ISIS With A Silent I: Why Islam Must Take Responsibility For ISIS

20th November 2015 – Mali – 22 killed – Shooting

13^th November 2015 – France – 130 killed – Shooting

12^th November 2015 – Lebanon – 37 killed – Bombing

31^st October 2015 – Metrojet Flight 9268 – 224 killed – Bombing

10^th October 2015 – Turkey – 102 killed – Bombing

26^th June 2015 – Tunisia – 38 killed – Shooting

7^th January 2015 – France – 12 killed – Shooting

14^th April 2014 – Nigeria – 276 kidnapped

15^th April 2013 – USA – 5 killed – Bombing

July 2012 – Various – 50 killed – Violent protests in response to a rubbish film that denigrated Muhammad

30^th September 2005 – Various – 200 killed – Mass violent protests in response to the publication (in Denmark) of cartoons depicting Muhammad.

N.B. On the 14^th February 2015 the responsible cartoonist was allegedly targeted again in the Copenhagen shootings

7^th July 2005 – England – 52 killed – Bombing

11^th September 2001 – USA – 2977 killed

14^th February 1989 – Various – 37 killed – Ayatollah Khomeini (Supreme Leader of Iran) issues a fatwā calling for the assassination of Salman Rushdie having committed the crime of publishing a book that in one section re-narrates the life of Muhammad.

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If the left can’t agree on Corbyn then they can certainly agree on these two things:

1. Islam is not responsible for any of the aforementioned atrocities
2. It is the West’s or the victim’s fault that these bad things have happened

This is not a new response and has in fact been argued for over 20 years. It was Salman Rushdie’s fault that he received a fatwā; he shouldn’t have written a book about Muhammad and insulted 1.6 billion Muslims. Similarly, if you were to keep in touch with the news over the past two weeks you would know that the real reason ISIS exists is because of European Islamophobia/Iraq/Afghanistan/Assad/political instability/economic desperation.

If we can be sure of anything, it is that Islam plays little to no part in the worldwide crisis we have before us. Right?

As Medhi Hasan puts it: “The so-called Islamic State is “Islamic” in the way the British National Party is “British” or the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK) is “democratic” … Why the willingness to believe the hype and rhetoric from the spin doctors and propagandists of ISIS?”

It is common knowledge that anyone who suggests that Islam might be the problem is simply another Islamophobe. Now while this unfortunately tends to be true (see Britain First, Donald Trump etc.), the original proposition that Islam must take some responsibility for ISIS should be entirely uncontroversial. It is clear that this would be a very different war if Islam did not exist, and it is plausible that any strategy focused on critiquing Islam itself could be effective in dissuading potential ISIS recruits.

Now, before I go any further.

Obviously the vast majority of Muslims are not violent. They do not want to destroy the West.

Obviously the demonisation of Muslims and the closure of our borders is not a solution. Most victims of ISIS are Muslims and it would be completely wrong to confuse these victims of terrorism with the perpetrators. It’s despicable how few refugees the UK are helping in this time of international crisis.

However, it is disingenuous for commentators on the left to repeatedly tell us that Islam is not at fault. We can no longer allow ourselves to call this genocidal caliphate ISIS with a silent I.

“How could a terror group like ISIS speak for 1.6 billion Muslims?”

Of course they can’t. By this logic there isn’t really anyone that can speak for all Muslims. But if 0.1% of all Muslims bought into radical Islam then you would have 1.6 million radicals. Note that this doesn’t necessarily mean 1.6 million active terrorists, but 1.6 million Islamists that support more violent literalist interpretations of Islam. 0.1% would still be a significantly concerning number of people that subscribed to dangerous and violent views. My point being that it does not matter that extremist groups do not represent the majority of Islam, if even a small percentage do adhere to extremist views then we all have reason to worry.

Unfortunately, according to an oft-quoted Pew survey (2013), 0.1% could be a gross underestimation. Having surveyed over 38,000 Muslims over 39 countries they found some rather troubling prevalent beliefs.* Here are a couple of points I want to highlight from the report.

While on first glance this graph appears to be reassuring (in the sense that there are only 4 countries where over a quarter of respondents think that suicide bombing is often/sometimes justified) note that 1% can still amount to a lot of people. Also notice that while the title says most Muslims state suicide bombing is not justified, the graph actually tells us that most Muslims think suicide bombing is never/RARELY justified. I believe that is quite different.*

It is important to remember that interpretations of Sharia can be quite varied, but let’s not forget that for some it can include: imprisonment for blasphemy, death for apostasy (leaving Islam), limited legal rights for women, imprisonment for homosexuality, and stoning for adultery. This is not an exhaustive list but should give you a flavour of what Sharia’s about.

There are in fact several countries that currently implement Sharia law.

In Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh you can be executed for blasphemy.

You can be punished in the UAE for adultery or pre-marital sex with flogging.

In Qatar the punishment for alcohol consumption or ‘illicit’ sexual relations is flogging.

“ISIS are not a religious movement, they are a political movement that uses religion”

The aforementioned examples of the implementation of Sharia law bring me to my next point. It is wrong to say that there is a disconnect between Islam and politics. They are interconnected and influence each other. At the very least Islam is helping to sustain political beliefs and legal systems that we in the West would consider primitive.

There is of course some truth in the complaint that there is something of a disconnect between some of the ISIS recruits and Islam. In fact, MI5 published in a report that many ISIS recruits had little knowledge of the Qur’an and one news story amusingly highlighted a couple of martyrs that saw fit to buy an “Islam for Dummies” book.**

Unfortunately, we are still left with the question of why does using Islam work? For their marketing strategy to be effective we have to assume that there are people out there that respond to their message, which is patently an Islamic message. ISIS are not searching for just anyone to fight for the nations of Syria and Iraq against the oppression of Assad and the West. They are searching for Muslims to fight for Muslims. This is not an issue of nationality, this is a matter of shared belief.

At this point we could consider whether this war is merely a symptom of the in-group versus out-group mentality that we are all born with. For some this condition is manifested by nationalism, for others by football rivalries, for past generations by Marxism, and for this generation of extremists by Islam. This is a powerful argument that is capable of explaining why people from different countries, raised in both the Middle-East and the West rally to a singular call to battle. Superficially, it also somewhat lets Islam off the hook as it suggests we are dealing with a psychological phenomenon that is not particular to Islam. This makes the next point more important. While it may be an eternal sickness of the human race that we feel we need to fight over group differences, it is essential that we find ways to weaken ideologies that lead to widespread violence. And it is much easier to critique the assumptions of Islam than it is Marxism. If you hold the atheist position that there is very little evidence for a god then it becomes much simpler to denigrate any violent ideology that is predicated on this belief.

“They do not preach REAL Islam”

This is exactly what ISIS say about all the good Muslims in the world. This complaint does not solve anything. It is brilliant that most Muslims choose to ignore the more vile sections of the Qur’an, but can we really be so alarmed that some Muslims have chosen to read them literally?

I’m personally a little surprised that everyone doesn’t take their religion literally. If I was told that there was a book in this world that was dictated/inspired by the creator of the universe and ultimate moral authority, and it contained rules I must follow in order to avoid an eternity (I’ll repeat for emphasis…ETERNITY) of pain/fire/boredom. I do not know on what grounds I would ignore any of the injunctions made in this book. But like I said, thank goodness people do!

The Qur’an doesn’t start well to be honest. Page 3 in my Qur’an has this gem:

“As for those that disbelieve, it does not matter if you warn them or not: they will not believe…They will have great torment.” (2:7)

It doesn’t get much better from there!

“God is the enemy of the unbelievers.” (2:98)

“Fighting is obligatory for you , much as you dis-like it . But you may hate a thing although it is good for you , and love a thing although it is bad for you . God knows, but you know not “ (2:216).

“Such are those that are damned by their own sins. They shall drink scalding water and be sternly punished for their unbelief” (6:70).

While I once again wish to re-iterate that most Muslims are peaceful and in no way are represented by these quotes in the Qur’an, it is a bit cheap to claim that Islam is the religion of peace and that it is a complete shock that anyone would find justification for violence in it.

ISIS and Creationism

If I have not convinced you that Islam is responsible for ISIS then allow me to phrase the debate another way. What if we were talking about Creationism?

Creationism is the belief that the universe and all life was created by God, and more specifically that human life began with Adam and Eve. We might not say that every Christian is a Creationist***, but nevertheless we can say that there are enough Creationists in the world spreading their beliefs to cause the science-minded of us to worry. There might be other factors than religion itself that predispose someone to becoming a creationist, for instance the environment that they are raised in. It may even be that they do not really believe but that the view is so prevalent in their community that it would be very socially costly to disavow Creationism. We would not say that biblical literacy is more likely to make you a Creationist, as the majority of Christian scholars do not subscribe to the view of pure Creationism. However, it would be very unusual if we asserted that Creationism had nothing to do with Christianity. That it was a perversion of Christianity. That most people don’t believe in it and that therefore there cannot be any link between the religion and the sincerely held erroneous belief.

It would be utterly bizarre if we didn’t at least consider the possibility that the way to stop the spread of Creationism was to critique Christianity itself.

The truth is that this is all very complicated. There isn’t one reason that people join ISIS and similar death cults.

Western warmongering played its part, economic instability may play its part****, Assad’s and Saddam’s sectarian genocidal dictatorship has undoubtedly played a massive part, but we are not being honest unless we admit that Islam has also played its role in the formation and sustaining of Islamic State.

We cannot deal with this crisis competently until we have an honest discussion about what makes this war so attractive to ISIS recruits. That discussion must involve the role of Islam and such a conversation would surely conclude that these militants are not fighting for Iraq, they are not fighting for Syria, they are fighting for Islam.

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“We are not killers. We are defenders of the prophet, we don’t kill women. We kill no one. We defend the prophet. If someone offends the prophet then there is no problem, we can kill him. We don’t kill women. We are not like you. You are the ones killing women and children in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This isn’t us. We have an honour code in Islam.” 

Cherif Kouachi (Charlie Hebdo massacre)

“I and thousands like me are forsaking everything for what we believe. Our drive and motivation doesn’t come from tangible commodities that this world has to offer. Our religion is Islam, obedience to the one true God and following the footsteps of the final prophet messenger. Your democratically-elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security you will be our targets and until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my people we will not stop this fight. We are at war and I am a soldier. Now you too will taste the reality of this situation.”

Mohammad Sidique Khan (7/7 bomber)

“It has become clear that the West in general and America in particular have an unspeakable hatred for Islam….It is the hatred of crusaders. Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people…We say that the end of the United States is imminent, whether Bin Laden or his followers are alive or dead, for the awakening of the Muslim umma (nation) has occurred”

Osama Bin Laden

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* I’ve actually picked a Pew survey that is relatively favourable towards Muslims. Another Pew survey (2002) found much bleaker results.

The worst thing about this survey is that once again ‘No’ includes rarely justified. Taking Jordan as an example, if rarely justified was counted as ‘Yes’ then the line of percentages would read: 65 26 8.

I encourage everyone to read the full Pew report (2013) as it contains a lot of interesting information about modern Muslims. It’s not all doom and gloom, the report found that the majority of Muslims don’t think there is a tension between devout and non-devout Muslims; few Muslims believe that their faith is incompatible with modern society and science; there is also widespread support for democracy. My point in selecting the two examples I did was to suggest that there is clearly a strong link between classical Islamic beliefs and the modern Muslim’s belief in Sharia and (to a lesser extent) martyrdom.

** Though should we assume that increased academic knowledge of Islam relates to more sincere belief?

*** I mean this in the purest sense as presumably every Christian is a Creationist to some extent.

**** Sam Harris points out that Ahmed Omar Sheikh (who organised the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl) studied at London School of Economics, Hezbollah operatives that die in violent operations are less likely to be from a poor background and more likely to be educated to a secondary school level, and the leaders of Hamas are all college graduates. Therefore suggesting that belief is a more powerful motivator than socio-economic background. Though this should be clear to us by now as militants are being recruited to ISIS from all over the world.

Election 2015: Please Give A Shit

It’s election time and it’s already been an entire 5 years since we had the opportunity to vote for that MP who lives where we live and has made our district better? Probably? I don’t really know. Who cares. If you’re like me, you’re a broad stroke voter who only cares about big stuff, like the economy? Maybe? Not enough to really properly learn about how it works, but enough to care if it’s ‘bad’, or better but in a ‘bad’ way. Listen, we’re getting off track!

This is possibly the most interesting election ever. And if that bit of hyperbole doesn’t make you want to read on then go off, watch this, and thanks for playing:

For the purpose of this blog, the relative merits of the political parties don’t matter. Once I’ve bothered to read the manifestos, I will explain who I am and am not voting for and why. But for now, all I want to do is make you care about voting.

A Yougov poll recently revealed that more than 2 million young people like myself will abstain from the vote. So what I want to get across is that you can’t not vote. Not voting is a vote for things to stay the same. You’re leaving your future in the hands of the people that have presumably always voted against your interests. Older people have generally always voted and younger people have generally not given a shit. That’s why so many wonderful pension benefits have been rolled out ahead of the election, and also why student fees have tripled. Why would they act in our interests if we don’t act interested? If you’re not happy, you need to punish them.

Don’t listen to Russell Brand, if you can’t find a party that represents you perfectly then find one that mostly does. This will lead the political discussion in a certain direction and drag everyone with it. If that sounds fanciful then think of how the joke parties of 2010 like UKIP and the Greens are starting to scare everyone because they just might do something in this year’s election. Think of how the SNP are in the process of eradicating the influence of all the English-based parties in Scotland. Think of how the Liberal Democrats went from being plucky no-hopers to real movers in government after just three televised debates where Nick Clegg won us all over.

If you’re European-minded then think of Alexis Tsipras, leader of the Syriza party in Greece. You may have heard of them in the news. Well, this radical political party was founded a mere 11 years ago, and now they are in charge because they rallied the nation’s young voters.

If you’re not European-minded, but are instead historically-minded then just think about the history of the Labour party for a bit…

Not giving a shit leads to things you don’t want. Just as an example, I know several people were alarmed that UKIP ‘won’ the European Parliament elections in Britain. Ask yourself, are you one of the people who didn’t worry about UKIP because you thought that when it came down to it no-one would be crazy enough to vote for them? Well that didn’t happen then and it might not happen now. You’re giving the voters that you disagree with free rein, allowing them to make things better for themselves possibly at your expense.

The whole point of voting is change. That’s why we don’t have mad Kings and Queens who get to capriciously make rules any more. Voting does change things and I hope I’ve given you just a flavour of how quickly real change can happen. The political landscape today is completely different from 2010.

A recent BBC3 programme, An Idiot’s Guide to Politics tried to get to the bottom of why the young don’t vote and came to the conclusion that it’s because politicians lie all the time and we feel that therefore there is no point. While this explanation has the wonderful quality of taking the onus off us, I feel that it is a bit too generous. I personally think it’s because we’re not taught a lot about it in our education, AND that we genuinely don’t give a shit.

Why does the lying politician line not fly with me? Well the fact is that when you and I get older we are going to vote (and we’re more likely to vote Tory), we will suddenly give a shit because we feel it affects us. Not because politicians will become more honest as we age, but simply because we will perceive that politics is affecting us more. It’s a vicious cycle where politicians don’t help out the young because they don’t vote, and the young don’t vote because the politicians don’t help them out.

So let’s talk about this election; what the fuck is going on?

If the polls are anything to go by then there’s barely anything in it between the two major parties: Conservative and Labour. Indicating that we may be in for consecutive hung parliaments and another coalition.

What makes this really juicy is the supporting cast!

With the polls indicating that the Liberal Democrats will accrue a mere 10% of the vote and that the key players are less than certain of their seats, it seems that dreams of a decade of Lib Dem rule spectacularly exploded within 6 months of gaining some superficial power. It’s been so bad that even the offer of free money to every tax payer has not spared them.*

Now that the Lib Dems are not the king-makers they were 5 years ago, what wild cards do we have to think about this year?

The Green party have leapfrogged the Lib Dems in popularity among the young for no apparent reason. It was something to do with them not being allowed on TV with Dave Cameron, even though Dave Cameron really wanted them there, so much so that he threatened to not be on TV any more. Some such bullshit. Anyway, for the time being they have a growing support mainly made up of younger people who have responded to a radical party that offers them real revolutionary change…and amusing viral videos.

The Scottish National Party are predicted to possess the third highest amount of seats. This seems strange for a party that is apparently perpetually locked in a gentleman’s agreement to not vote on issues to do with England. Stranger still, a party that wanted nothing to do with Westminster 6 months ago. But I guess they deserve their luck, as they managed to make the Scottish give a shit about politics and stuff. Even if the shit they gave was to confirm their position as a large county in the north of England.

Finally, we have UKIP, the one you know everything about so I probably don’t need to cover it here.

There are a lot of possibilities here. It’s not just a straightforward Labour versus Conservative punch-up any more! The major parties need to appeal to an electorate they haven’t faced before – a more nuanced electorate. Your vote will really influence the direction of the next 5 years. A vote for these smaller parties reduces the power of the large parties and they will need to find ways to appeal to us again. Anyone who doubts this should think about how the both Conservative and Labour in the aftermath of the European Parliament elections have tried to appeal to UKIP voters rather than dismiss them as fanatical.

We could have:

Conservative – Liberal

Labour – Liberal

Labour – SNP

Labour – Green

Conservative – UKIP

There could be crazy concatenations of three or more parties!

So please young people of Britain, give a shit. The fact is that if anywhere near 2 million extra people voted this summer then things really could change in a weird and unpredictable way. I don’t want to beg you to vote because I want to push an agenda (those blog posts come later). I just want you all to mix things up, keep things interesting, make sure our votes matter, and give a shit.**

*If I were in charge I’d have ingeniously called the raising of the tax allowance to £10,000 a free money pledge

**It’s occurred to me that this ‘give a shit’ thing is turning into a bit of a line, potentially a political line. I’m okay with this.

Can Everyone Please Stop Moaning About These Stupid TV Debates!

This issue has already taken up too much time on the news and I can’t stand it.

David Cameron doesn’t want to be thrown to the lions on TV and get slaughtered by anyone that wants a piece.

This slightly cowardly move clearly does not show him to be the bold, daring, charismatic leader that we may all want, but it also doesn’t make him aloof, uncaring, or stupid.

It is my personal opinion that the leader and the principle opposition should be forced to do a televised debate at every election. These televised debates are a much better advert for politics than Prime Minister’s Questions and they get the young involved. BUT we should never be surprised that the majority party does not want to do them, there are obvious and pragmatic reasons for this. We are basically asking the turkey to vote for Christmas.

Cameron has nothing to gain from these debates. NOTHING. His role will be to stand there and let every other party throw shit at him (hopefully metaphorically). These debates are king-makers and king-breakers, where the charisma of one person for one hour may help you decide whether to vote for that random MP that lives near your house.

Think of how the Liberal Democrats hadn’t had a sniff of power for decades, but on the back of Nick Clegg’s flooring of the main parties in the 2010 debates they have afforded themselves significant influence of government policy.

Think of how Gordon Brown became reduced to a man with a terrible, child-scaring smile by the media.

Think of how Nigel Farage is a man who would be nothing without TV. After spending numerous unglamourous hours on television being condemned as a lizard-faced racist he has managed to build a solid platform for UKIP. He has even managed to wipe the floor with previous debating champion Nick Clegg on the issue of the EU, as well as securing victory in the European Parliament elections for the party you thought everyone hated. All this success is born out of Farage’s ability in front of a camera, and he now leads the party that scares everyone.

If you’re not quite done thinking yet, then you could even think of how the Green party found great popularity for not being allowed on TV with Dave Cameron, an issue that greatly upset him. I count this as the second most bizarre and dull news story of the past year.

What I’m getting at is that yes, it would have been great for him to accept the schedule. It would be better for the electorate, and frankly I think it would have been better for him. We all know he would have wiped the floor with Ed Miliband, anyone that needs evidence of this just needs to watch any replay of PMQs over the past 5 years. Just to cover myself against left-wing retribution, I didn’t mean that he would have won because the coalition has nailed governance and that everything is perfect. Ed Miliband is just shit at debating: you know it, I know it, and he probably knows it.

But Cameron had two options and both were a gamble.

1. DEBATE

Take on the debate and risk being made to look like a moron on TV, whilst simultaneously raising the profile of Labour and other parties.

OR

Take on the debate and boss it

2. CHICKEN OUT

Leave the debate and bet on the fact that if they ’empty chair’ him, that no-one in the world can be bothered to listen to Ed drone on for an hour about how things would obviously be great if he were in charge. I don’t know about you guys but I’m watching for the scrap! It would be a bit boring to watch a fight between one people.

OR

Leave the debate and thanks to the sheer willpower of the news everyone moans about him not being on TV without rest for a month, until the public inevitably pick up sound bites from Ed Miliband’s solo debate from the news and Labour experience a tidal wave of support.

However, ingeniously he went for option number 3. He’s attempted a best of both worlds option by debating every person and their mother on television. 7 parties on stage! 7! Just think, if they all moan about what they would do to make the world perfect for 5 minutes each, then boom, 35 minutes gone. That leaves no time to bully Cameron over the tie he is wearing, or whether he can see #thedress properly.

So listen, feel free to hate Cameron but he did not make a crazy decision designed to insult the electorate. Feel free to think that this move is a comment on his character and that you should not vote for a man that is so camera-shy. You can even feel free to imagine that he tremors at the thought of debating Miliband for the 100^th time. But please recognise that he’s in a terrible position and it’s unnecessarily moany of us and the news to bang on about it for this amount of time.

It’ll be interesting to see whether the next party to rise to power 100% commits to the debates next time round.

Any thoughts or vile hysterical rantings? Please comment below.

Play Pals – Minecraft Special – Jamie: Born Survivor

Play Pals

Not only do I moan about stuff, but I also make youtube videos!

Feel free to leave your praise or your pity right here…

Correlations: Too boring to think of a title for…

Greetings my brain-box disciples! How’s life going? Fabulous.

This week I will be touching on a wholly dull and atypically uncontroversial topic, correlations!

Having studied statistics for one and a half years I feel you are all qualified to tell me what this graph suggests, take a moment if you need it. Done? Being the kind of learned student who brushes their teeth every morning with more difficult conundrums than this, you will probably scoff at my ignorant younger self. I would’ve taken one look at this and confidently declared that the more lemons the USA had imported, the fewer fatal highway crashes there would be as a result. Thanks past me, not the first time you’ve screwed me over! Many graphs like this exist and are quite funny to look at, apart from one linking an increase in the number of pirates and global warming…never mess with pirate stats.

You no doubt have correctly concluded that correlation does not imply causation. Maybe you’re curious as to how this blog is even worth your time? Am I going to tell you anything vaguely worthwhile? I believe this is useful to society at large, as franky, many people are not aware of the fallacies that surround correlation (not to say my blog is specifically useful to society, but the general publication of factually correct information). I refuse to live in a world where the news print a graph and use it to justify to the unlearned something that is statistically unsound. So you can receive this blog in 3 ways:

1. A ineffectual attempt to educate the masses
2. A gentle exploration of the usefulness of correlation designs
3. A shorter blog than normal to trawl through

Correlational research cannot imply causation as that is not what it is trying to find. Correlations are purely used to see if there is any discernible relationship between variables, not whether A caused B. Two issues arise once you try to venture down that avenue:

Direction – Did A cause B or B cause A? Does a broken family cause depression or does depression cause a broken family?

Third variable issue – Are both variables influenced by a third, unknown variable?

Therefore, because correlations do not give any information in regard to the direction of the relationship or even whether it is an influential relationship, it is an invalid assumption that we can learn anything causal from a correlation.

A second issue is related to the assumed linearity of a correlation, critics have suggested that the Pearson Correlation does not completely characterise the relationship between the two variables. Anscombe demonstrated this with his quartet, a set of scatterplots that all have the same mean, standard deviation, correlation, and regression line. You will note that all of the datasets are completely different and that the numbers have not necessarily explained the relationship.

So what are the values of correlational research? If it can’t tell us anything about the cause, is it a largely redundant statistical endeavour? Stanovich (2007) suggests that firstly, most scientific hypotheses are stated in terms of correlation and are therefore crucial to studies; secondly, that correlation research can indicate the correct direction for research into causation, whether the results of a study produce a strong correlation or not. If we can link two variables together, then we can darn sure design further research to explore that relationship. Likewise if two variables do not correlate then we can take our research elsewhere. So while correlation studies don’t find the root variable themselves, they are a key stepping-stone to finding it.

Will try and rack my brain for something super awesome to blog about next time.

Laterz geek squad.

Statistics: Are They Significant?

Yo! How are we doing stats nerds? Good? Great…

                              SIGNIFICANCE

                                                                POWER

Wildcard week is a bit of a bitch as I’m actually forced to think of something interesting to blog about, but I persevere! Whilst randomly searching things like ‘statistics, statistics = stupid, p = I hate liiiife’ into google I came across an idea I’d never considered before. What if I don’t need statistics? Hear me out, you may go through the same existential, life-evaluating crisis I did but please try to hold on to your sanity. Since I started studying psychology, statistics have been everywhere and like me you may have thought that science = stats. I’m joking, of course you wouldn’t! You’re clever, critical and beautiful whilst I am ugly and reduce everything to its bare bones to make things easy for myself. Incidentally, does anyone think that stats genuinely do equal science? Let me know. As far as I’m concerned, it’s what the statistics represent that make science so scientific; we can show through statistics that our results are unlikely to have happened by chance i.e. in the case of rejecting a null hypothesis, there is less than a 5% chance of the null hypothesis ACTUALLY being true and of a Type I error occuring (false positive). Lovely, science has been done! Our conclusions are based on rock-solid numbers and probabilities rather than guesstimates and intuition.

But, should statistical significance be significant? There has been a number of concerns raised over the limitations of this approach. A significant result allows us to say ‘these results are unlikely if the null hypothesis is true’, however, this leads us into the trap of inferring that there is less than a 5% chance of the null hypothesis being true. This is not the case as our statistics are based on the data, and do not test the null hypothesis. It’s sort of like saying:

Hypothesis: All psychology students are awesome

Stats: There is less than a 5% chance we would have found the results we did if psychology students weren’t actually awesome

THEREFORE

There is less than a 5% chance that psychology students aren’t awesome

Our tests allow us to make decisions about our data, but they do not allow us to do anything more than infer conclusions about the null hypothesis.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that a significant treatment effect doesn’t necessarily indicate a practical treatment effect. Would you want to use a drug that has been shown to have shown some effect but not a very large one? McClean and Ernest (1998) advocate the usefulness of effect size tests and stated that they could not find an article that argued against their usefulness, which suggests they have greater validity than the ‘controversial’ significance tests. However, Robinson and Levin (1997) have argued that statistical significance must always be tested for first before testing for effect size. As a psychology student, you may feel this is the way you have been taught to operate as well. Thompson (1998) considers whether you should not publish the findings of your study if your results show a moderate effect but are only significant to p < .06. And further goes on to suggest that this way of thinking is the fault of the publishing body (APA) and will discourage researchers from publishing effective studies if they are not significant enough.

Nakagawa (2004) contests that the rigorous testing of the significance of a result is leading to more Type II errors (false negatives). For example, he suggests that there is no consensus on when to use bonferroni tests (Perneger, 1998) and that due to their tendency to make significant results less significant, they add to a culture in which researchers are reluctant to report nonsignificant findings (Jennions & Moller, 2002). Sadly, we as humans are all too ready to beat ourselves up, when in fact a nonsignificant finding can tell us something useful. Most obviously, it can show us that something DOESN’T work, which can be useful in itself. Or, as Nakagawa goes on to explain, your findings could be found to be significant in the future.

Let me set the scene.

You’ve done an experiment, this experiment tests 10 variables (because you’re a clever bastard).

2 out of the 10 variables are found to be statistically significant.

Do you just publish your findings regarding the 2 variables or throw the whole darn kitchen sink at the publisher?

It may be tempting to only report your significant successes for fear of criticism.

But Nakagawa says that the full paper is of far greater use to the scientific community as your research adds to the pile and subject to a meta-analysis your work could help in discovering a significant effect, which is only apparent in the context of other research.

So where does this leave us? Is statistical significance important? Or are there just too many problems with the process? Is it a logical measure of probability? The fact that the debate has not been settled can only indicate that there are problems with it. Maybe effect size is a more useful indicator of efficacy than significance, and should be used exclusively?

The debate won’t be settled any time soon but based on current evidence we can only conclude that effect size and testing are at least as important as each other and it would be interesting to see whether they could survive without each other.

That was far too heavy for my liking, so to make up for it here’s a cat doing an impression of me when I was reading all this crap

Minecraft: The Most Overrated Sandbox Game Ever

Hello my fellow fellows. How are you? Oh…

Today I’m going to tell you why I truly hate Minecraft and think it’s one of the worst games I’ve ever played. I expect fainting in the aisles but please give me an opportunity to quickly qualify my argument with two preliminary points.

1 – This opinion is based entirely on my friends and how they play Minecraft; if my argument doesn’t represent Minecraft nerds properly then maybe they just do it wrong.

2 – This argument will probably be easier to understand if I reveal to you that I didn’t much like Lego as a child. Well…at least the building part of it, that was the least important thing on my mind. Building was merely what I was forced to do before I could craft a brilliant story about the great decapitation of the Lego people or the shocking revelation that my main character was wearing a wig the whole time.

IT’S JUST DIGGING!

Most of this game is digging and don’t you dare deny it! From what I’ve seen this game is definitely 90% mining and 10% crafting – the balance is completely off. To top it all off, the pay out in this game for all your hard work is so limited. I literally feel like I’ve gone to work for a long day in the mines. Anyway, I boldly take my arsenal of wooden/stone/diamond armoured pickaxes and set to work.

Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging. Digging.

Days pass and I’ve done quite a lot at this point. I am sat in quite the cavern, if I’m lucky I may have discovered my own Cave of Wonders minus the talking Tiger head and actual treasure. But never fear! There’s plenty of iron ore to go around! Perhaps some cobblestone? It is even conceivable that I have come across a treasure trove of gold or diamond. Oh wondrous day! My luck’s in! There may be 10, 15, 20 blocks of each? That’s practically enough to make me the golden bidet I’ve been hankering for. However, the total amount of gold, diamond, cobblestone and iron ore does not compare to the amount of dirt I have accumulated. Hundreds upon thousands of blocks of dirt neatly organised into piles of 64.

DiggingDiggingDiggingDiggingDiggingDiggingDigging

Would you believe that this can become tiresome? Most people don’t. Most people get a kick out of the digging and they can go for days! Apparently zombified, it is difficult to discern whether the Minecraft obsessive is exhilarated or a dead husk of a human. However, reanimation soon occurs once the Minecraft junkie stumbles across a couple of block of coal or iron ore. Then the shit really hits the fan! They perform their happiest prospector dance then begin the mind-numbingly boring process of digging again. Now I agree that I hardly look a picture when I’m settling down scoring goals on FIFA or sneaking around various exotic military compounds in MGS but I at least get the sense that I’m winning something. It’s a feeling I truly cherish – progression. When I play Minecraft I do not get this sensation, instead I feel ready to clock-off but unfortunately there’s still work to be done. I build and build on my mountainous reserves of dirt and other interesting items and it takes fucking ages.

DIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGINGDIGGING

So what about when we get to the crafting? Your reward for your hours of toiling away at the unforgiving dirt manifests itself in the opportunity to build whatever you like…within reason. In terms of complexity it’s not quite got the scope of fantastic contraption but if you really loved the bit in The Sims where you build your house but wish you had to lay every brick yourself then this is the bit for you! 2 hours digging should see you through to about 20 minutes building, which personally I found to be a bit of a kick in the teeth.

I unequivocally, absolutely and unreservedly refuse to accept that most people are into Minecraft for the creativity. Am I misrepresenting you? Is that totally unfair? Or is it true that you prefer to spend most of your time NOT in creative mode, which would grant you all the powers of Minecraft heaven required to build your very own Eden. But this isn’t what you want, is it? Indeed, I am accusing you of enjoying the digging. It seems to be all consuming! There appears to be this insatiable desire among gamers to hold R2/RB for as long as possible. This obsession is completely foreign to me and I am keen for you all to stop it.

That’s why when I see the crazily awesome things that people build and share online I feel my awed appreciation snatched away from me like a breath in cold water. I look at these pictures and think: Jesus H. Christ, how long did these take to build?

Frankly, it’s barely even a game. It’s a semi-blank canvas. Some of you may be into that but I most certainly am not. There’s no goal to achieve, no plot, no challenge. Yeah, I said it!

You might tell me that the goal is to create.

That there is nothing more exhilirating than painting the blocky Minecraft Earth; cementing your position as a great of the age named among the immortals: Picasso, Da Vinci, Minecraft Steve. Well all I’ve seen my friends do is devote themselves for weeks to a vision, which often tends to be a bog standard mansion of varying shapes. They will work so hard just digging and digging and digging. Blood, sweat and toil all so they can admire their labour of love once it is finished. Then once the fricking thing is erected* they tell me about it (unable to wipe off the justifiably smug smile off their faces) and within a week they’ll have started a new map. They will even delete the save that holds their creation, they will not believe that the rest of the enormous map they inhabit is worthy of being populated by more than one creation, and they will once again begin the process of building another bog standard mansion.

You might even tell me that it is a challenge.

Well I find it hard to believe that a game is tough when on the hardest setting it is possible to survive the relentless horrors of the night by hiding in a box of dirt for 10 minutes. Your only real goal is to dig for as much crap as you can and as long as you have some form of light you’ll survive pretty much anything. At this point I will grant one concession, I do actually find it very difficult to maintain the will to dig and craft in this game. So well done you!

In many ways, Minecraft is a rubbish sandbox game but a perfectly serviceable sandbox in of itself. What I mean by that is that all the creativity is up to you. You can dare to create whatever springs to your imagination but you will tend to find yourself confined by the limited materials you have – much like the child that has the imagination to build a magnificent sand castle but ultimately is confined to using a finite number of materials to realise this vision. The actual game is not present for me. I understand the joy of creation as I have fleetingly felt it when playing Lego and The Sims, but I just can’t understand why it becomes an all-consuming devotion. Give me the ‘constrained’ sandbox games any day! Rockstar has consistently provided me with more fun within their own beautifully crafted sandboxes than any shitty amalgamation of dirt and stone that poor lonely Minecraft Steve can build (between villager stonings).

Well, I think that’s about it. What a load of shit.

*C======3

Classic Film Reviews: Schindler’s List

A recurring Liam Neeson theme seems to be emerging; hopefully I will diversify my tastes more whenever I see my next film. I feel it would be best to begin where I left off. I’m not going to lie, I found Liam Neeson strangely attractive in this film; what that says about me I don’t know, but Liam Neeson has never been more appealing to me than when he was playing a Nazi.

Frankly, I thought the whole film smacked of anti-semitism, which was displeasing. Steven Spielberg should have known better! Jewish characters were portrayed as second-class, dirty, and were often dead or dying. Whereas Nazi characters were presented as well-fed, well-liquored, and generally jovial. It was all in poor taste.

As for the style, I was disappointed to see that the film was in black-and-white. As we all know, black-and-white films are awful – no exceptions. Someone in production clearly knew this and had made a vain attempt to rectify the situation by adding the colour red to a random little girl’s coat. This effort was transparent and had ultimately done nothing to resolve the mistake of producing a film in black-and-white.

Furthermore, this was a long film. Really long. A film that was spread out (for my copy at least) over two discs. No-one should have to swap discs in the DVD player after unhealthy amounts of genocide are spread across their television screen. Another rather tasteless attempt to limit the potential boredom factor of witnessing mass genocide for 3 HOURS was the inclusion of many boobs. Though this was appreciated, I cannot shake the feeling that this was one of those few circumstances when soft pornography was not appropriate.

To wrap up, this was a tasteless film. The mixing of anti-semitic mass genocide sequences and soft pornography makes for a morally confusing cocktail. It is on this basis that I must deem this film worthy of a:

1/10

If only for Liam Neeson’s increased sex appeal.

Classic Film Reviews: Taken

This is a film about a badass man with a bitch-ass daughter and an annoying ex-wife who is married to a man so comical and uncool that the only logical conclusion is their partnership must have been a joke that went too far.

Liam Neeson is a very capable chap and little seems to go wrong in the finding and saving of his doped-up, dressed-down, debutant sex-slave daughter. That’s basically all the plot there is.

Now that’s over with let us discuss some niggling issues:

WHY does his daughter run everywhere? Seriously, watch it again, it’s really weird. She literally runs in every scene, what a whore she would have made! Packing more energy than the energizer bunny.

WHY are Lenore and Stuart such pricks when Liam returns his daughter relatively unharmed? Basically ignored him. Didn’t even offer a lift! Nightmare.

HOW determined can one fat man be to have sex with his purchase? So many died…

But more importantly, WHAT is it about Liam Neeson?

Seriously, I don’t get it. I don’t understand why he’s attractive. Whilst watching with several ladies I felt a palpable swoon with every action-packed scene as he fought relentlessly for his daughter’s freedom. But let’s get one thing straight – Liam Neeson is a fairly ugly man. NOT IN GENERAL… But for a Hollywood action hero he ain’t that great. Let me briefly talk you through why he does not compare in any category of Hollywood hotness.

Liam

Standard attractive

Old attractive

Rugged attractive

‘Sum of parts’ attractive (i.e. weird features but still attractive)

I hope you can see that Liam Neeson does not fit in with the Hollywood elite. He’s a bit too weedy to be rugged, a bit too frail looking to be old attractive, his beady tired eyes stop him from being traditionally attractive and his features don’t add up to a pretty mug.

Now here is why I’m weirded out that people think Liam Neeson is attractive.

He’s such a fatherly character! He’s world’s greatest Dad, not world’s greatest lover. Granted he does a lot of cool stuff, but it’s all in the name of protecting his simple daughter; not a femme fatale or plodding, lovable wife. The way the ladies in the room melted for him was enough to give me shivers. And it got me thinking, he’s a father-figure in most of his films (that I’ve seen)!

Star Wars – Father figure

Love Actually – Father figure

Batman – Father figure

A-Team – Father figure

So please, if you find Liam Neeson attractive then stay away from me. Particularly if you’re my child.