Brian Hooker's Hooked Hoax: Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) Vaccination and Autism Spectrum Disorder

I always get the best stuff from Google+ to look at, don't I? This post is stemming from my last post on autism spectrum disorder (ASD), which was a response to a prompt by C0nc0rdance on YouTube. If you're interested in this topic, I would recommend reading it just to be familiarized with some of the literature, and then read the post-publish discussion in the comments section and on Google+. It's not necessary for this post, however.

Uh-oh.

In February of 2004, DeStefano et al. published a study entitled Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: a population-based study in metropolitan atlanta. This was a case-control study collected in Atlanta, comparing age of first MMR vaccination between children with autism (N=624) and the control children (N=1824), collecting data on maternal and birth factors from immunization forms and birth certificates, in order to determine risk of ASD at different age cutoffs of MMR immunization. The findings were that with the exception of vaccination before 36 months being more common in case children than control children (which was attributed to immunization requirements in early intervention programs, and was a modest 2.8% difference), there was no significant association between the age cutoffs and the risk of autism. This is one of many pieces of evidence which show that the MMR vaccine does not confer an increased risk in ASD.

However, 10 years after the initial study was conducted, famous anti-vaccine alarmist Brian Hooker, along with Andrew Wakefield, are talking about a "whistleblower" in the CDC claiming that the original data was fraudulent, and was masking a 336% increased risk in ASD in African American boys receiving the MMR vaccine "on time." Hooker published his own findings in the Journal of Translational Neurodegeneration, titling it Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data. He claims that according to the "whistleblower," Dr. William Thompson, the CDC intentionally manipulated the data to bury this increased risk.

Here we go again.

To people who are familiar with the anti-vaccine movement, Hooker and Wakefield are household names. Wakefield has become famous for his scientific fraudulence, and Hooker has recently become the new big name, most likely taking pointers from Wakefield himself; thus making Dr. Hooker's name very apt.

But what exactly is going on here? Was the CDC fraudulent? Did they intentionally manipulate the data to hide this increased risk? Before we get to that, there are a few things we need to make note of.

It's always good to remain skeptical when someone proposes that they have reanalyzed already published data. In my experiences, although limited, this never amounts to anything good, and the arguments are usually pretty weak. On that same note, when someone reanalyzes data, they most likely have a chip on their shoulder. Keep in mind this isn't true for all reanalyses -- in fact, such reanalysis is what called Wakefield out for his fraudulence in the first place -- but I'm speaking from personal experience.

These a priori contentions not withstanding, Hooker's reanalysis just didn't seem right at all when I first looked at it. Let's just quote the conclusions from the abstract for a moment:

"The present study provides new epidemiologic evidence showing that African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 24 months of age or 36 months of age are more likely to receive an autism diagnosis."

And from the results:

"Relative risks for males in general and African American males were 1.69 (p=0.0138) and 3.36 (p=0.0019), respectively."

Hooker went through all this trouble just to show that only African American males are at a higher risk for ASD from the MMR jab? That's certainly not going to do anything for Jenny McCarthy. Color me unimpressed by the so called coverup by the CDC, because it leaves the overwhelming majority of evidence that shows there is no link between the MMR vaccine and ASD untouched. In fact, even if he'd shown the whole study was fraudulent from its conception, he still would've left the overwhelming majority of research to the contrary untouched. Even better, a 3.36 increase in ASD isn't 336%. It's 236%.

Booker accuses DeStefano et al. (2004) of intentionally leaving out African American males in their sample in order to manipulate the results, but that's just not what happened. Subjects that were inappropriate, given age requirements and necessity of medical information, were excluded from the study because they wouldn't be able to control for the important things mentioned earlier: maternal and birth factors, as well as actually comparing something useful in this particular study. DeStefano et al. weren't manipulating the data, they were legitimizing it.

But the burning question here is: did Hooker even manage to show what he claimed he did? Are African American males at a higher risk for ASD from the MMR jab at ages younger than 24 or 36 months? Let's take a look inside the paper to find out.

"The relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism was first hypothesized by Wakefield et al. [7] in 1999 after the observation of a regressive phenotype of autism that appeared in general after the administration of the first MMR vaccine. Although several studies have affirmed such a relationship between the MMR vaccine and neurodevelopmental disorders including autism [8,9], many other studies purport no statistical relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism incidence."

This is only the third paragraph in, mind you, and Hooker cites Wakefield, and then two studies by the Geier duo. Don't make me laugh. Hooker is partaking in a classic "teach the controversy" grasp at straws to make it seem like there's even some doubt that the MMR vaccine isn't linked to ASD. No matter. Let's just skip to the methodology:

"Cohort data were obtained directly as a “restricted access data set” from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) via a Data Use Agreement. Data were deidentified by the CDC in accordance with Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) prior to receipt by the study authors."

Wait what? Cohort data? But the original study by DeStefano et al. was case-control. Oh, there we see it.

I know I have some readers who aren't too fond of statistical babble, so I'll sum up what the issue is here. The original study by DeStefano et al. used something called a case-control model. In a case-control model, you compare a group of case subjects (subjects with the disease) and control subjects (without the disease) and determine how frequently another variable occurs for either group of subjects while controlling for confounders and effect modifiers. Hooker, on the other hand, used a cohort model, which doesn't quite do the same thing. Regardless, using data that was arranged to be analyzed in a case-control model and then analyzing it in a cohort model is just screaming problems; especially when you chop up the data into multiple subcohorts so that any small effect will be magnified.

The funny thing is, even with the skewed methodology, the results aren't even impressive. Table 2 below from Hooker's paper shows the age group cutoffs and their risk for ASD:

So what's wrong here? Not much, except for the fact that the relative risk only sees a modest increase at the 24 month cutoff. The true increase is seen at 36 months. So why is this important? Because symptoms of autism are most noticeable starting at age 3. This isn't anything new Hooker. That's why DeStefano et al. controlled for age in their original study. Because they're not stupid.

But why was there an increase in exclusively African American male children? The answer is simple again. Table 4 from the study shows us this:

Hooker reveals that he had to use a 31 month cutoff because he was limited in terms of sample size. This, also, isn't anything new in the realm of statistics, Hooker. Smaller sample sizes are going to potentially yield misleading results because the smaller the sample, the greater its susceptibility to statistical noise. Funny enough, Hooker didn't even provide his sample size. The very lack of transparency in Hooker's paper, after being prompted by accusations of a lack of transparency in the CDC, is absolutely egregious.

This didn't take very long to research and debunk; in fact, I was surprised at how little exposure this study got. Perhaps we're all learning something from these types of studies: they provide nothing informative, and are only reflections of someone's ideologically grinding teeth and hand waving. In doing so, Hooker hooked a hoax: his own.

Thank you all very much for reading.

UPDATE: Translational Neurodegeneration has taken Hooker's article off public domain for concerns about the validity of its findings. You can find it in full here.

(8/28/2014) Yesterday, Dr. Thompson released a statement via his lawyers clearing the air of any doubts: Wakefield is just as disingenuous and manipulative as he's always been.

(10/3/2014) Brian Hooker's paper was retracted from the journal of Translational Neurodegeneration after concerns were expressed of its validity. The PubMed link still works.

*I would also highly recommend looking at this infographic from Healthcare Management Degree.
Sources are at the bottom of the page.*



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References:

DeStefano, F., Bhasin, T., Thompson, W., Yeargin-Allsopp, M., & Boyle, C. (2004). Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children With Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta. PEDIATRICS, 113 (2), 259-266 DOI: 10.1542/peds.113.2.259

Hooker, B. (2014). Measles-mumps-rubella vaccination timing and autism among young african american boys: a reanalysis of CDC data. Translational Neurodegeneration, 3 (1) DOI: 10.1186/2047-9158-3-16

Pseudoscience And Ad Hominems: Is Religion a Mental Illness?

Could something so normative be a mental disorder?

I had a polite exchange on Google+ for once, but it quickly turned into something appalling for me, personally. The person who made the comment I was disgusted by has not replied to my rebuttal yet, thus I won't directly link to the thread; however, I can copy/paste their comment here for context:

"Religion is a mental illness (only differences between believers, are the stage on which this mental illness manifests).+(Anon) you should seek professional help, for believing in a non-existent zombie that there is absolutely no proof of it's existence, ever."

I've heard people claim that religion is a mental illness before. I still hate hearing it each time, because it's just ridiculous and unproductive. At the same time, I've never heard any rationale for this belief either, and thus I was just led to believe that it's nothing more than an insult. Apparently though, there are some people who truly believe they have evidence for religion being a mental disorder. Specifically, it seems that the link is between religion and schizophrenia, or is simply consisting of attributing several different symptoms to religious belief and claiming that that qualifies it as a mental disorder. The latter is a grotesque simplification of what diagnosing a mental disorder actually involves, but we'll get to that later. For now, let's address the link between religion and schizophrenia. Just to quantify some claims, let's refer to the Wikipedia page on religion and schizophrenia:

"The relationship between religion and schizophrenia is of particular interest to psychologists because of the similarities between religious experiences and psychotic episodes; religious experiences often involve auditory and/or visual hallucinations, and those with schizophrenia commonly report similar hallucinations, along with a variety of delusions and faulty beliefs. A common report from those with schizophrenia is some type of a religious delusion - that is, they believe they are divine beings, God is talking to them, they are possessed by demons, etc. In a study of patients with schizophrenia that had been previously admitted to a hospital, 24% had religious delusions. This has led some researchers to question whether schizophrenia leads an individual to become more religious, or if intense religiosity leads to schizophrenia."

The prevalence of religious delusions and hallucinations among patients diagnosed with schizophrenia is unequivocal, clearly, but why does this necessitate that religion may be linked causally to schizophrenia, or vice versa? One should expect that in a society where religion has a heavy influence, that hallucinations should involve religion at least some of the time. This doesn't mean that religion is a mental illness; instead, it just means that religion is a common outlet for delusional thoughts and behaviours. The source cited for the 24% figure, Religious delusions in patients admitted to hospital with schizophrenia by Siddle et al. (2002) also states this to be the case, emphasis my own:

"Having a religious belief or having religious delusional belief provides a framework by which people can make sense of negative life experiences. This is said to be helpful to people as it allows them something of a buffer against the depressing effects of uncontrollable life stresses (Park et al. 1990). To summarise, religious beliefs are fairly common and are not pathological. Religious people demonstrate an external attributional bias. A proportion of people will experience psychotic experiences, some of which will involve auditory hallucinations. [...] These religious experiences and delusions may help the person to deal with the negative life events they are faced with."

While Siddle et al. maintains that religious beliefs are not pathological (i.e. not being a result of mental illness or disorder), it's hard to interpret the results of studies suggesting the link between schizophrenia and religious belief because it begs the question: what exactly is a religious delusion? This is a problem because, even as the authors point out, in most studies, the definition of a "religious delusion" is not actually outlined or defined. They do offer an outline of their own, as produced by Sims (1995), which identifies a religious delusion as meeting the following characteristics:

1: Both the observed behaviour and the subjective experience conformed with psychiatric symptoms in that the patient's self-description of the experience was recognisable as having the form of a delusion;

2: There were other recognisable symptoms of mental illness in other areas of the individual's life; other delusions, hallucinations, mood or thought disorder and so on;

3: The lifestyle, behaviour and direction of the personal goals of the individual after the event or after the religious experience were consistent with the natural history of mental disorder rather than with a personally enriching life experience.

Charitably, a religious experience, don't you agree?

This seems to make sense, and I'll refer to it later, but again it begs the question: what is a religious
experience? We could charitably assume that a religious experience is defined as having any reference to God or religious symbolism, but it would only help to suppose what was suggested earlier -- that religious experiences can be said to be a product of one's culture or society, where religion is prevalent. To avoid such a dead end and unconvincing argument, we'll approach the arguments made by the third link I provided at the beginning of this post.

Before we even examine such claims, we have to ask ourselves "what is a mental illness?" Generally, the clinically appropriate term is a "disorder," but illness is still sometimes used. In a broad sense, a mental disorder can be defined as "a mental or behavioral pattern or anomaly that causes either suffering or an impaired ability to function in ordinary life (disability), and which is not developmentally or socially normative." This is according to Wikipedia; however, the DSM-V gives us a different definition of a mental disorder:

"A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above."

It's very clear that by the first definition, religion does not qualify as a mental disorder, as it is a subscription of social norms; however, does religion fit under the DSM-V definition? Let's examine the seven reasons given for why religion is a mental disorder by that group linked to earlier:

1: Hallucinations - the person has invisible friends who (s)he insists are real, and to whom (s)he speaks daily, even though nobody can actually see or hear these friends.

2: Delusions - the patient believes that the invisible friends have magical powers to make them rich, cure cancer, bring about world peace, and will do so eventually if asked.

3: Denial/Inability to learn - though the requests for world peace remain unanswered, even after hundreds of years, the patients persist with the praying behaviour, each time expecting different results.

4: Inability to distinguish fantasy from reality - the beliefs are contingent upon ancient mythology being accepted as historical fact.

5: Paranoia - the belief that anyone who does not share their supernatural concept of reality is "evil," "the devil," "an agent of Satan".

6: Emotional abuse - ­ religious concepts such as sin, hell, cause feelings of guilt, shame, fear, and other types of emotional "baggage" which can scar the psyche for life.

7: Violence - many patients insist that others should share in their delusions, even to the extent of using violence.

As much as I hate him, he's not (very) dysfunctional

It cannot be argued that some, if not all of these symptoms (although crudely characterized) cannot be applied to certain people, both religious and nonreligious; however, the diagnosis of a mental disorder is often reliant on symptomatic clusters. That is, symptoms are grouped together, and the mental disorder is diagnosed if the patient exhibits several or all of the symptoms in the cluster. That being said, it can hardly be suggested that all, or even most religious people experience all or most of the above symptoms. What of the ones that do, however? If someone were just devoutly religious and experienced all or most of the above symptoms, could we classify them as having a mental disorder? Well, it depends on what we're looking at. Let's take the example of "delusions" -- could we take a person's religious delusions and use them as evidence that they show symptoms of a mental disorder? It's informative, now, to look at the previous characteristics of a religious delusion, specifically the last one:

3: The lifestyle, behaviour and direction of the personal goals of the individual after the event or after the religious experience were consistent with the natural history of mental disorder rather than with a personally enriching life experience.

This is consistent with the segment of the DSM-V definition of a mental disorder:

"A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual's cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning."

Just because someone exhibits certain symptoms does not warrant their condition being labelled as a mental disorder; it is only warranted if their symptoms cause disturbance in their lives and prevents them from being autonomously functioning members of society. It cannot be said that the majority, or even a substantial portion of religious people are incapable of functioning in society. If this were the case, we would not have a society to live in; because it is reasonable that if one cannot function in society, they cannot also create a functioning society. Whether we admit to it or not, many cultures and civilizations around the world were created by people who had strong religious convictions. The vast majority of the world is made up of people with religious beliefs. If they were all suffering from a mental disorder, what functionality would the world hold? The answer would be virtually none.

A mental disorder is defined and classified based on whether or not it prevents a person from functioning properly in society, and their behaviour does not exhibit something typical of the society's norms. We cannot work backwards and say that religion is a mental disorder simply for the symptoms that some of its members hold. First, there has to be an overwhelming majority of them that exhibit these symptoms. Then, we have to show that these people cannot function properly in society, or are damaging to themselves and others. Then, we have to show that this lack of functionality is a result of psychological, biological, or developmental dysfunction.

None of the above has been shown for people of religious conviction; therefore, it is simply unfounded to assert that religious people have a mental disorder.

It's important to keep this in mind as we progress towards the future. Surely, some people don't honestly believe that religion can be clinically diagnosable as a mental disorder; some people just use it as an insult. That being said, having a mental disorder is not grounds as an insult. That's just not how it works. At the same time, skeptics, rationalists and atheists need to understand that ad hominem attacks like this are absolutely toxic and detrimental to legitimate discussion over theology and philosophy -- they only obfuscate the issue, and have no productive value. What reason do we have to be so hostile or adamant about something like this? Not only is the claim insulting to people who have mental disorders, but also to professionals who are familiar with how to diagnose such disorders, and last but not least, insulting to the people you're blatantly insulting (obviously).

To people who use this argument from a "clinical" perspective: you're subscribing to pseudoscience, which is much, much worse than simply having religious views, because your views are actually detrimental to honest discourse, and to knowledge.

To people who use this argument from a casual perspective: it's a baseless ad hominem attack and does nothing for anybody.

To both, just stop. It's disgusting.

And to everyone else, thank you very much for reading.



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References:

Siddle, R., Haddock, G., Tarrier, N., & Faragher, E. (2014). Religious delusions in patients admitted to hospital with schizophrenia. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 37 (3), 130-138 DOI: 10.1007/s001270200005

Sims ACP (1995). Symptoms in the mind: an introduction to descriptive psychopathology (3rd ed.). W.B. Saunders, London

American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.

Global Warming Denial: Common Arguments and Misconceptions

A while back, I had a very long discussion with several people over anthropogenic climate change. It took place on a video of Marc Morano and Bill Nye debating over the topic, thus I was bound to encounter quite a few people who are simply ill informed on the subject. Fate took hold and the bastions of idiocy and pseudoscience were brought before me, and I was placed in a position where I felt it was my obligation to clear the air of misconceptions and bad arguments that were being made by the global warming denialists. There was a lot of information passed around, so I wanted to take the time to place some of the arguments here and address them. Many of you will encounter these arguments at some point, so I want to be sure that my readers are well equipped with the knowledge to counter the folly.

If you want to read the full discussion, the thread can be found here. Quick note: denialist questions will be in bold, while my responses will not be. Beyond that, let's get started.

There is no consensus on global warming.

Of course, I've already addressed this before. Feel free to read into that as well as this post. I've heard some people counter by claiming that appealing to a scientific consensus is an appeal to popularity. Fortunately, no it isn't. Appeal to popularity refers to an uninformed public, or "just because a lot of people agree means that it's true." Appeal to scientific consensus is where we appeal to qualified experts in the relevant fields of research and ask for their views. If the overwhelming majority decide that global warming is real, and it's caused by humans, then it's our responsibility as laypeople to take their decision as fact. We have scientists for a reason, and that is so that the uninformed public has a panel or community of experts to go to on issues that they are unqualified in. If we start ignoring that community, we abandon rationality.

Temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period were hotter than today.

Locally, temperatures in some regions of Europe were hotter than they are today; however, this is not representative of the entire population. In Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly by Mann et al. (2009), researchers used a global climate proxy network of more than 1,000 tree ring, ice core, coral, sediment and other assorted proxy records spanning both hemispheres over the past 1500 years. They concluded that while in some regions, temperatures matched today's temperatures or may have been hotter, they do not meet global averages today. The trend is clear: global average temperatures have been rising at intimidating levels, and are hotter than ever before. For this point, the NOAA and the IPCC are great resources as well.

Global temperatures haven't risen in 16 years and counting.

This is just a fabrication. IPCC data clearly displays that global mean temperatures have been rising all the way up to the point of 2006. The year 1998 only ranks as the third hottest year on record, being bested by 2005 and then 2010. Even if it weren't a fabrication, it doesn't matter. We can take any period of time and say "there was no global warming from here to here" and pretend it disproves the overall trend; however, it just doesn't.

Weather reports are unreliable, so how do you expect to predict global climates?

I don't think I really need to hammer in the difference between climate and weather, but that's what it comes down to. Regardless of what variance there is in a particular region from day to day, we can still calculate global means based on the data available to us. If these averages show us that temperatures are rising at extraordinary rates, then we have reason to be cautious.

Aside from that, for what they're worth, weather reports aren't even that unreliable. They're just a lot more sporadic than climate models.

Global CO2 levels are not increasing.

Global CO2 levels are increasing. Some global warming denialists don't actually argue this point, but instead argue that rising CO2 levels don't matter. I'll look at a few of those arguments now.

CO2 is basically plant food.

I hear this one a lot, and it's not so much an issue of data as it is an issue of misconceptions. CO2 can be plant food, but not always. It depends on the plant, first of all, and even at that it only confidently works in a controlled environment (which, just for the record, the earth's atmosphere is not). Still, even if CO2 were basically plant food, that isn't a good thing. Growing plants means growing consumption of water and nutrients as well. Such a rise in consumption would result in the expansion of deserts, causing eco-zones to move towards the poles in search of a more suitable environment, and would eventually lead to the decline of those eco-zones. Ever hear of the phrase, "too much of a good thing is a bad thing?"

Global temperatures have only increased by one degree.

Yes, and one degree of global temperature changes can have a massive impact on ice sheets, sea levels, and many other things. All it took in the past to plunge us into the Little Ice Age was a 1-2 degree drop in temperature. People who use this argument are evidently superficial and unfamiliar with the scientific data.

And that's all she wrote.

I'd highly encourage global warming denialists to come here and make their arguments so that I can either expand the list or just refute the claims in the comment section. Come on, don't be shy!

And of course, thank you all very much for reading.



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References:

Mann, M., Zhang, Z., Rutherford, S., Bradley, R., Hughes, M., Shindell, D., Ammann, C., Faluvegi, G., & Ni, F. (2009). Global Signatures and Dynamical Origins of the Little Ice Age and Medieval Climate Anomaly. Science, 326 (5957), 1256-1260 DOI: 10.1126/science.1177303

S.E. Cupp: Some Atheists Are Better Than Others

Hi everyone, I'm just here for a quickie. This shouldn't take very long, nor do I want it to.

S.E. Cupp

A little over a week ago, CNN uploaded a video on YouTube featuring American conservative political commentator/writer Sarah Elizabeth (S.E.) Cupp, entitled "Our atheists are better than yours." The video, despite spanning only one and a half minutes in length, has such a high frequency of bullshit, that something really needs to be said on it. Plenty of people from the atheist community have called out S.E. Cupp on the things she said in the video, but I think there's room for at least one more.

The reason I'm addressing this, before I continue, is because the extent of the move S.E. Cupp takes in the making of this video is so toxic and so dishonest that it could actually do harm to the atheist movement if people took it seriously. Luckily, however, it seems very few are. By now, people should be familiar enough with the atheist movement that they can recognize when something just doesn't make sense when said under the banner of atheism; but I fear that, especially in America, there is still a danger that the invocation of Poe's law can find its way under the public's nose, and people will point to people like S.E. Cupp and make them the linchpin of their argument. To start off with a joke: for that reason, I'll say it, some atheists are better than others. Albeit, I don't think S.E. Cupp is even an atheist, but I'll get to that at the end.

If you want to see the video in its full length, click here. If not, that's fine; I really wouldn't recommend it, and I'll be quoting the video in its entirety here. Other than that, let's get right into it.

The video starts off with S.E. Cupp stating the following:

"I don't know, I don't believe in God, but I'm not mad at him."

That's great, Mrs. Cupp. Fortunately for you, this is the most consistent statement with atheism that you're going to make in this video. No atheist is "mad at God," because they don't believe in him. I, personally, think the characterization of God in the Bible makes him look like a jerk, but that doesn't extend to my hating God. I don't believe he exists. That's just how it is.

"I became an atheist because I'm not a joiner. I didn't want to be part of a club or a group."

Then I expect you to resign from your alignment with the Republican Party.

Other than that, I was under the impression that the reason people became atheists was because... they didn't... believe in God? It has nothing to do with group membership. If you didn't want to become a part of a group, why did you declare yourself an atheist? It's actually quite impossible to avoid being part of a group, because that's the way life is. Groupings happen. Bottom line is, however, that not wanting to be "part of a club or a group" is not the reason to become an atheist. Rationality and evidence is.

"It seems like there's this idea perpetuated by atheists are somehow disenfranchised or left out of the political process; and I just, I don't find that to be the case."

Seven states have constitutions requiring religious tests to serve public office. Previous President George H.W. Bush was quoted saying, "No, I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God." Religiosity can be used as a decision for whether or not to grant custody to parents, effectively discriminating against atheists. Not a single atheist currently serves in the American Congress. Atheists aren't even allowed to join the Boy Scouts of America for crying out loud. Just because you don't think they're disenfranchised doesn't mean it's so, jackass.

"I think in fact atheists have grown more vocal over the past decade or two than ever before. In fact, in many ways, atheists act like a religious body unto themselves."

Try that argument during the Civil Rights Movement. Atheists need to be vocal so they won't be disenfranchised. This is something that political analysts say quite frequently: individuals with similar views need to consolidate their interests and get louder megaphones. Atheists becoming more vocal doesn't mean they're any less discriminated against -- in fact, it only substantiates the opposite claim. As for atheists acting "like a religious body," the nature of that claim is subjective. I can't approach it because what seems like religious congregation to one person may just seem like regular political participation to another.

"There's another myth that conservatism is somehow hostile to atheism. I also don't find that to be the case."

Well we know, given your track record, how valuable your anecdotes are, so let's see how you do this time! The American Trends Panel conducted a poll of public opinions and found that while, on a scale of 1-100 on a "feelings thermometer," Republicans averaged rating atheists at 34, Democrats averaged rating atheists at 46. Both seem pretty negative, but we can see that it seems to be the case that Republicans are more hostile towards atheists. So once again, just because you don't find it to be the case, doesn't mean that it is the case.

"I'm a conservative atheist-"

No, you're not, but as said, we'll get to that later.

"-I've felt very welcomed by this party. In fact, I'd go so far as to say conservatism is far more intellectually honest and respectful of atheism than liberalism has been. For conservatives, atheism is something that is tolerated, respected, we appreciate an intellectual diversity. Most conservatives atheists I know, including myself, have a really healthy respect for the role of religion in society and in this country in particular. And in contrast on the left, it seems as though there's this knee-jerk embrace of what is more like a militant hostility -- a reaction against intellectual diversity."

Well we know that conservatives are much less accepting of atheists than liberals are, now, at least in America, but what I find interesting is that the argument being made here starts off as "conservatives are more open to atheists," and then turns into "conservative atheists are more open to religion than liberals are."

"It's exclusionary. Bill Maher thinks 95% of the world has a neurological disorder. I don't think you'd find that on the right, and for that reason, I'll say it: I think our atheists are better than yours."

The best way to convince someone that you're not exclusionary? Say that you're better than them!

The best way to convince someone you don't want to be part of a club or a group? Say that "your X" is better than "their X."

I don't know what the source is for the claim on Bill Maher, and I don't care. He's a comedian, and he's not the representative of atheism. I'm more interested in getting rid of the ridiculous idea that S.E. Cupp is a "conservative atheist." Conservative? Yes. Atheist? No. I don't know what atheist would ever say something like:

"I really aspire to be a person of faith one day."

That's really all it takes. I'm sorry, S.E. Cupp, but you're not an atheist. You're an agnostic theist wearing the badge of atheism to garner attention so that people listen to your otherwise ridiculous arguments and contradictory statements. Please stop self-identifying as atheist, if you're as intellectually honest and respectful as you say. It's offensive, shameless, and pathetic from the perspective of someone who actually is an atheist and has put a lot of time and effort into learning atheistic philosophy. You can keep your Judeo-Christian moral values -- just stop saying you're doing so under the banner of atheism.

Thank you all for reading.



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Parental Age and the Rise of Autism Spectrum Disorder

Increase in ASD diagnosis.

I recently participated in a brief discussion on YouTube about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The question at hand was, to quote from the original commenter I was replying to, "why the increase?" I suggested that one of the primary causes of the increase in ASD was the change in it is defined. In the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), the disorder was defined as "Autistic Disorder," and was not to be confused with other behavioural disorders such as Asperger or Rett Syndrome; however in the fifth edition (DSM-V), "Autistic Disorder" was changed to "Autism Spectrum Disorder," and several syndromes and other behavioural/personality disorders that were once distinct from each other are now categorized as different Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs) under the autism spectrum. This change in definition could easily explain an increase in diagnoses of autism, because you're incorporating a large portion of the population under a new moniker (or rather, a new definition thereof).

The other explanation I gave, which is what resulted in the prompt for this post, was that physicians and psychologists are becoming more familiarized with how to diagnose ASD, and thus are starting to accurately identify individuals who do have the disorders; individuals who, before, would have been diagnosed as something else (possibly mental retardation), or simply told that there's nothing wrong with them. This happens quite often for people who have high-functioning autism (HFA), such as myself. So with a combination of these two factors -- broader definition and increase in training -- it's easy to suggest the cause of a large part in the increase in ASD. However, therein lies the issue: it's only a fraction. As one of the commenters pointed out, there is still a portion of the increase that has not been fully explained. So while we can provide somewhat of an answer for "why the increase," there is a degree of uncertainty.

The video this discussion took place on was one by C0nc0rdance, entitled "What Causes Autism?" After a few more exchanges, C0nc0rdance made a comment on the thread suggesting what he thinks to be a strong contributor to the increase in ASD, pertaining to the unexplained portion: parental age conferring higher risk for ASD, and an increase in parental age in the United States; using data from the CDC to support his case. I'll be honest, I shrilled a bit in excitement at a response from C0nc0rdance. I know, it sounds cheesy, and comments from the publisher of the video aren't exactly a rare occurrence, but his videos have done a lot for me over the years. The first time I watched one of his videos on YouTube was at the beginning of my sophomore year of high school in 2009. It was a time where I was conflicting with my upbringing as a Protestant, and trying to learn more about science, specifically evolution. His videos helped me come out of a pretty rough time in my life, and pushed me to my eventual position of agnostic atheism, as did many other YouTubers and popular scientists; and so I have to owe him my current state of being.

That being said, I don't agree with him in this case. I was originally going to post my own analysis of what I think the undocumented cause(s) of the increase in ASD diagnoses is/are, but now I have a prompt, and so I'll shift gears and simply address the more narrow topic. Here was C0nc0rdance's full comment, just to frame the question properly:

So now I shall contribute my answer to that question: does the increase in parental age in the United States account for the unexplained portion of ASD diagnoses? I'm unsure of whether C0nc0rdance was proposing this to be his defining proposal, or just an idea of many, but my short answer is no, I don't think it explains that unaccounted portion of increase in ASD. I think it is something that needs more research, but either there are a large number of other variables working here, or there are a smaller number of variables with much large effect sizes. Of course, I wouldn't be justified in taking this position without explaining my case, first.

I'll begin by explaining the association between parental age and ASD. A study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology in January by Idring et al. looked into the correlation between both maternal and paternal age of parents, and the risk for a child developing ASD. The study reviewed a sample of 417,303 Swedish children born from 1984 to 2003, where 4,746 of them were diagnosed with ASD. It was found that while maternal age has a non-linear association with ASD, conferring higher risk after about the age of 30, paternal age is linear, suggesting that a consistent variable related to the father's age is causing this association, while the mother's is more complex. Furthermore, as one of the study's authors suggested, this linear association between paternal age and ASD would support a genetic hypothesis, such as an increase in genomic alterations over the father's lifespan with age; further supported by the fact that the strongest association with paternal age occurs when the father is over the age of 40, but the mother is 25-35 or younger. But does a genetic explanation hold up? We'll get to that in a moment.

Have you ever seen this before?

The non-linear association between maternal age and ASD, on the other hand, would lean more towards an environmental hypothesis; something changes in the mother's environment after the age of around 30 in order to confer a higher risk for the disorder. As the authors of the previous study note, maternal age has not been as extensively researched as paternal age. That being said, depending on the nature of the association, I can posit a few explanations for the increase in ASD conferred by maternal age, such as a higher rates of smoking or more frequent birth complications with increasing age, but let me get back to the genetic explanation for paternal age before I address that.

What is the chance that the association between paternal age and ASD is a result of the father's genes, or the interaction between the genes produced by a father of age 40+ and a mother of age ≤ 35? I'm going to say this is probably not the case. Remember that the increase in ASD is being observed in the United States. The CDC produced their own report on the prevalence of autism in March of this year, showing that while it's true that there has been a substantial increase in the diagnosis of ASD -- from 6.7 per 1,000 in 2002 to 14.71 per 1,000 in 2010 -- the rates vary from state to state. For example, while the highest rate was in New Jersey (lucky me) at 21.9 per 1,000, the rate in Colorado was between 9 and 10 per 1,000, and the rate in Alabama was 5.7 per 1,000. It'd be obscure to suggest that there is such high variance in reverse-cougars from state to state in order to support the genetic explanation, and that these rates have been increasing somewhere in the United States for the past few years. I'm not saying it's unlikely, I'm just suggesting by way of Occam's razor that this explanation should be put aside for less assuming explanations.

The greenish-brown hue looks slightly diseased... Maybe.

So what about an environmental explanation? Should mothers be careful of environmental influences that are increasing in the United States? Is there something in the water in New Jersey that's putting them at greater risk of ASD? If you've ever been to the Jersey shore, you might think so, but as the CDC declares as well, this probably isn't the case. It is much more likely to be a result of the aforementioned change in definition, an increased willingness to label certain behaviours under the disorder, better familiarization of doctors to diagnose the disorder, and to explain the state-to-state variance, differing access to medical care that would allow these diagnoses to be made.

So, it seems that a genetic explanation is unlikely, and the CDC tells us there's nothing to be too alarmed about concerning potential environmental risks. But what about the increase in parental age? Parental age confers a higher risk for ASD, and parental age has been increasing; however, it simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. A study from February of 2010 by Shelton, Tancredi and Hertz-Picciotto found that while parental age is associated with this higher risk, it explains only about 4.6% of the increase in ASD diagnoses in California. Of course, this is only one state, but the researchers made no controls for their calculation, so things like socioeconomic status and availability of medical care could be skewing the results to be even higher than what they actually are. With the other information we have available, it seems that mothers shouldn't be too concerned about their age during pregnancy, or something else floating around in the air suddenly. To summarize:

- Paternal age has a linear association with an increase in ASD after the age of 40.
- Paternal age has the strongest association when the mother is 35 or younger.
- Maternal age has a non-linear association with an increase in ASD after the age of 30-35.
- There has been a great increase in the rate of ASD diagnoses in the United States, but this trend seems to be exclusive to the United States.
- Parental age has also been increasing in the United States.
- Rates of ASD greatly vary from state to state, suggesting something environmental as opposed to genetic.
- Only 4.6% of the increase in ASD in California can be explained by parental age; this could be direct, indirect, or statistical noise due to data limitations.
- The available data suggests that while parental age is a possible explanation, the much more likely explanation to replace it would be diagnostic factors and ones relating to medical access.

This topic has personal importance to me, for obvious reasons. I've been researching it since I was diagnosed with ASD, and so I like to participate in discussions relating to it, and I like to look into the cause of ASD. I've always been relatively unconcerned with the increase in diagnoses; but when one of my favourite YouTubers proposes an explanation for an unknown portion of the increase, I'm almost forced to examine it. This was fun for me to do, and so I thank C0nc0rdance and the other individuals involved in the exchange for bringing this topic up for discussion.

Thank you all very much for reading.  



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References:

Shelton, J., Tancredi, D., & Hertz-Picciotto, I. (2010). Independent and dependent contributions of advanced maternal and paternal ages to autism risk. Autism Research. DOI: 10.1002/aur.116

Idring, S., Magnusson, C., Lundberg, M., Ek, M., Rai, D., Svensson, A., Dalman, C., Karlsson, H., & Lee, B. (2014). Parental age and the risk of autism spectrum disorders: findings from a Swedish population-based cohort. International Journal of Epidemiology, 43 (1), 107-115 DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyt262

The Legend of Zelda and Feminism: An Insult to Writers (And Women)

In the shadows of the internet and in the light of my hiatus, my focus in terms of what political issues I follow has narrowed its way down to two topics: atheism and feminism. I, without hesitance, identify myself as an agnostic atheist, because it is a statement of my belief and my method of arriving at that belief, rather than my personal philosophy and political views.

Feminism is much different. Feminism carries this air of uncertainty, and can be misconstrued in many ways; and in my opinion, it just seems to be a pointless moniker when "gender equality" is not so ambiguous, and is preferable in every way for the sake of clarity. That being said, while I don't identify myself as a feminist, many of my views can be seen as aligning with the feminist movement.

I make strong statements on my blog, and in some cases, it's very easy to tell under what banner I might be standing when an all out war of religion/politics/race rises out of the murky shadows of humanity's contempt for one another. But above any potential alignment with any political or social movement in existence, there is one identity that blankets my soul greater than anything else; and it is, from the perspective of my infinite wisdom, a force so powerful that only the most courageous of heroes could vanquish it. For those of you who are video game fans, hardcore or casual, you know exactly what I'm referring to.

Oh the pleasant, socially uninformed memories.

In August of 1993, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening was released in North America -- and I was born -- setting my fate as a diehard Zelda fan beyond all else; although the first Zelda game I ever played was, well, the first one. If we count all gameplay totals, then weeks, maybe months of my life have been invested in playing every Zelda game that has reached the market; but this doesn't even come close to counting the extra steps I've taken in dedicating myself to the Zelda franchise, to the point that I have, in my possession, at least four copies of Hyrule Historia (in unique formats), made unnecessary investments such as converting my Zelda games on the Famicom (because who doesn't love imports?), learned how to ride on horseback, and much more. The only thing that's left is a cosplay, which my friends have been begging me to do, but that's not what my interest is. My personal investment is in the story, the content, not my derivations of such. I don't write fan fictions, for example -- I appreciate the original story with all my heart.

So when the scope of feminism decided to encroach upon the Legend of Zelda, you can imagine how much I was frothing at the mouth, sharpening my claws and teeth, preparing to rip apart the leader of the crusade on what has to be my most favorite video game franchise of all time... My paleo-instincts targeted none other than Anita Sarkeesian.

Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist, media critic and blogger, author of Feminist Frequency, which seeks to deconstruct the portrayals of women in video games and other media using feminist philosophy. Just this year, she was awarded the 14th annual Game Developers Choice Awards, and was nominated for Microsoft's 2014 Women in Gaming Awards. Her work has been widely praised for allegedly standing up to the virulent misogyny of popular media through her 'critical analysis.' She has become, for all intents and purposes, the poster woman of feminism in media and gaming, and many people have bought into the dissemination of her 'analyses.'

How duped they have been.

Anita Sarkeesian

I have no issues, personally, with Anita Sarkeesian. She seems to be genuinely trying to do what she thinks is right, and I have no issues with strong minded women vocalizing themselves. With all this in mind, I think Ms. Sarkeesian has gone beyond the reaches of the good she could have done, and is now bringing a bad name to the feminist movement she is a representative of. Her work inspires people to think more critically about what they see in media, but on a case-by-case basis, her analyses are very uninformative, and sometimes just seem downright crazy.

But it would take forever to look at everything she's ever said, and honestly, I've never had any desire to. However, the moment she hammers a nail into the Legend of Zelda and says "this is what I want to look at," oh boy do the gloves come off, and the stilettos on. This is actually over a year late, but if you want to find where all of this is coming from, refer to her first episode of "Damsel in Distress." Now, without further ado, let's begin.

In her first criticisms, Ms. Sarkeesian notes that in every game in the series, Zelda has been kidnapped, possessed, turned to stone, or otherwise been taken advantage of/incapacitated, hence her "damsel in distress" role. Of course, the reason behind this is explained in much detail, both throughout the games, and in the external sources of information. Simply put, whoever the goddesses decide will possess each piece of the Triforce, those people become destined to carry certain... destinies. The Triforce of Courage is bound to the hero of legend, who will always become one incarnation of Link. The Triforce of Wisdom is bound to the princess or queen who shall inherit the throne of Hyrule, who will always become one incarnation of Zelda. The Triforce of Power is bound to the man who will use his power to seek the entire Triforce, who will always become the reincarnation of Demise. These roles are revealed in many separate places in Hyrule Historia, most notably with the origins of the legend: the War of Hylia.

Ganondorf: AKA "Big Dick"

But why, you would then ask, would Shigeru Miyamoto or Eiji Aonuma decide to make the "damsel in distress" the crux of the legend, or at least the games in the series? Why not change it? We'll get to that later: however, it should be noted that the person who is always the evil villain bent on ruling the world in the series, consistent with many other game series as well, is a man. Something for you to think about. For now, let's continue on with Ms. Sarkeesian's criticisms.

She continues on by stating that Zelda has always been in the role of either assistant or sidekick in the game series, and was only ever a crucial part of the story when she transforms into Sheik in Ocarina of Time, but is then captured by Ganondorf 3 minutes after she turns back into Zelda. Well, once again, this was explained.

In the events of Wind Waker, Ganondorf sends a gigantic bird across the Great Sea to hunt down girls told of in legend to possess the Triforce of Wisdom: blonde haired girls with pointy ears. This allows the bird to confuse the true identity of Zelda for many different characters, including two girls from Windfall Island and Link's own sister. The characters within the story are just as aware of the roles that the characters play as we are, because it is the legend of their own land, and Ganondorf seems to have been alive for many different games in the series to act on his own personal knowledge.

Thus, we can safely conclude that Zelda, being aware of the legend, since she's the daughter of the King of Hyrule, will also be aware of the legend, and therefore would have to disguise herself not only as a Sheikah, but as a male Sheikah who does not reveal his long, flowing hair in order to prevent Ganondorf from accurately figuring out her identity. In fact, Ganondorf includes another telling fact about the situation in his kidnapping speech, but we'll get to that in a moment. Her disguise actually works, because even Princess Ruto confuses Sheik for a male. How do we know that Sheik, canonically, is supposed to be a female though? Because Eiji Aonuma said so.

Now, for Ganondorf's telling fact. Ganondorf states, while kidnapping Zelda in Ocarina of Time, that if he followed Link, who he knew to be in possession of the Triforce of Courage, he would find the person who possessed the Triforce of Wisdom. The Triforce of Courage prevents Ganondorf from using his magic to kidnap the person wielding it, so instead he simply followed Link around until he found Zelda. That's why she was kidnapped immediately. Not because she revealed herself to be a woman, but because everyone was in full knowledge (except Link) that Zelda was in disguise specifically to protect herself from Ganondorf. If anything, once again, blame Ganondorf from being the stereotypical power hungry, sexist man that he is.

If you want to argue that despite the story solidly explaining why all of this happened, it sends a psychological message that associates feminine Zelda with "damsel in distress," then you need to talk to yourself and the people who think Zelda is an object, not Eiji.

She then goes on to criticize the Tetra/Zelda portrayal in the Wind Waker. Well... this one is a bit more telling of Ms. Sarkeesian's point of view than that of the game developers. To summarize, her issue with the Tetra/Zelda portrayal was that the moment Tetra transforms into Zelda, she's ordered to not accompany Link in his journey, and to stay in the temple in order to be safe. First of all, if you think about it in reality, I don't see what the issue is. Tetra and Zelda were the same person, both were female, it's just that when Tetra becomes the "more stereotypically feminine" Princess Zelda, she's ordered to stay behind. Up until that point, Zelda (who was then called Tetra) was fully capable of herself.

Tetra isn't feminine enough to be a woman!

Wait... is she saying that Tetra isn't feminine enough to reconcile for that? Why does she get to decide what femininity is? Isn't the whole point of the critical analysis of female portrayal supposed to be about deconstructing the idea of stereotypical femininity? What issues does she have with "tomboyish" Tetra, then? Just because her appearance didn't conform to the feminine appearance she would've preferred Tetra to have? Just because Tetra wasn't "stereotypically femine?" Isn't that supposed to be a good thing? That the female isn't necessarily portrayed as a girly girl princess? I'm sorry, but that's sexist, not the Zelda franchise.

I actually had my own criticisms of the Tetra/Zelda paradigm for my own reasons, that had more to deal with the color of her skin. What, white women can't be the heroes? Why did she have to lose that awesome tan?

(Mostly joking).

But beyond that, her criticism, within the realm of the story, is flawed for another reason. It was established that the moment Link pulled the Master Sword out of the pedestal, he granted Ganondorf his full potential -- all of his magic and evil powers came back. The temple was the only safe place for anyone who wasn't impervious to Ganondorf's magic, and so Zelda was asked to stay there, but even that didn't work.

Zelda wasn't the only victim of this: 3 great spirits, a bunch of fairies, and hundreds of people across the Great Sea fell victim to Ganondorf's evil as well. And, as established before, Ganondorf was now fully aware of who Zelda/Tetra was, and so she had to stay on the DL in order to not get royally screwed. At least, that's what they thought it would accomplish. Turns out Ganondorf is still the stereotypical male asshole.

So, yes, Zelda and Tetra are the same person, and Tetra was fully capable of herself. As even Ms. Sarkeesian noted, Zelda/Tetra even helps you fight Ganondorf in the final battle. She even helps rescue you from Ganondorf's grasp earlier in the game when you pay your second visit to the Forsaken Fortress. Talk about a damsel in distress, huh?

Ms. Sarkeesian's last criticism of the franchise is of Zelda/Tetra's portrayal in Phantom Hourglass, where she's kidnapped, turned to stone, then kidnapped again, but to explain the reasons why this criticism is invalid would just be to repeat the points made vastly above. Later in the video, she says she wants Zelda to be the protagonist in a story, and even makes it a point of saying "and I'm not talking about the DS games. I'm talking about full on console adventures." In this statement, Ms. Sarkeesian has just expressed two sentiments:

1: That DS installments in the Zelda series are somehow lesser games than the console installments; and,
2: That she has no appreciation for Hyrule lore.

So now ignoring Spirit Tracks (and Wand of Gamelon if you want to include the CD-i games), #2 brings us back to that really irritating question: why don't they just change the legend so that Zelda isn't perpetually screwed and forced to be in this position?

Well, simply put, you're an asshole for suggesting that.

Eiji Aonuma has already made it crystal clear that he doesn't wish to establish Zelda as a damsel in distress, because he acknowledges that the fans prefer a female that's more helpful, engaging and involved, like Zelda was in Ocarina of Time or in Wind Waker (although I would strongly argue that she is a very powerful woman in almost all of the Zelda series). To ask him to change his story otherwise is just beyond insensitive. As a writer, I can appreciate how much one can be invested in their own story. It can be their passion, even their life, and to have someone say "change this because I don't like it" can be the greatest insult to your person that anyone could ever offer.

I would fuck her.

The story writers are not obligated to change their story just because social activists don't like it. They've already made an attempt to appease their fans, and beyond that, we should all be excited for the upcoming Hyrule Warriors, where we get to play as Zelda and see how fully capable she is of kicking ass in her princess getup (actually, even better: Zelda in Hyrule Warriors is a queen). We also got to see that in Super Smash Bros. To ask them to change the entire foundation of the story, to change the legend, and to make all of the events of the previous games totally worthless is just unappealing for everybody.

But then it begs the question: why was Zelda the damsel in distress in the first place? Why did they decide that was a thing?

Honestly, that would be the best argument you could go for. Somehow, this whole idea that the depiction of Zelda in the games is sending us messages that she's useless isn't settling with me, because I can see how, in so many games, she has shown herself to be probably more powerful than Link, all things considered.

Consider how she kind of saved Midna's life using magic in Twilight Princess, and how she could teleport and render Ganon incapacitated in Ocarina of Time, or how she was actually a goddess in Skyward Sword. Also consider how in all of these games, Link needed some kind of assistant (Navi, Tatl, Fi, Ezlo, King of Red Lions, etc.), while Zelda often found herself without needing one, even when she was on her own. For goodness sake, she was the captain of a pirate crew and could kick grown ass men around in Wind Waker, despite her small stature.

The only thing you can really go for would be "why did they make this the story at the very, very beginning?" To criticize the game's repetitive nature thereafter is pointless, and to criticize the fact that the game writers haven't changed the lore to accommodate your needs is just plain insulting.

NEEDS MORE/LESS FEMININITY!

I think it was important to go through this for a few reasons, but the biggest thing is that it can be applied to many stories. Even when the female isn't being portrayed as the Damsel in Distress, Anita Sarkeesian will almost always have some kind of criticism of their depiction, such as Samus in the Metroid series. There is no winning play. There's always going to be something wrong. What we have to keep in mind while looking at these things is that, despite how some people may perceive the characters in the story, the fact remains that the story writers have sole agency in deciding what happens, and in most cases, they're willing to appeal to their fan base.

But at what point did we decide that it was okay to tell story writers what they can and can't do? Asking them to completely tear apart the foundations of their story and readjust the well-established, consistent lore, thereby making every single preceding game absolutely pointless in terms of the plot, simply to accommodate for your preferences is just, in my opinion, a disgusting insult, both as a writer and as a gamer.

Thank you all very much for reading.



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 EDIT:

I've decided that the comments I've received have produced a lot of strong arguments in defense of the Legend of Zelda series, so whenever I receive one that I think is good, or come up with another on my own, I'll include it in the list below. These will mostly not be direct responses to the contentions brought up by Anita Sarkeesian, but instead will simply extract information from Zelda lore in defense of the series as a whole.

Extra arguments:

- The Triforce of Wisdom is always granted to Zelda, symbolizing the female role as being mentally strong. (Courtesy of Nick T.)

- The name "Zelda" comes from the Teutonic word for "gray haired battle maiden," i.e. a female warrior. (Courtesy of Nick T.)

- "Princess Zelda" is not legitimized by being married to a prince, but instead is a single, female matriarch, even when she gains the status of "Queen." (Courtesy of Nick T.)

- The Gerudo race is made up entirely of warrior women, with the exception of a single male born every 100 years, who are able to survive despite the harsh environment that is the Gerudo Valley -- a place that is so horrific and deadly that even Ganondorf himself was envious of the land of Hyrule for that reason, thus is his motivation (explained in Wind Waker). (Courtesy of Nick C.)

- While the most powerful being in the land -- the one who holds the Triforce of Power -- is the reincarnation of Demise, every other powerful being in the game (the Great Fairies and the Golden Goddesses) are females; in fact, Din is the one who grants the Triforce of Power to whomever it goes to in the first place. This goes for all pieces of the Triforce as well. These powers are contingent on the decisions of women.

- Almost all of the main villains (Ganondorf, Demise, Vaati, Yuga, Ghirahim, Zant, etc.) are depicted as men. (Courtesy of Termina Knight)

- The seven sages in A Link to the Past were women, while five out of seven of them in Ocarina of Time were also women. (Courtesy of Termina Knight)

- At Lon Lon Ranch, there are only three people: Malon, Talon, and Ingo (Ocarina of Time). Talon runs the farm, but is found asleep in two separate scenarios, neglecting his deliveries. Ingo is the farmhand who exiles Talon and usurps control over the farm in order to appease Ganondorf. Malon, the only female, is kindhearted, helpful, and attentive. (Courtesy of Termina Knight)

- In Skyward Sword, in Zelda's speech to Link, it's revealed that Hylia had been manipulating Link's care for Zelda in order to have him follow her and to fulfill their destinies. Zelda was never in any danger, as she had Impa to protect her (powerful woman), but Link didn't know this. Even Zelda says "I used you," showing that the "damsel in distress" was never really in distress, but was actually (well, her goddess identity was) manipulating the protagonist. (Courtesy of Anonymous -- 7/25)

A Realization (Temporary End of How to Paint Your Panda)

Nick has pointed something out to me.

It's not doubt that I've spent a significant amount of time on my blog for the purposes of debating, arguing, and inciting those things. I write frequently on controversial subjects which are sure to invoke a lot of disagreement and debate. It's almost what I live for -- to be antagonizing. But as Nick pointed out to me, this is really juvenile.

He pointed to my dad's work: "Debate? Why?" Specifically, this segment:

"So when someone says the word 'debate,' I think to myself, 'why bother? There's no point to debating.'

'But what if I'm right?'

'Do you know that you are?'

If anybody answers 'yes' to that question, then I think they need to work some things out with themselves."

That last line really hit me, and I can't believe that I forgot about it. In almost all of these debatable situations, even if we're operating within the confines of an assumed reality, I can't know for sure that I'm right. I can make myself informed of the current information and take a position based on that, but what reason do I have to publicize it on my blog? Arguing with people on the internet isn't going to inform me of anything that I can't find on my own.

And you know what? It's a lot easier to take a position when you aren't publicizing that position. That helps with integrity.

There are certain things we know to be true, but the things I talk about aren't, and honestly, doing this isn't the way that I'm going to find the knowledge. This is just where I relay it. It is a very rare occasion, relative to the entirety of my time on the internet, that someone brings information to me that forces me to change my position. Most of the time, it doesn't do anything. Most of the time, the changes I make are based on things I learn on my own.

That's why I've decided that, in order to stay true to my dad's word, and in order to maintain my integrity (see the About Me page), I'm not going to keep up with this blog for a while, if at all.

Thank you to all of my followers who have been keeping up with my posts. I'll keep everything here so people can look at it in the future, but I may or may not come back to it.

For those of you who have been paying attention, well, I hope your pandas are looking beautiful now.

Presuppositional Apologetics And Self-Validating Logic: How Do You Know Your Reasoning is Valid? (Dad's Work)

Yesterday, I came across a video by Creation Today where Christian/creationist speakers Eric Hovind and Sye Ten Bruggencate asked to do an "interview" with James Randi. For those of you who are unaware of who these three individuals are, I will give a bit of background for all of them:

Eric Hovind is the son of Kent Hovind, who was another prominent Christian speaker. Although I would prefer not to mention it, because in most cases it is immaterial, I have to for the purposes of explanation: Kent Hovind was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2007. Afterwards, Eric Hovind decided to learn from Kent's arguments, presentations and debate skills and continue his father's work -- an admirable feat, I have to say.

Sye Ten Bruggencate is also a prominent Christian speaker who has debated other atheists and scholars, although he mainly lays his arguments out online. His parents immigrated from Holand to Toronto, and he now currently still lives in Ontario. I think the only honest way to represent who Sye Bruggencate is is by using the final sentence on the about me page on his website: "By God's grace alone, I am a Christian."

The Amazing Randi is always in his prime.

James Randi is a very famous, but retired, stage magician (or "conjurer" as he prefers) and scientific skeptic. He is the founder of the James Randi Educational Foundation and has debunked many psychic frauds and pseudoscientists. He currently lives, as well, in Toronto, which gave me a great opportunity not too long ago to meet such an amazing and sweet man, and while it saddens me to realize that he is quite old, I am glad to have met him in his prime. Randi is a self-described atheist and has made many statements concerning why he thinks the Bible is unbelievable.

As for the Reason Rally, it was a large meeting for religious skepticism and secularism back in 2012 at the National Mall.

The video in question, in my opinion, was disgusting in many ways. Eric Hovind's position, as he described, was that we cannot know anything without God, because in order to be absolutely certain about anything, we must know everything (since, if we didn't know everything, we wouldn't know if there is evidence to invalidate the things we think we know). Randi, I think, succinctly responded to his questions, and Hovind thanked him for his time, but not before letting his friend Sye Bruggencate get one final question. After buttering Randi up for a few seconds and showering him with compliments, he asked the question: "how do you know your reasoning is valid?" If you want Randi's response, I suggest watching the video. I believe he answered honestly and sufficiently, but Sye's objection was that Randi was using his reasoning to validate his reasoning, and that this is "viciously circular." Randi stated his unwillingness to continue because the exchange was "juvenile," and Sye gave a snarky dismissal to the crowd: "See, this is what happens when you challenge them to validate their reasoning" all while pointing to Randi and looking at the camera. This was disgusting, and incredibly disrespectful to someone as great as Randi.

Now, of course, this video is from April of 2012, so why am I complaining about it now? The reason (no pun intended) is because I want to try to respond to Sye's question. Of course, when I want to answer philosophical questions which might lead me to an existential crisis, I look to my dad's writings for inspiration, and no surprise, he didn't let me down; thus, the title of this post is labeled under "Dad's Work," but not the implications thereafter. Those are my own. I've also run this by many other people who I think are very rational, reasonable thinkers, and we've all tweaked the arguments so that they can respond to any potential objections.

So once again, the question is "how do you know your reasoning is valid?" This is, immediately, a self-destructive statement. The person asking the question has to use their reasoning to articulate that question in a way the respondent can understand, and the same applies to the respondent -- the question must be asked and answered using reason. It is impossible to give Sye a satisfying answer without using reason; it's impossible for me to even explain all of this without using reasoning, therefore, reasoning is shown to be valid. In actuality, this question is self-destructive at every single level, so let's examine every facet of the question's implications.

First, we have to define "reasoning" and "validity." Here, I will define "reasoning" as having to subscribe to the laws of thought, and "validity" as not eventually leading to a contradiction. Note: a non-contradictory statement may be valid, but it may also be incorrect. The truth of a claim is different from the validity of the claim. However, if we accept this definition of validity (and it widely is accepted as such), then we have to ask: why is that the definition? It's because validity itself is a concept which is only defined under the laws of thought, or reasoning. To ask "is reasoning valid" is like asking "is truth true?" Once again, it's self-destructive, because I cannot validate something without accepting reasoning.

The operations of unreasoning.

There is another possible argument as well, which requires a bit more explanation. Let us make a provisional assumption: that reasoning is "invalid" (for all intents and purposes, we will assume that validity is not completely reliant on reasoning). This means we can conclude the obverse: that what we know as "unreasoning" (or illogicality, or irrationality) is valid. Without reasoning, we can conclude outrageous things, such as A from B without any evidence. If we operate under irrationality, I can conclude that this blog post is a potato because my sister is in her room. This will be important in a moment.

At the same time, without rationality, we can conclude both A and Not A at the same time, since contradictions are no longer an issue. For example, I can conclude that I am a cat and that I am not a cat at the same time, and because they are only contradictory under logic and reasoning, they are "valid" under irrationality.

So, given that we can conclude anything from anything under the operations of irrationality, let us begin using the only thing we know to be true right now, which is our provisional assumption: that irrationality, illogicality and unreasoning is "valid." Because the provisional assumption is true, I can conclude anything else under the confines of irrationality. So, I will conclude that reasoning is valid.

"Wait a second, you can't do that-" but I can. Because we are not confined to reasoning, I can conclude whatever the heck I want from any fact. If reasoning were invalid, and therefore unreasoning were valid, then I can conclude any fact (B) from any fact (A). I just chose to make fact (B) "reasoning is valid," and fact (A) "unreasoning is valid." We cannot complain about a non sequitur since reasoning is invalid, and we cannot complain about a contradiction for the same reason.

"So, what's the point? You can't complain that it's a contradiction because you've already said that reasoning is invalid." Exactly, I can't complain it's a contradiction; however, I can say, then, that reasoning is valid. Because unreasoning is valid, reasoning is valid. This is a very unreasonable conclusion, and thus it is "valid" under the confines of irrationality. Therefore, we can conclude that even if reasoning were invalid, reasoning would still be valid -- it is literally impossible for reasoning to be invalid.

I should note, as well, that although we were operating under the confines of unreasoning, how do we know that we could reach that conclusion if we were to accept that unreasoning were "valid," as it were? We had to use reasoning to do so. Once again, at every instance, the question is self-destructive. It is literally impossible for reasoning to be invalid, and we didn't need divine revelation to come to this conclusion.

Debate: Bill Nye thinks: "Are you kidding me?"

It's not over though, because there's another argument I've heard from another Christian speaker by the name of Ken Ham. Ken Ham held a debate with Bill Nye back in early February of this year, in which I must say, Bill Nye absolutely won. Even the poll from Christian Today over the debate said Bill Nye won by a whopping 92%. One of Ken Ham's arguments, however, was interesting: how do we know that natural laws, logical laws, etc. were true several thousand years ago in the sense that they are now? As Ken Ham puts it: "were you there?" His argument, is that unless we have a 3rd party divine being who was present at the time to confirm this, we don't know that these laws have always been true. For now, I will only address its application to the laws of thought (logic).

First, we must establish something: that if any axiom or facet of the laws of thought were to fail, then all of the laws of thought as a whole would fail as well. We can validate this in two ways: (1) by analogy; and, (2) by definition.

My analogy is this: we have a platform that is supported by ten pillars. Each pillar must be made of concrete in order to support the weight of the platform. This being said, only nine of the pillars are made of concrete, while the tenth pillar is made of something weaker: wood, clay, feathers, whatever you want. We can say, therefore, that because this one pillar is flawed, that the structure of this object (the platform supported by the pillars -- we'll call it a tent) is flawed as a whole, because it fails to be "perfect" in every respect. The tent cannot be flawless while something in its structure is flawed.

Similarly, we can say the same about the laws of thought, but the definition itself means we have to accept all axioms or none of them. The purpose of the laws of thought and reasoning is to be applicable in every situation -- if we were to find any instance, any bubble where the laws of thought didn't apply, that means there is a situation where being illogical is valid, and thus the laws of thought would fail, because they are not universally binding (binding, in the sense, that they are always applicable, not that we always have to follow them -- there will always be irrational thinkers in the world).

So, if we were to show that one axiom is invalid, then we could not accept the laws of thought in their entirety. How are we going to apply this to Ken Ham's question?

Look at this picture and ignore everything else.

Let us look at temporal logic. Temporal logic is a system of rules which allows us to make propositions in terms of time, and by extension make inferences about the past, present and future. The Wikipedia example is hunger -- "I am always hungry." This makes a statement about the past "I was hungry," the present "I am hungry," and the future "I will be hungry." If any of these were to fail, then the statement "I am always hungry" would fail as well. That being said, we are not going to be looking at the truth or falsehood of the statement "I am always hungry." We are going to look at the assumptions it makes about the nature of being (in this case, hunger) and why it shows Ken Ham's argument to be invalid.

The statement "I am always hungry" is inherently valid, because it doesn't necessarily contradict itself. Throughout my life, I have constantly been eating, and there has never been a single time where I was not hungry, and the same will be true in the future, and for all intents and purposes, eternity. If we were to pair it with things like "I will die" and "when I die, I will no longer be hungry," then it would be contradictory, but by itself, it is not contradictory, and therefore is valid. Therefore, we can assume things about the nature of hunger in order for that statement to be valid. One such thing is that the nature of hunger (and by extension our current reasoning) has always been the same.

Consider it like this: in order for the statement "I am always hungry" to be valid, we have to assume both that the nature of hunger has always been the same, and that the nature of reasoning has always been the same. If the nature of reasoning were not the same at some point in the past, then we couldn't make inferences about the past such as with the statement "I am always hungry," and thus temporal logic would be invalid. Let's test this with another provisional assumption: that the nature of hunger was different 5,000 years ago from what it is today. By extension, since the nature of being hungry (and therefore, in at least one instance, the nature of "being") was different at some point in the past, then the nature of reasoning changes from past to present. We cannot make inferences about that point in the past using our reasoning today, then, because they are not consistent with each other. This means that temporal logic will fail to make valid inferences about that point in the past, where the state of nature was quite different from what it is today, and thus temporal logic in itself becomes invalid. Since we have established that in order for the laws of thought to be valid, all of its axioms must be valid, then because temporal logic fails, logic in its entirety fails.

This is what happens when we wonder if the very state of being for certain things was different back then from what it is now -- we find self-destruction. We can state with certainty, then, two things:

(1) That reasoning is valid.
(2) That reasoning has always been valid, and always will be valid, in order for reasoning today to be valid.

We can represent this symbolically too: let (I) be "reasoning is valid," let (W) be "reasoning was valid" and let (B) be "reasoning will be valid."

1. I

We know this to be true because we have already constructed a proof which shows that reasoning has to be valid.

1. I
2. (~W v ~B) --> ~I

This says if either (W) is not true or if (B) is not true, then (I) is not true. We constructed a proof for this as well using temporal logic as the case example. So, let's start with our provisional assumption (PA) -- that reasoning was not valid in the past.

1. I
2. (~W v ~B) --> ~I
3. ~W              [PA]

We can then use the rule of addition (ADD) to create the syntax we need to apply Line 2:

1. I
2. (~W v ~B) --> ~I
3. ~W              [PA]
4. ~W v ~B     [3, ADD]

The reason we can do this is because of what the statement says. Line 4 says "either it is true that ~W, or it is true that ~B." Since we know it is true that ~W, then that statement is true, because at least one of the two variables is true. So now that we have the syntax, we can use Modus Ponens to conclude the assumptions of Line 2.

1. I
2. (~W v ~B) --> ~I
3. ~W              [PA]
4. ~W v ~B     [3, ADD]
5. ~I                [2, 4, MP]

If our PA (that reasoning was not valid in the past) is true, then we can conclude that reasoning is not valid in the present. In actuality, this was the longer proof. There is an easier explanation.

Remember earlier where we proved that reasoning has to be valid no matter what? Well if we think creatively, we can just apply it to thinking in the past or the future. If, at any given point in the past, reasoning was invalid, then the proofs we showed would have to take effect. If, at any point in the past, someone asked these same questions, they would still be able to draw the same conclusions (assuming that everyone in the past knew the laws of thought, which they didn't).

The word of "God" comes at a cost.

Given this, we have shown that the laws of thought, reasoning, logic and rationality have to be true, and always have to be true in the past, present and future. It's quite a lengthy explanation, and I speculate that this will be one of my less popular posts for that reason, but I felt it needed to be done; because while there is a large number of people who know that people like Ken Ham, Eric Hovind and Sye Ten Bruggencate are absolutely full of it, there are many more who watch videos such as the one in question and think "ooooh Randi's on the run, nice job Hovind!" It's stupid.

But then again, what should I expect from a video that turned into some advertisement for "Christian debate tactics?" People like Eric Hovind are just milking their pseudo-intellectualism as much as they can to make a profit, which is shown by the fact that they're asking you to pay for a DVD set which supposedly teaches you how to defend your faith (without a doubt using the faulty logic they use), instead of just, you know, sharing it with their fellow Christians? This may just be my opinion, but it seems really greedy to me for someone to say "I know how to defend Christianity against the atheist movement, so send me $19.95 and I'll get you the DVD right away!"

Thank you all for reading.



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