Can We Please Search for the Root Cause? - Single Mother Edition

   The title of this post is based on the idea of root cause analysis that shows up in engineering and perhaps other professions as well.

Root cause analysis practice tries to solve problems by attempting to identify and correct the root causes of events, as opposed to simply addressing their symptoms. By focusing correction on root causes, problem recurrence can be prevented.

   It would seem this concept gets it's name from weeds. With weeds, if you only remove what can be seen at the surface and you don't remove the roots, the weed will grow back. The same concept generally holds true with other life situations — if you only try to fix the problems that can be seen at the surface and don't address what is causing the problem, the problem will keep coming back.

   Today, I wish to talk about single mothers. This is due to a conversation that I had recently with my mother. She has had it in her head (and so does my father) that women get pregnant so that they can get on welfare. First, before I even get into looking at the root causes, this is such bullshit! Additionally, it frightens and disappoints me a bit when I hear such crap from my parents because this is conservative rhetoric. It's not a far cry from the ideas of 47-49% of the country being "moochers", which is bullshit* I addressed in part back in December. I also addressed a bit of this bullshit about single mothers then as well. I'll quote what I said before, bolding the part about single mothers:

   Take some time to grab a calculator if you need, and let's do some math! Currently, federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Let's say you work 40 hours per week at that wage. In a year's time, you will make $7.25/hour * 40 hours/week * 52 weeks/year which amounts to a whopping $15,080/year. Apparently, this is near the 2012 poverty guideline for a household of two, but... Damn. That's not a lot of money. And what if you were a single parent making that wage? You'd be living in poverty and you would qualify for that dole money. Similarly, if we talk about people who are getting by on unemployment, I have heard the average unemployment benefits are just under $300 per week. At a full year, that again is only about $15,000. Who's going to be chilling on a hammock making that?

Likewise, I find it equally as stupid to suggest that women intentionally get pregnant and/or keep their children that result merely so they can live the "high-life" on welfare since that "high-life" does not exist.

   Getting back to the main topic, my mother's "solution" to this single-mother problem seemed to be that single mothers should give their children up for adoption. This was a bit bothersome first in how the point was so casually announced by my mother. It was as though this should be an easy decision. Perhaps it's easy for a woman who herself never had to make such a choise. For some reason, I don't suspect it would have actually been that easy if she had been in such a situatation. Second, it doesn't address the root causes. My mother fails to ask questions like "Why do single women get pregnant?" As suggestd, she seems to think the answer to "Why do single mothers go on welfare?" is that they are lazy mooches who want free gifts. (She also fails to consider the impact on foster homes.) I was able, though, to get the conversation redirected to those root causes, which involves the obstacles that society has set up in women's paths. I'll be going over these obstacles in this list below:

1. Contraception and Sex Education — The very first obstacle is society's resistance to give women the tools they need to prevent pregnancy in the first place. This resistance primarily comes from the religious right. My wife, Amy, picked up a fundamentalist magazine from her place of employment that is somewhat refreshingly (though also frightening) blunt about why this resistance exists:

   With increased access to birth control, and the easy availability of abortion on demand, sexual activity has increased in the last few decades, as men and women alike have come to believe they can avoid the consequences of that activity.**

   If this doesn't make complete sense, I'll help clarify — Many denominations of Christianity disapprove of people having sex particularly outside of marriage and sometimes even within marriage if the couple is not having sex for purely reproductive purposes. When a single woman gets pregnant, that is proof that she was having sex. This allows whatever church to which she may belong to shun her***. But if a woman has access to contraception and proper sex education, then it is less likely she will end up pregnant and the church will not have the proof they need. So they oppose contraception and sex education.
   Having a society that opperates this way makes it more difficult for women to avoid unwanted pregnancy.
   
2. Abortion — Similar to #1, churches oppose abortion because it allows women to not suffer the "consequences" of church-unapproved sex. Also similar to #1, this makes it harder on women to end an unwanted pregnancy.
3. Low Wages — Already discussed above. It is bullshit to say that women get pregnant so that they can be on welfare. The reality is that welfare may seem like a better option because jobs don't pay worth shit. Not to mention who's going to look after the child while the mother is at work? So you have to subtract out child care costs. Let's please not make these stupid accusations until there are better incentives for people to work, shall we? If women had better incentives to work, you may find out that they will then want to work.
   

   So let's, as a society, work on these issues and give women better choices. You'll likely find that things will improve with such changes.

* I cannot help but do a bit of chest-thumping as well. I was addressing the minimum wage problem in this country before Obama brought it up in the State of the Union. Also, I want to take some extra time to say that I am pleased that attention is being payed to the issue. But let's not stop at $9. Also, let's try to start fixing our tip system for restaurants. Preferably, I think we should be like Europe where no such system exists.

** Tomorrow's World; "Sex: Is It Sin?"; Page 11. Edit: Oops! It would seem I forgot to include an issue number...it would be an issue published around the time of this posting, so near March 2013.

*** There are at least two purposes to shunning. One is to make the woman herself feel bad that she then feels the need to ask the church's fictional Jesus for forgiveness, which has to be done at that church. In other words, the shunning has the goal of keeping her in the church. The second purpose is to keep the other parishioners in church. The pregnant woman serves as an example of what will supposedly happen when one strays from the teachings of the church. Since being shunned is an undesirable outcome, people will keep coming to church to avoid such an outcome.

---

   I feel I must end by pointing out that in previous discussions with my mother, she claimed that more acceptance of single mothers is leading to more of such pregnancies. This, too, is bullshit. Pregnancy rates have been going down for quite some time. Why could that be? (Could it be the result of improved access to contraception and sex education?)

Why be Skeptical???

   Once upon a time, I wrote a post on methodological skepticism, gave some (OK, maybe only one) practical examples of where someone might use skepticism. I did not, however, really go into why someone would want to be skeptical. This post is being inspired, once again, by that lengthy Facebook tread in which a theist said something like, "Don't just be skeptical." This theist was talking about the colloquial term of the word (recall, meaning "an attitude of doubt") as they also said that we atheists need to investigate. As methodological skepticism contains an investigative element to it, the theist could not be talking about this form of skepticism. There was also the reoccurring theme on the tread discussing how theists get frustrated with atheists for asking for evidence and that atheists should essentially just trust the subjective feelings of the religious. In my last post, I discussed that we know such feelings are unreliable because of the inconsistent beliefs in gods that they create. In this post, my goal is to continue to demonstrate why following one's feelings are generally a bad idea as well as show how theists ask others for evidence.

   The easiest way, perhaps, to achieve my goals is to use the example of a used car salesman. I suspect most everyone knows when buying a used vehicle, you are not to simply trust the salesman if he tells you that the vehicle you are interested in is in fine working order. Instead, you have to at least take the vehicle on a test drive. It is also suggested that you kick the tires and check under the hood. These are even phrases that are often used to mean "to test something out" in regards to products other than cars. (In fact, I used "check under the hood" in regards to religions in my first response to that Facebook thread, which is what led me to consider this example.) I am not trying to advertise for their business—they just happen to have a useful, catchy slogan—but there is a company that suggests you have the dealer "show [you] the CARFAX!" The point of this is people are greatly encouraged to be skeptical (this is methodological skepticism, mind you) when it comes to purchasing used cars. Likely, there was a time when used car salesman gained a reputation of conning gullible customers into buying vehicles they didn't want (because the vehicle would turn out to have major defects) and likewise paying a lot more than the vehicle was worth. Sometime after that, skeptics must have come to the rescue, suggesting people look for evidence—inspect—that the vehicle is worth the asking price. And this is why being skeptical is important—it helps prevent a person from suckering for the tactics of con artists.

   So, I think people generally do understand why being skeptical is important and display skepticism in their lives. Part of the problem, as I have already discussed, is that they may not realize the terminology of what they are doing is "skepticism." Another problem, I suspect, comes into play when the shoe is on the other foot. When a person is a consumer, they understand the value of skepticism, but when they are the seller? Then skepticism becomes their enemy. Skepticism in their customer can never work in the seller's advantage, and can actually work against them. (Note that if the seller is being honest, then skepticism should have little to no net effect.) It is this problem for the seller that we see when it comes to theists discouraging atheists from being skeptical. The theists are the seller and the atheists are the consumer/customer. Yes, even though the theist may not have a financial gain in mind, they still have something to gain from converting people to Christianity. Remember that post on cognitive dissonance? I did not mention it there, but the first study done on cognitive dissonance was on a religious cult. To reduce dissonance, they proselytized! Go figure why theists don't want atheists to be skeptical!

   If I am wrong about this, theists, I present you a challenge: the next time you go buy a used car (or any product of significant cost), do not be skeptical! Do not take the vehicle on a test drive. Do not kick the tires, check under the hood, ask for the CARFAX, etc. If you get the feeling that the vehicle is a good vehicle and get the feeling that the salesman is an honest person, trust your feelings! If you can do this, then I am willing to believe that you actually find no virtue in skepticism and are not just discouraging me from using skepticism out of frustration that I am not buying your product.

Cases in Projection - Sometimes those ringing the alarm bells are the cause for alarm.

Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people.

   I have encountered people online as well as one coworker who call themselves "Constitutionalists." One of my major issues with them is that they often seem to cherry-pick through the Constitution and/or interpret it in whatever way they see fit. (I.e, "The First Amendment only applies to Christians, but not Muslims.") However, the thing that bothers me the most is that (and this one is inspired by my coworker) they will say things along the lines "You have to know your rights before they are taken away!" The other thing worth noting is that these people have a tendency to support conservative (Republican) policies. Therefore, they are probably worried about liberals coming for their guns!!!

   This story, however, shows who we should really be worried about. (Emphasis mine.)

The teacher who heads up New Smyrna Beach High School's student government association could face thousands of dollars in fines. Her transgression? Helping students register to vote.

Prepping 17-year-olds for the privileges and responsibilities of voting in a democracy is nothing new for civics teachers, but when Jill Cicciarelli organized a drive at the start of the school year to get students pre-registered, she ran afoul of Florida's new and controversial election law.

Among other things, the new rules require that third parties who sign up new voters register with the state and that they submit applications within 48 hours. The law also reduces the time for early voting from 14 days to eight and requires voters who want to give a new address at the polls to use a provisional ballot.

Republican lawmakers who backed the rules said they were necessary to reduce voter fraud. Critics -- including U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who testified before a congressional committee -- said the law would suppress voter participation.

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed suit to block implementation of the law. The most controversial elements are under review in federal court before they can be implemented in five counties.

Fear of violating the new rules prompted the League of Women Voters to suspend voter registration efforts in Florida. Local political activists in both parties have been similarly stymied, Volusia County Supervisor of Elections Ann McFall said.

"It's bizarre," McFall said of the law. "I haven't found one person who likes this law."

   It's not the liberals coming for your guns that you have to worry about; it's the people sounding the alarm bells that you have to worry about.

   This certainly isn't the first case of this in the history of the world. Take 1930's Germany. During that time, there was a group of people who called themselves Nazis that were sounding alarm bells, alerting people of the threat the Jews posed on the country. Who turned out to be the real threat to Germany? Yeah, it was the Nazis themselves.

   Within about the last decade, the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks were blamed on people who were trying to take away our freedoms (because they were jealous of them) by the Presidential administration. Later, this administration administered warentless wiretapping against the country's own citizens. Turns out it was really the administration that was after our freedoms.

   Likewise, the latest Presidential administration has now launced a predator drone strike against and killing a U.S. citizen living abroud who was allegedly guilty, but never tried in a court of law, of being connected to terrorist activities since 9/11. Think about that - if you are a U.S. citizen living abroud, and the U.S. government even suspects that you are a terrorist, they've granted themselves permission to kill you without a trial. And while this happened under a supposedly Democratic President, I have only heard liberals complain about this killing being unjust.

   It's almost like pickpocketers and their signs. I've heard that sometimes pickpocketers are the ones who put up these signs. Why? Because when someone sees the sign, often the first thing they do is check to see if they still have their wallet, revealing its location to the pickpocketer who is watching the area. Pickpocketers also like to use distraction techniques. They need their victim focused on something so that the victim doesn't notice the pickpocketer going for the wallet.

   Something similar seems to be in play with politics. The "the liberals are coming for your guns!" or "the terrorists want to take away your freedom!"or "voter fraud has run amuck!" warnings really just seems to be a distraction the politician uses to create fear and paranoia while he or she slowly takes away people's rights.

   Now, where it gets to be projection is that the rights of those helping to sound the alarms are not necessarilty impacted (or at least to a less obvious extent). In the case of more strict voter regisration, the people who are impacted most tend to be more liberal voters - minority groups, poor people, and college students - though the one exception to this is with the elderly. As to why such groups get harmed so much, I don't know the exact answer to that. I suspect poverty is a factor, as well as, in the case of college students, unfamiliarity with the process.

 &nsbsp; In short, the next time someone is sounding the alarm bells, don't investigate the people he/she tells you is the problem. Investigate him/her!

A skeptic, first and foremost.

    I have discussed atheism in my blog a few times, and even have the word "atheist" in the title. It needs to be addressed, though, that being an atheist is not that important. Atheist, in the broadest definition, means "not a theist." It is actually quite easy to be an atheist; using such a definition, everyone is born an atheist because they need to be taught about god concepts before they can be a theist. Consequently, a person who is by definition an atheist can fall for stupid ideas just as easily as a theist. This ends up getting used against atheists in demonization tactics, the most common examples of atheists doing bad deeds being Stalin and Mao. Sometimes, even Kim Jong-il is brought up.

    These people have fair points. These points, though, do nothing to prove their god claims, and are only intended to distract from that main argument, but they still should be addressed to clarify the use of the atheist label. When I use the "atheist" label to talk about myself or other atheists, I'm typically talking about skeptical atheists ONLY and I'll do my best to point out when I'm talking about non-skeptical atheists. (Skeptical atheists will even include atheists who have primarily Libertarian political view points as they have likely been skeptical about god claims, though not necessarily on said political views.)

    Before continuing, we'll need to define what a skeptic is. First, there are essentially three types of skepticism: one for colloquial use, one for methodological skepticism, and one for a philosophical approach. The philosophical definition is, essentially, that certainty in knowledge is not possible. I have no major objections to that, other than it doesn't really have a practical application. Therefore, I will be focusing on methodological skepticism. According to Wikipedia, "methodological skepticism is an approach that subjects all knowledge claims to scrutiny with the goal of sorting out true from false claims."

    I also said there is a colloquial type (or term) of skepticism. This type of skepticism seems to often get confused with methodological skepticism. The colloquial term, in it's simplest use, means "an attitude of doubt." The word "skeptical," (obviously) another derivative of "skeptic" like "skepticism," can be used as a synonym for "doubtful." I have seen this in political news as of late. In regards to the topic of this post, there is not necessarily an approach to sorting out true from false claims under this definition, which is why I discourage using the word in such a manner. For example, Obama birthers may call themselves "skeptical" because they "doubt" that President Obama was born in Hawaii. 9/11 truthers may call themselves "skeptical" because they "doubt" that burning jet fuel can cause steel to warp and result in the collapse of a building (among other "doubts"). Anti-vaxxers may call themselves "skeptical" because they "doubt" that vaccines are generally safe. Many people in these groups seem to have little interest in determining truth from fiction and would rather believe what they want to believe. Therefore, these people are not skeptics when it comes to methodological skepticism.

    The part above about being interested in determining the truth is key here. It is OK, for example, to be skeptical about Obama, 9/11, etc., as long as you have a desire to examine the evidence. Therefore, it is important not to immediately ridicule people for seemingly being a conspiracy theorist just because they have the same doubts as a conspiracy theorist. It may be the case that they want to see if there is any legitimacy to the theorists' claims. It may be they are examining the evidence for the first time and have not had the time to reach a conclusion. This is perfectly acceptable and should, in fact, be encouraged. It is only those that ignore evidence that would set aside their doubts that deserve any ridicule. Long story short, there is a thin line between being a good skeptic and being a conspiracy theorist, and it is important to be able to recognize that line...which is part of the point of this post.

    To summarize the point above, skeptics (remember, we're talking about methodological skepticism now) have doubts about lots of things, and should have doubts about everything, but they examine the evidence!!! Having said that, it is important to note that different claims require different standards of evidence. Take this example: I tell you that I had lunch with Chris and Ryan. If you know me, you realize that I have friends named Chris and Ryan that live nearby and were also in my wedding. It is understandable that I might go out and have lunch with them. But what if I told you that I had lunch with President Barack Obama? Would that sound reasonable? No. (Perhaps if I lived in Washington D.C. and worked in politics, it would. But I don't.) You would certainly want pictures; and I don't mean just seeing the pictures, you would want copies so that you could look for signs of Photoshopping. This is fair. The more extraordinary (or unlikely) the claim, the more evidence you need to believe it.

    Getting back to atheism, most many atheists in this country are atheists (not me, though) because they became skeptical of their religious upbringing. They doubted what they were told to be true, examined the evidence, and found it to be lacking. (As for me, I have been a religious skeptic in addition to being an atheist for the last three years now.) However, there are bound to be atheists who are not atheists through skepticism. I have heard stories from a few atheists who said they grew up in non-religious households, which would be like mine in some ways, so they were essentially atheists, yet had given religion very little though. But then, when they were young adults living away from their parents, they decided to get involved with church, often in a church of which a close friend was a member. (Sometimes the close friend in these stories would be a girl- or boyfriend.) They would then get sucked into religion for a while (sometimes many years) before applying skeptical thought to the religion. But what if they never applied skeptical thinking?

    This brings me to another motivation behind writing this post: atheists who convert. Christians will sometimes use these conversion stories to bolster their religion. The goal of this seems to be twofold:

1.    The first is likely an attempt to encourage the bandwagon effect with atheists as the audience. The idea seems to be, "Look at this atheist who converted," followed by, "Maybe you should learn about Jesus like he/she did!" or "You need to unharden your heart like they did!" or something to that effect.
2.    The second area this comes up is with Christian apologists. The idea seems to be very similar to the first: this atheist with a hardened heart found Jesus! Except in this case, the target audience tends to be Christians. The idea then seems to be a reassurance to those Christians that their religion is correct. (If a stubborn atheist converted, that must mean something!)
      Just for reference, some Christian apologists who claim to have been atheists include Kirk Cameron (who descibes his past self as being a "devout atheist"), Lee Strobel, and C. S. Lewis (though he said he was "very angry with God for not existing"). I have also heard Josh McDowell and William Lane Craig³ described as not having been devoted Christians early in their life, but not necessarily atheists. Another way to describe them at that time might be to call them "cultural" Christians.

To the point of this post, this does not impress me. At least not the fact that they converted¹. I am much more interested in knowing why they converted, specifically what convinced them to convert. Was it a critical evaluation of the evidence and, if so, did they commit any logical fallacies, especially the argument from ignorance, in that evaluation, or did they convert purely for emotional reasons, which do not at all impress me? Or, in reference to atheist stories from a couple paragraphs ago, did they convert for the sake of a girl- or boyfriend and then rationalize their new belief after the fact²?

¹ Additionally, I'm not even impressed or convinced by some of the stories. For Cameron, there is no such thing as a "devout" atheist, though I think I understand what his intentions are in this statement. He has talked about believing in evolution without questioning it, so he's confusing scientific theories that most, but not all, atheists accept with atheism itself. For Lewis, how can one be mad at something that they think doesn't exist? He sounds like someone who is confused more than actually being an atheist.

² Rationalizing a belief after forming the belief leaves one susceptible to cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias. Essentially, the person will generally find facts that seem to support or "confirm" their position while ignoring those that don't and also committing logical fallacies to connect those facts; this is all done to avoid conflict in the mind. While I am always looking for such things in arguments for the existence of a god or gods, even when someone came to their belief through arguments, red flags are raised in my mind for such scenarios. Additionally, in the case of coming to belief after becoming involved in a relationship with a believer, I often suspect that it is through cognitive dissonance, which, again, is the minds way of reducing conflict, that they converted. Let me make it clear that my suspicions could certainly be wrong, so, like a good skeptic, I reserve final judgement until I have the evidence.

³ UPDATE: I found the link on Willaim Lane Craig that I was thinking about when I wrote that point. It can be found here. Apparently the original source is Craig's own book, "On Guard," which Amy owns, but I have not yet read.

    Before finishing, let me quickly go back to Stalin, Mao, etc. I don't care if they were atheists. Were they or the people who followed their leadership skeptical thinkers? The answer seems to be that they are not. (This is more obvious for Kim Jong Il, based on the stories that come from North Korea, which is why I think he is typically not brought up.) The communist idea, from my understanding, is that religion is bad for politics. This is understandable considering that the Catholic church had much political power in the past, and still has some yet today. However, it has nothing to do with the claims of the religion. It would be much like what we see today with people pressing for bans against Islamic law (known as "Sharia"), except in Russia it was a ban on all religion, including Christianity. This was forced atheism; it was not the result of skeptical thought. EDIT: Additionally, the actions of Stalin, Mao, etc. could not/cannot be driven by atheism. Atheism neither makes any claims nor tells one how to live. Such actions are most likely to be driven by obsession with control/power and political ideologies.

    Now for the most important part: If being skeptical is much more important than being an atheist, why then call the blog "The Midwest Atheist" instead of "The Midwest Skeptic"? Well, the answer is fairly simple, and that is because the topic of religion seems to be an important topic in this country, as well as in many parts of the world. Take, for example, those individuals who are running for President from the Republican party. Many of them promote their religious beliefs (it's the Mormons in the race who seem to be most hesitant to do so). They're not out confessing their beliefs, if they hold such beliefs, in psychic powers, astrology, UFO's/alien abductions, homeopathy, Big Foot, etc, etc, etc. Outside of the Presidency, those topics aren't important in politics. But religion is. Whether it's gay marriage or combating carbon dioxide emissions because "God has a plan" or "God is in control," or abortion, etc, religion plays a much larger role in decision making. While it may be that some politicians consult their horoscope before making a decision on a bill, they certainly don't admit to it in public! But many are fine with admitting they consult with their god! And it is this importance of religious beliefs that I use the atheist label as opposed to the skeptic label, though I am both.


    As a supplement to this post, I have embedded the following video from The Atheist Experience in which Matt Dillahunty likewise talks about how it is important to be a skeptic first and foremost.