His line of reasoning is pretty shallow. Yes, there are some social & psychological arguments in favor of religion, but If killing is done in the name of religion, wouldn't we want to look a bit deeper into that, and discover why/how/when etc to try to correct for past (and current) mistakes. Simply saying that it would happen with or without religion is missing a good opportunity for learning more about ourselves and for growth as human beings.

Wouldn't normally want to agree with anything that was said in this video, but a similar thought occurred to me: He might not be completely wrong in what he said. Right for the wrong reasons, but still approximating the truth. Specifically, the point about 5% of black people actively working to undermine or harm white people and 50% of blacks going along with such actions in some sort of racial allegiance.

Well, besides the fact that the numbers are based on no research at all, the point is too narrowly defined and, in this context, necessarily racist. Having said that, I am willing to bet that there is a certain percentage of every ethnic group which actively hates and seeks to harm members of another ethnicity. Additionally, the 'bystander effect' is pretty well documented and most studies find that no one intervenes in violent situations about 50% of the time.

So perhaps, the point would be correctly expressed as: "Some percentage of people are ignorant and seek to undermine and harm others who they do not perceive as part of their particular cohort. In addition, about half of the human population has a social psychological tick which disables direct, empathetic action when witnessing a violent act" But, of course, that's not inflammatory enough to belong on some conservative blog.

>> ^Payback:

Near all of what was shown is obviously racist.
However, a statement or two have... merit?
http://fear.videosift.com/video/Another-Hate-Crime-Committed-in-America

Do you believe in atheists? Distrust is central to anti-atheist prejudice.
by Gervais, Will M.; Shariff, Azim F.; Norenzayan, Ara
Recent polls indicate that atheists are among the least liked people in areas with religious majorities (i.e., in most of the world). The sociofunctional approach to prejudice, combined with a cultural evolutionary theory of religion's effects on cooperation, suggest that anti-atheist prejudice is particularly motivated by distrust. Consistent with this theoretical framework, a broad sample of American adults revealed that distrust characterized anti-atheist prejudice but not anti-gay prejudice (Study 1). In subsequent studies, distrust of atheists generalized even to participants from more liberal, secular populations. A description of a criminally untrustworthy individual was seen as comparably representative of atheists and rapists but not representative of Christians, Muslims, Jewish people, feminists, or homosexuals (Studies 2–4). In addition, results were consistent with the hypothesis that the relationship between belief in God and atheist distrust was fully mediated by the belief that people behave better if they feel that God is watching them (Study 4). In implicit measures, participants strongly associated atheists with distrust, and belief in God was more strongly associated with implicit distrust of atheists than with implicit dislike of atheists (Study 5). Finally, atheists were systematically socially excluded only in high-trust domains; belief in God, but not authoritarianism, predicted this discriminatory decision-making against atheists in high trust domains (Study 6). These 6 studies are the first to systematically explore the social psychological underpinnings of anti-atheist prejudice, and converge to indicate the centrality of distrust in this phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)

It's not sports, it's not Canada, it's not the US...it's mob mentality. Social psychology, you cannot change. Sorry some things just are. The educated may be able to catch themselves falling victim to this primitive form of community, but the majority will succumb.

The Moon was a good, understated Sci-Fi that does what Sci-Fi does best: examine social/psychological issues by using imaginary scenarios. I can't stand how Sci-Fi has been co-opted by brainless Hollywood movie execs who think Sci-Fi should equal big budget action movies that require you to check your brain at the door. Movies like The Moon are a return to form and with the advent of cheaper special effects I can't wait for more filmmakers to usher in a new era of Sci-fi.

I haven't made it very far into the video, but I'm assuming the rest of it works under the original premises: We have free will, and the universe is deterministic.

I'm not confident in either of these assumptions. As far as we know, quantum physics is not deterministic (it's all probabilities). It may be deterministic, but we haven't found this to be the case so far. If quantum behavior is used in the brain (which some scientists think) then that could be a source of our inherent unpredictability even without the existence of "free will".

Free will is also suspect. As a notable neural biologist said, the more we learn about the brain, the less room there seems to be for free will (sorry, I forgot his name). Social Psychology has also documented the profound effect that the world around us has on our actions. One conclusion within Social Psychology is that "humans are primarily a product of their situations and genetics".

There is also the problem that the "soul" is currently undefinable. The general argument seems to be that "we do not completely understand human cognition, so there must be a super-physical component". That may very well be the case, but there are also plenty of cognitive models that fit our current understanding of the mind without the need for anything supernatural.

I thought the whole idea was to free up the admins from having to be involved in absolutely every case? If they have to evaluate each member of a jury then that is even more work than evaluating the "crimes" of one person.

If anything I'd say increase the majority needed to "convict" someone in a siftquisition (60%-70%?). I'm not a big fan of the jury system from a statistics and social psychology point of view, but in this case it would also seem to over-complicate things.

I say increase the majority needed for a siftquisition. If problems don't get resolved then admins can step in and do what is needed. They have enough work to do already.

The peoples' reactions aren't surprising at all.

People don't like being proven wrong publicly... it causes a lot of cognitive dissonance. The more strongly they have publicly supported their position beforehand, the more dissonance they feel from the contradictory evidence. You can see the lady in white trying to integrate the experience after the fact... she's trying very hard to find a way to explain the situation that doesn't involve her being completely wrong.

Did I mention how much I love Social Psychology? =)

Seems like Dawkins does too. He likes making examples out of people (to their distress apparently).

Social Psychology always gets my upvote!

Hi- I think this meets criteria for brain... http://www.videosift.com/video/Mihaly-Csikszentmihalyi-Creativity-fulfillment-and-flow

It's one of those videos which is (IMO) very enlightening and useful to all, yet has no obvious fit in any particular category.

In reply to this comment by jonny:
Thanks! I noticed you went through your vids to add some to the channel, but you can't use the invocation on your own vids - you have to use the 'modify video details' page to do it. I went back and added a few myself. Some (not all) of the others, though, I'm not so sure about. Basically, any video in the channel should provide some knowledge about how the brain or mind works to produce some particular behavior, as opposed to just demonstrating that behavior. I'm also avoiding social psychology for that reason as well. It's a bit of a tightrope walk - I want the channel to be well focused, but I don't want it to be too narrow.

In reply to this comment by winkler1:
Brain channel, cool!

Thanks! I noticed you went through your vids to add some to the channel, but you can't use the invocation on your own vids - you have to use the 'modify video details' page to do it. I went back and added a few myself. Some (not all) of the others, though, I'm not so sure about. Basically, any video in the channel should provide some knowledge about how the brain or mind works to produce some particular behavior, as opposed to just demonstrating that behavior. I'm also avoiding social psychology for that reason as well. It's a bit of a tightrope walk - I want the channel to be well focused, but I don't want it to be too narrow.

In reply to this comment by winkler1:
Brain channel, cool!

It's true...


Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments.
Kruger, Justin; Dunning, David
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol 77(6), Dec 1999, 1121-1134.

People tend to hold overly favorable views of their abilities in many social and intellectual domains. The authors suggest that this overestimation occurs, in part, because people who are unskilled in these domains suffer a dual burden: Not only do these people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it. Across 4 studies, the authors found that participants scoring in the bottom quartile on tests of humor, grammar, and logic grossly overestimated their test performance and ability. Although their test scores put them in the 12th percentile, they estimated themselves to be in the 62nd. Several analyses linked this miscalibration to deficits in metacognitive skill, or the capacity to distinguish accuracy from error. Paradoxically, improving the skills of the participants, and thus increasing their metacognitive competence, helped them recognize the limitations of their abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserve

>> ^Psychologic:
Wouldn't it be more likely that high crime and poor living conditions would cause more religious faith rather than the faith causing the crime? Hardship is a very strong reason for seeking a blissful afterlife.
That would certainly fit the findings of the study. He never really suggested causation.



I quote from Quirkology by Richard Wiseman (an awesome read, by the way): Chapter 3 "Believing six impossible things before breakfast: Psychology enters the twilight zone.", pg 102-103

"By the middle 1920s, inflation in Germany was so high that paper money was carried in shopping bags, and people were eager to spend any money the moment that they had it, for fear that it would be severely devalued the following day. By 1932, almost half of the population were unemployed. In 1982, Vernon Padgett from Marshall Universty and Dale Jorgenson from the California State University published a paper comparing the number of articles on astrology, mysticism, and cults, appearing in the major German magazines and newspapers between the two world wars, and the degree of economic threat each year.* Articles on gardening and cooking were also counted as controls. An index of economic threat was calculated on the basis of wages, percentage of unemployed trade union members, and industrial production. When people were suffering an economic downturn, the number of articles on superstition increased. When things were going better, they decreased. The strong relationship between the two factors caused the authors to conclude that:

'... just as Trobriand islanders surrounded their more dangerous deep sea fishing with superstitions, Germans in the 1920s and 1930s became more superstitious during times of economic threat.'

The authors link their findings with much broader social issues, noting that in times of increased uncertainty, people look for a sense of certaintity and this need can cause them to support strong leadership regimes, and believe in various irrational determinants of their fate, such as superstition and mysticism."

*V.R. Padgett & D.O. Jorgenson - 'Superstition and economic threat: Germany, 1918-1940', Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin #8, pages 736-74. 1982.

I guess you could look at the above study, and then look at what may occur within areas of the United States during this coming time of harsh economic crisis as well. Will it create an increase in religious belief/ferver and a higher degree of trust into other areas of superstition, the supernatural, and mysticism?

When times are hard, which I'm sure they are in some of the countries used in the study conducted which is discussed in the video, more people will want some sort of "control" in their out-of-control lives. They find that sense of "comfort" in handing control over to forces they believe to be "more powerful" than just mortal men and women.

Downvote for misleading content:

"A September 2007 article in American Psychologist that reviewed coverage of the Kitty Genovese murder in social psychology textbooks concluded the story of 38 witnesses is not supported by fact, and is more like a parable. See Manning, R., Levine, M., & Collins, A. (2007). The Kitty Genovese murder and the social psychology of helping: The parable of the 38 witnesses. American Psychologist, 62, 555-562."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

We had watched a vid and had a three day discussion about Enron in my ethics class, aswell as social psychology on group think.

One person tried to defend them, ... he failed epically.

PS This video sucks for buffer speed.