitter Joke Trial: Paul Chambers is convicting for making a bad joke on Twitter.

Offensive tweets: Student Laim Stacey is jailed for 56 days for posting offensive tweets about a footballer.

Olly Cromwell: Blogger Olly Cromwell faces prison for indirectly insulting a councillor with the c-word on Twitter.

All these cases are examples of a growing – and very worrying – trend in the UK to criminalise people’s opinions. What you say online can and will be used against you. All it takes is for someone to take offence and get the litigation ball rolling, and before you know it you’re behind bars for merely speaking your mind.

I fiercely believe that no one has the right to never be offended. I believe that everyone should have the right to speak their mind, just as everyone else has the right to disagree and to reply with criticism, mockery, and ridicule.

So for someone like me this criminalisation of opinion is an almost unbearable state of affairs. The UK is simply not a free country. A nation where citizens cannot speak freely because they fear being jailed for what they say is nothing short of a fascist police state. There is no other conclusion possible.