Quit telling me to do things!

Last Boston Skeptics’ Book Club Meeting, we met up to discuss Jon Ronson’s latest book The Psychopath Test. Personally, this book has been one of my most favorite non-fiction books that I’ve read this summer.

The beginning is a little strange and non-psychopathic in that it explores the curious case of Being or Nothingness, a book penned by an unknown weird person and sent out to various scientists. While he’s researching that subject, he walks by the office of a psychologist who specializes in psychopaths, and that’s what starts his odyssey with Broadmoor (a famous psychopath facility in the UK) and “Tony”, a man who says he faked mental illness to escape prison, but in fact he has been incarcerated longer at Broadmoor than his original sentence. When Jon confronts the psychiatrists about Tony’s fake mental illness, they tell Jon that they know Tony faked it, but in fact that is exactly what a psychopath would do, which is why he’s been locked up in Broadmoor so long. I won’t say what happens to Tony, but Jon finishes up his tale in the book.

Jon also writes about the book’s namesake, the Psychopath Test developed by psychiatrist Bob Hare. Before the ‘70s, Bob worked in a prison and used electric shocks and disturbing images to discern the psychopaths from the regular criminals. However, ethics reforms forbade this inhumane treatment, so he developed a non-violent checklist instead. Jon ends up getting trained on how to use the checklist and tries it out on a CEO known for his ruthless boardroom behavior. The CEO ends up twisting almost every point and reframing it as a leadership quality. (Funnily enough, he gives this interview in his mansion, which is filled with stuffed or gilded predators and giant oil paintings of himself.)

Jon also covers 9/11 and 7/7 conspiracy theorists, a mistaken profiler, and the abundance of misdiagnoses of childhood bipolar disorder (which is under hot debate as to whether it actually exists) and the preventable death of one child who died at age 4 of an overdose of her bipolar meds because her parents would give her some when she would get “annoying”.

If you’re looking for a quick, intriguing summer read, pick up this book. Jon always has an excellent skeptical eye and a knack for presenting his subjects in a sympathetic light. (At one point I was even feeling good that the scientologists exposed a bad psychiatrist! Not for long though.)

The book we’re reading now is The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science. Our next meeting is Saturday, August 13 at 3pm, hopefully out in Harvard Yard if the weather is nice, but stay tuned for details!

Also, if you have any suggestions for books, please leave them in the comments. (And if you were at the last meeting and suggested a book, write that in the comments too, because I forgot to write down the excellent books that everyone suggested!)

Come to Book Club, or this cat will perform thought experiments on you.

Just a reminder that tomorrow (Saturday, July 11) at 3pm, the Book Clubians are meeting up at the Northwest Building at Harvard (as usual) to discuss The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. Of course, you don’t have to have read the book to have an opinion on the nature of how science can determine absolute morality, so please join us if you can! Also, bring a snack, because the Book Club who snacks together, uh … quacks together? OK it’s a Friday and I can’t coherently rhyme, so I’m not sure where that was going. Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing you all there (especially any newcomers)!

It doesn't get much more dissonant than this.

This weekend, the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club met up to discuss Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, a book about Cognitive Dissonance Theory and self-justification. As skeptics, we try to be objective and judge based only on facts and reason, but we can’t avoid the effects of cognitive dissonance.

The authors write, “We justify behavior we know is wrong so that we still see ourselves as honest people.” In other not-really-much-simpler words, cognitive dissonance is the constant that balances out our moral equation. When encountering a dissonance, one must either change one’s original belief or refute/reinterpret the data to turn it to consonance. Both sides of the equation balance in our heads and our world is restored to normal. A good phrase the authors use is believing is seeing, which means that if you hold a certain belief, you have already pre-judged anything related to that belief, good or bad. If evidence agrees with us, we think it’s reliable. If not, it’s biased or foolish. Or, as George Carlin would put it, “ Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?”

If you don’t have time to read the book, here are some of the points:

• “Aggression begets self-justification, which begets more aggression”: If you say something mean to someone, they must have done something to deserve it, and therefore you need to continue to treat them badly. Admitting that you were wrong and an aggressor may be to dissonant to admit.
• Once we make a decision, we find reasons to justify why that decision was better than others.
• Asking others to do favors for you makes them like you more. (In their mind, if they did a favor for you, you must’ve been worth helping, and therefore you’re a trustworthy person.)
• Each side of a rift uses self-justification to blame the other. The only real way to end conflict is if both sides apologize, forgive, and are committed to moving on.
• “Pain felt is more intense than pain inflicted.”
• Police are under the impression that they do not interrogate innocent people, so if you find yourself in an interrogation situation, repeat this phrase: I want a lawyer. Now.
• Also, if you are ever wrongfully convicted, the prosecutor will likely not care if they find out that you’re innocent, so long as your case is closed. Put your faith in good friends and lawyers who will fight for you.

Interestingly, even though we are loath to admit mistakes (because we think people will judge us as stupid), people admire those who own up to their wrongs. In fact, patients are less likely to sue doctors that admit fault and promise to try better in the future. Making mistakes in your life is important to your learning process. It is important to think of mistakes as learning experiences instead of failures, because the former is not dissonant with the view we have of ourselves and we will work harder instead of trying to be perfect.

Of course, this book confirms my previously held beliefs about cognition, and therefore it is unbiased and reliable.

However, a few people at Book Club brought up the point that while the book has many examples of how cognitive dissonance affects us, it doesn’t examine how to deal with overcoming cognitive dissonance. There are a few examples here and there but mostly the book just illustrates our lack of free will. Personally, I don’t think there is any one way of dealing with dissonance in others, except by just planting a seed of doubt. It’s very important that when you are expressing a skeptical view point to someone who has been drinking the holistic homeopathic water, you aren’t too forceful about it. Self-justification can be a gradual process, so just by explaining your view calmly, you might have an eventual lasting impression. If you express your view in a not-so-friendly manner, it will be too much and your arguments will be explained away. People are more receptive to change if they think it’s come as a personal revelation, not just because someone told them so.

The next book club meeting is on Saturday, June 11th from 3-5pm and we are discussing The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris. Location is TBD, depending on the weather, but we should be meeting either in Harvard Yard or in our usual indoor spot in the cafeteria of the Northwest Building on Harvard Campus in Cambridge.

This coming weekend, skeptics all over the world will be participating in a global homeopathic “overdose” to help spread the truth about homeopathy: there’s nothing in it. The Boston Skeptics will be holding our event on Sunday, February 6th, at 10:23am in City Hall Plaza (outside the Government Center T station). We will have more specifics about the event coming shortly, so check back to find out everything you need to know!

UPDATE:

The “medication” that The Amazing James Randi uses for his famous “overdose” is Calms Forte ( http://www.calmsforte.com/home/ to check it out ), so we’re suggesting this brand if you choose to partake in the pill-poppin’ goodness!

Also, get creative and make your own signs for this event! You can also print out flyers from this template: http://www.1023.org.uk/leaflet.pdf

You can and should spend some time over at the 10:23 website ( http://www.1023.org.uk/ ) to get more familiar with just how global this protest is, and for some useful information about not only the event’s history and culmination, but some good talking points!

And most importantly… let’s make this protest fun and safe!

But there’s more…we are following the “challenge” with (finally) brunch! Join us at the Kinsale (2 Center Plaza, right by City Hall Plaza) at 11 am. 10:23 participation is not mandatory for attendance…but do it! :)

You can rsvp on facebook for 10:23 here and brunch here. See you there!

Not even the Shockmaster can handle space travel after reading this book.

Blast off with the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club this Saturday, while we discuss Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars. It’s the kind of book that makes anyone who ever dreamed of going into space realize that maybe they’re actually OK with a little low-orbit floating and some astronaut ice cream (not the astronaut pizza though, amirite?).

Come down to Harvard (at the same place we met last time) and join us this Saturday, Dec. 11, from 3-5 pm, and make sure to bring a strong stomach because the topics in this book are definitely not for the easily-nauseated. Can you handle it?

"Oh, you're dealing with someone far worse than the FBI. You've just crossed...mall security."

Come and join the Boston Skeptics’ Book Club tomorrow, November 6^th, at 3pm for a rousing discussion about zombies and World War Z by Max Brooks.

Since the weather is a bit cooler, we’ll be meeting inside the Northwest Building at Harvard University.

Here are some Google Maps directions to a spot in front of the building from the Harvard Square T Station.

Here is a photo of the building (it’s a big file, sorry anyone who has slow internet). The entrance is on the right and we’re meeting in a spot that is near the windows on the left side of the picture.

Please don’t come too late, because the door is not open to the public so we have to let people in ourselves. If you come late, you can try going to the windows on the left side of the picture above, and you should be able to see our group.

If you haven’t read the book, but you’re a fan of zombiefic, come on over! We’ll be discussing all sorts of zombie (and skeptic) related things tomorrow. Also, we will be continuing the snack-bringing tradition, so bring some goodies to share with the rest of the class (and it doesn’t have to be zombie related–you just need to bring the brains in your heads, not cooked or otherwise prepared).

Join us for a very exciting Skeptics in the Pub event: Marian Call, geek musician extraodinaire!

Photo by Brian Adams (baphotos.com)

Marian is in the midst of her 49>50 tour, on which she is touring all 50 states (beginning with the 49th and ending with the 50th). We are lucky enough to be getting a free show the night after she appears at Boston’s W00tstock! Check her out at mariancall.com and youtube.com/mariancall, and don’t miss out–I saw her perform at Dragon*Con and it was an AWESOME show! You don’t often get to see someone play both a typewriter and a rainstick in the same concert…

Please note: there is a $5-10 suggested donation to the artist.

See you at Tommy Doyle’s in Harvard Square (96 Winthrop St.) on Monday, November 1st at 7pm!

Don’t forget to rsvp on facebook:)

That’s right. Forums. Where all you Boston-y skeptics can gab to your heart’s content, make suggestions, dig deeper into the book club books and whatever else you want to do.

But, on top of this, you’re the first group taking part in something that, we all hope, will take off and help grow and nurture grassroots skepticism. The site hosting the forums is called Skather and it will provide forums for us and other groups across the US and around the world. And each of those groups and its members can share and talk between groups. Skepticamps can collaborate, speakers can network, resources can be shared and, most importantly, ideas can be nurtured and grown among not just one group, but anyone who’s interested.

As the site grows, more things will be added (shared calendars of events, for example) and it’s hoped that this will help bring us all together globally just a little bit more. Skather will also be hosting forums for national and international groups who want to take part as well as giving national and cross-national organizers a chance to talk with each other and make grassroots skepticism more effective overall (which is already happening as I type this… big thanks for Travis Roy for kicking that into gear — more on that later).

So please visit and participate. You can sign up the old fashioned way, or simply (and securely) use Facebook Connect to join up using your Facebook account (only the bare minimum of data is used and you have full control over what details are imported). You can rate threads and, if you use Facebook Connect when signing up, even ‘Like’ them on Facebook (and, if you choose, post any new thread you start to your Facebook wall). But, that’s your call, everything is configurable. You can also sign up normally and then link your Facebook account later.

I (Maggie) started a couple of threads to kick things off, but they’re your forums so talk about whatever’s on your mind. I also want to thank Andrew V for being patient with me. He suggested this ages ago, but I couldn’t talk about Skather back then so I’ve kind of skirted the issue until now. :)

Click the ‘Forums’ link up top or head over to http://skather.com and look under USA -> MA for our forum.

** Yes, the forums will be moderated, first by each group’s owner/organizers/moderators and then by ‘super moderators’ at Skather. So if any trolls show up, rate them down and/or let someone know. Skather’s moderation policies aren’t all up yet, but will be soon. They’ll be very similar to those at, say, the JREF and will err on the side of keeping communication open but civil. Hostility and craziness won’t have a place there. **