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Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
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| Address URL | http://scienceblogs.com/tfk/ Registered: 31-Mar-2008 |
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 Send to email | Too few people know that they know an atheist, redux in Policy and Politics |  By Thoughts
el 30-Nov-2011 | Last April, I blogged a paper by Will Gervais, that showed you could increase people's trust of atheists by simply telling them about how prevalent atheists are in their community. As I said at the time, the result isn't surprising and I didn't think it had any bearing on the debates over New Atheism per se. There were those who disagreed, and insisted that the study validated New Atheist-style "out" campaigns.
In a commentary on his research, Mr. Gervais weighs in on those implications of his work:
I think the simplest way for atheists to be perceived as more trustworthy is to be open about their lack of belief in God. There?s a wealth of social psychological evidence that shows contact with members of disliked groups can reduce prejudice. ? simply knowing that there are lots of atheists in the world makes atheists seem more trustworthy. ? Ara Norenzayan and I have some research (forthcoming in the journal Psychological Science) demonstrating that reminding people of other institutions that help keep people cooperative?secular institutions like police, contracts, and courts?also reduces distrust of atheists. And open atheists might be able to help remind people that there are lots of solid, nonreligious motivations for moral behavior.
That said, being an open atheist isn?t necessarily the same thing as being a strident, ?in your face? atheist. Nobody really likes having their core beliefs attacked. My hunch is that ?I?m here, I?m an atheist, and it?s really not that big of a deal? would be a more effective approach than a Dawkinsian ?I?m here, I?m an atheist, and religions are mass delusions? approach, in terms of increasing acceptance and trust of people who don?t believe in God. Skepticism means caring about evidence, and that last paragraph by Gervais is what the evidence consistently tells us. What does one call empiricists who ignore the evidence before them? Read the comments on this post...
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 | Thoughts From Kansas |  Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| Too few people know that they know an atheist, redux | | Last April, I blogged a paper by Will Gervais, that showed you could increase people's trust of atheists by simply telling them about how prevalent atheists are in their community. As I said at the time, the result isn't surprising and I didn't think it had any bearing on the debates over New Atheism per se. There were those who disagreed, and insisted that the study validated New At [..] Read complete article | | Published 30-Nov-2011 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics
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| Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| Too few people know that they know an atheist | | Chris Mooney reports on Psych Evidence that Supports New Atheism, writing:
In general, I believe what we know about human psychology runs contrary to the New Atheist approach and strategy. However, I do my best to follow the data, and here's a study that suggest at least one aspect of their approach may work. The tactic finding support here is not necessarily being confrontati [..] Read complete article | | Published 22-Apr-2011 by Thoughts in Creationism
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| Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| Six in 10 Americans wouldn't vote for an atheist: Good news for New Atheists? | | Jerry Coyne is trying to do math. A new survey out from Pew finds that, as in 2007, 61% of Americans say they'd be less likely to vote for someone who did not believe in God. Coyne thinks:
The unchanged level of disapprobation is a bit disconcerting, but at least gives the lie to accommodationist claims that vociferous atheism is turning people off. And we know that lack of [..] Read complete article | | Published 07-Jun-2011 by Thoughts in Creationism
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| Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| The stupids, redux | | Having blown an easy win in the Massachusetts Senate race, DC Democrats seem intent on blowing the dreams of millions of Americans, and the best chance of reforming the health insurance industry to make it more equitable ? a policy long held up as a major reason to vote Democratic. The Times reports on the search for consensus on how to move forward:
Even as Speaker [..] Read complete article | | Published 22-Jan-2010 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics
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| The Learned Man | Blogger | Covering research, news, and trends in instructional technology and e-Learning. Connecting the Indian e-Learning industry to the rest of the training and development world.
The Learned Man! |
| Careless Whispers Redux |  Before you continue reading you might want to check out the wikipedia entry on Gossip! We have been hearing persistent rumours of a Pune based eLearning vendor (who has been burning up the PR lines with spiel on their authoring... [..] Read complete article | | Published 14-Mar-2008 by The Lear in General
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| Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| The deal on taxes, redux | | Steve Benen wraps up the late-breaking reactions to the tax deal, most surprisingly Sen. Mary Landrieu's vigorous opposition:
It seemed at least plausible to me that we'd see some Kabuki theater when it came to congressional Democrats' reaction to the tax plan agreement. Perhaps they'd feign outrage, knowing that if Dems publicly expressed strong support, Republicans would aut [..] Read complete article | | Published 08-Dec-2010 by Thoughts in Policy and Politics
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| The Learned Man | Blogger | Covering research, news, and trends in instructional technology and e-Learning. Connecting the Indian e-Learning industry to the rest of the training and development world.
The Learned Man! - Indian e-Learning Blog, Research, Industry News, Trends, Instructional Design & Technology |
| Careless Whispers Redux |  Before you continue reading you might want to check out the wikipedia entry on Gossip! We have been hearing persistent rumours of a Pune based eLearning vendor (who has been burning up the PR lines with spiel on their authoring... [..] Read complete article | | Published 25-Mar-2009 by The Lear in General
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| Colbert Report redux | | I am scheduled to be on the Colbert Report this Wednesday, chatting with Stephen Colbert about The Shallows. Tune in, or program your Tivo appropriately. (I was on the show once before, about two years ago, and you can watch that interview, during which Stephen multitasked with his iPhone, here.) In the meantime, I will be talking about the book at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass., this [..] Read complete article | | Published 28-Jun-2010 by Rough Ty in General
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| The Learned Man | Blogger | Covering research, news, and trends in instructional technology and e-Learning. Connecting the Indian e-Learning industry to the rest of the training and development world.
The Learned Man! | eLearning Blog |
| Careless Whispers Redux |  Before you continue reading you might want to check out the wikipedia entry on Gossip! We have been hearing persistent rumours of a Pune based eLearning vendor (who has been burning up the PR lines with spiel on their authoring... [..] Read complete article | | Published 01-Apr-2009 by The Lear in General
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| Thoughts From Kansas | Blogger | Weblog of a University of Kansas ecology and evolutionary biology student, fighting for progressive politics, evolution, and endangered species.
Thoughts from Kansas You will notice that it lacks definiteness; that it lacks purpose; that it lacks coherence; that it lacks a subject to talk about; that it is loose and wabbly; that it wanders around; that |
| The Learned Man | Blogger | Covering research, news, and trends in instructional technology and e-Learning. Connecting the Indian e-Learning industry to the rest of the training and development world.
The Learned Man | eLearning Blog |
| Careless Whispers Redux | | Before you continue reading you might want to check out the wikipedia entry on Gossip! We have been hearing persistent rumours of a Pune based eLearning vendor (who has been burning up the PR lines with spiel on their authoring... [..] Read complete article | | Published 31-Dec-1969 by The Lear in General
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| The Learned Man | Blogger | Covering research, news, and trends in instructional technology and e-Learning. Connecting the Indian e-Learning industry to the rest of the training and development world.
eLearning News & Instructional Design by The Learned Man! |
| Careless Whispers Redux | | Before you continue reading you might want to check out the wikipedia entry on Gossip! We have been hearing persistent rumours of a Pune based eLearning vendor (who has been burning up the PR lines with spiel on their authoring... [..] Read complete article | | Published 08-Sep-2008 by eLearnin in General
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