Tag Archives: psychology

Ugly People Commit More Crimes?

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"Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they're also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood."

….

"These economists found that the long-term consequences of being young and ugly were small but consistent. Cute guys were uniformly less likely than averages would indicate to have committed seven crimes including burglary and selling drugs, while the unhandsome were consistently more likely to have broken the law."

(Fedora Tip: reader Advogado de Diabos)

What I'd like to know is if the study focused solely on blue-collar crime. There have been other studies suggesting that attractive people are more likely to succeed in the white-collar job market. Consequently, I'd be willing to bet that attractive people commit a disproportionate number of white-collar crimes. Unfortunately, in typical MSM fashion, there's no link to additional information. Anybody out there know more about the variety of crime statistics involved in this study?

Gloom and Doom

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I learned that today is considered the most depressing day of the year from a news broadcast. Apparently, it’s because today’s the day when people wake up, realize they won’t really make good on all of those New Year’s Resolutions, and life goes on.

You’re kidding me, right? That’s what makes today the most depressing day of the year? If the news is going to go all gloom-and-doom on me, I expect some freakin’ gloom and doom. I mean, seriously! Today’s the most depressing day of the year because people break their stupid resolutions that they probably only made because they were a little drunk and maybe feeling guilty? Please. You want to talk about depressing? Try the day my kindergarten teacher told my class that we could all grow up to do whatever we wanted, and I said that we can’t all be astronauts because they only have room for 5-6 people in the space shuttle. Oh man, talk about an awkward recess…

What I’ve Been Saying All Along

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Democrats and Republicans are equally full of crap. (Fedora Tip: UnSpace and Grabass)

"Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows."

"And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view."

"Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered."

An Analogical Argument for the Legitimacy of Religious Experiences

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In the course of religious study, it is easy to become very attached to the idea of "seeking out" God. The emphasis is often placed upon logical reasoning and scientific research. There are, however, other ways of finding (or not finding, whichever the case may be) God. I am in particular referring to mystical/religious experiences. In these experiences, the subject believes that God has shown Himself to him/her. No intentional steps need be taken to induce these experiences. In fact, they are quite often unexpected and/or uninvited. These experiences often lead to those who have them to believe that God in some form exists.

Specifically, religious experiences are stated to be analogous to sensory experiences and therefore veridical. The following is an example of a simple argument for God's existence from analogy.

  1. Religious experiences should be considered to be analogous to sense experiences in cognitively relevant aspects and therefore a type of valid perception. (premise)

  2. When one perceives something, one generally has good, though not certain reason to think that the thing perceived objectively exists. (premise)

  3. Someone who is the subject of a religious experience generally has good, though not certain, reason to believe that God exists. (conclusion from premises)

I will concede that the argument as stated is somewhat inadequate. For instance, there are no explanations for why the premises hold. However, I have seen no explanations or contradictions which defeat it to my satisfaction. These weak arguments against the analogical argument for the veridicality of religious experiences are the subject of my criticism.

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