SilverJacket

Indistinguishable from Magic

Magical thinking--typically considered an archaic mode of cognition that populates the world with animistic forces, hidden dimensions, and evocative incantations--may actually serve us well in the future as we navigate an existence increasingly mediated by digital information.

Read the full post at Brainstorm.

But there are several cases where we've already jumped the gun in attributing powers to our tech toys.

Read about this, too, at Brainstorm.

Magical Thinking

My latest feature article has just been published in Psychology Today. It's about everyday magical thinking and how even the most hard-core skeptic thinks magically--believing in karma, luck, curses, tempting fate, etc. And it's loaded with coverage of studies that involved voodoo dolls, royal spoons, dart boards, and Mr. Rogers's sweaters. Check it out.

Godhead

Today, March 14, is Pi Day. (Get it? 3.14?)

Almost as exciting, today is also Steak and Blowjob Day. This year, I thought I might take the time to reflect on a Momus song titled "Coming In A Girl's Mouth." In the first line he asks, "What is the cultural meaning of coming in a girl's mouth?", and he spends the rest of the song trying to answer that question. A noble cause.

You must read the lyrics, but they alone do not convey the full brunt of the song's humor. The voice is soothing. The tone alternates between playful and heartfelt. I believe the main accompaniment is a toy harpsichord. Superficially, it could be a children's song. (It's even funnier when you know what the guy looks like. Here's a photo of Momus with my friend Ken.)

In any case, in light of the theological issues Momus raises, I asked a member of the clergy for comment on the lyrics. During our discussion, he noted that, in terms of filth, it is the one who ejaculates who would be considered dirty (temporarily), rather than the recipient. So the sperm consumer is "off the hook."

I concur.

Now, in light of the theological issues raised by 3.14159..., maybe I'll sit down and rewatch my DVD of Pi.

Questionable Ad Placement

Left:       The Atlantic, January/February 2006, page 137.
Right:     The Atlantic, January/February 2006, page 147.

Synergy or Serendipity? Associative minds want to know.

(Illustration by Jason Schneider. Advertisement by Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC.)

Craptacular Design

Intelligent Design is great fodder for satire among the science set. In the new March issue of the The Atlantic Monthly, Bruce McCall riffs on the ID worldview with a short piece called "Not Conspicuously Intelligent Design." The designs that are not conspicuously intelligent include Minneapolis-St.Paul ("Only two big cities in a state of 80,009 square miles, yet less than half a mile apart") and sock static ("Wastes electricity"). I would have added Grape Nuts. No grapes... no nuts... What's the deal?  McCall's gags hit closer to home with these biological examples:

THE NOSE
• Placement in exact center of face compels unsightly public discharge of liquid waste from head

DEATH
• Crimps planning
• Totally one-sided decision leaves a bad taste
• After x-million years, exact function still debated

My favorite attacks on ID are of the "Why do men have nipples?" type. If there's an omnipotent designer, what's with all the useless doodads and embarrassing/deadly oddities we find in the biological world? The geologist Don Wise pushes the idea of incompetent design ("the other ID") in an interview for Seed. He says, "No self-respecting engineering student would make the kinds of dumb mistakes that are built into us," and goes on to list several of the examples: We have too many teeth, our pelvises aren't straight, we have appendices and tonsils, our retinal receptors are facing the wrong way... And he quotes a man who wrote to him, "I would write more, but I have to go pee in Morse code, because some idiot designed my aging prostate."

The science writer Jim Holt took a more somber tone last year in an essay for the NYT Magazine titled "Unintelligent Design." He reminds us that nearly every species ever "designed" is now extinct. He mentions dying cancer patients who must suffer although the corporal status updates that physical pain provides are no longer required. And he notes that most pregnancies end prematurely. That last fact, combined with two common beliefs--that the soul originates at conception, and that one is a sinner unworthy of salvation until baptism--should lead to quite the quandary for many Christians. "Owing to faulty reproductive design," he writes, "it would seem that the population of limbo must be at least twice that of heaven and hell combined." Awwwwwk-ward...

Call it what you want: "Incompetent Design," "Unintelligent Design," "Design By Numbers--The Dyscalculic Deity Edition"... It reminds me of an engineering joke. Three engineers were arguing over what type of engineer God would be. The mechanical engineer said God had to be an ME because of our sophisticated skeletons. The electrical engineer claimed God as an EE because the human brain is the best damn computer around. But the civil engineer had the last word. "God would have to be a civil engineer. I mean, who else would run a sewage system through a major recreational area?"

Sorry ladies, only room for one Jesus in this manger.

Ah yes, my favorite Christmas tale. I turned atheist around the age of 10, but before that I went to church on the regular. My church (First Presbyterian, in Columbus, Indiana) had a special Christmas Eve tradition in which the pastor would read the story of the birth of Christ, and all the kids in attendance would dress as a character in the story. When their characters were first mentioned, they would rise from the pews and join the nativity scene on the stage. I had a friend named Brock Jolly who liked to pick farm animals and would show up in elaborate costumes constructed of cardboard and papier mache. My sister and I would just grab hockey sticks and bathrobes at the last minute and go as shepherds.

Typically if you were dressed as Mary you were responsible for bringing a baby Jesus. So all Marys would carry dolls and place them in the manger. One year I decided to be Joseph, and I also decided that I had just as much a stake in our son (no pun intended) as Mary did, so I brought a baby Jesus. Now this wasn't just any doll. This was one my mom had as a girl. It was large and heavy and realistic. When you tilted its head back, the eyelids would close over its stunning glass eyes. I had the best baby Jesus in the room, hands down.

The way the story was told, the pastor mentioned Joseph before Mary, so I had a leg up on the competition. I went up there with my son and nestled him snug in the manger. By the time the cavalcade of Marys approached, I'd decided the crib was mine--after all, my Jesus objectively kicked their Jesus' asses--and I stood my ground. Rabidly. Blood may have been shed. Look, bitches, this inn is full.

I don't remember how they eventually got me to relent. I think adult intervention was involved. But for a moment I had truly created a Jerry Springer Christmas on that stage. And for any baby Jesuses I may have tossed out of that manger in a fit of parental pride, I truly apologize.

Nun Fun

Halloween is over, but I thought I'd share my favorite Halloween story. It involves my parents, before I was born.

One year for Halloween, when my dad was in divinity school, he dressed as a priest and my mom dressed as a nun. My mom's older brother then took them to a Princeton alumni party in Cambridge, but my parents were the only ones in costume. So there were a bunch of guys, standing around in ties and blue blazers, who assumed my parents to be the real thing. My parents proceeded to spend the entire evening in the corner, making out. The young men were scandalized. My uncle was in stitches.

The Man Who Takes the Science out of Scientology

For years I've had a recurring dream in which, outlandish as it sounds, Matt Lauer and Tom Cruise debate the finer points of neuropharmacology on national television. Crazy stuff, fodder for a Spielberg movie, I know. But today my odd dreams retroactively became premonitions.

Okay, there are a few differences. Replace "finer points" with "coarser points." Replace Cruise in a flight suit with Cruise in a creepy stupor, sporting bags under his eyes and a cult-addled stare. And replace Lauer dressed as a court jester with Lauer as my new Hero. [Also, remove the weird sex stuff.] There you have what transpired this morning on "Today."

Scientologists notoriously hate psychiatry. Lauer breaches the topic and eggs Cruise on, revealing Cruise to be pedantic, myopic, and apparently illiterate. I'm still not sure how a man who says "you have to evaluate and read the research papers on how they came up with these theories, Matt, okay?  That's what I've done" in the same conversation as "there is no such thing as a chemical imbalance" can figure out which tube is for food and which tube is for air.