Why Captain Kirk Was Chasing The Voth

A few days ago I received an email from a fellow Trekkie with a question about quasars. As one does.

"WHAT !?!? AN EMAIL THAT'S NOT FROM A PSEUDOSCIENTIST ????"

"If quasars weren't extragalactic, what might they have (otherwise have been found to have) been ? Lest that sound too much like something from Velikovsky, rest assured I'm asking in terms of SF…or space opera anyway, for strictly Trek-related reasons. Let me explain.

I breathed a sigh of relief at the Velikovsky dismissal, because I've had just about enough of dealing with wackos who think they understand science better than scientists. But I digress.

As you may or may not know, Trek's episode "Galileo 7" cited Kirk's "standing orders" to "investigate all quasars and quasar-like phenomena." This order was cutting-edge in 1967, when quasars' nature and location(s) were unclear. Today it's an anachronism…but my bent for "aired data is factual" Treknological speculation has me longing to be able to say more than, "If taken at face value, these orders imply the very COSMOS of [original series] Star Trek differs fundamentally from our own." "

Well, indeed, I am acutely aware of the episode in question. It's a great episode where we see some fundamental character conflicts that were barely seen in later Trek seasons. But the notion that Captain Kirk could take the Enterprise off on a study of quasars is, as everyone knows these days, just plain silly.

Of course, the rest of the show was a masterclass in subtle understatement.

What are quasars, anyway ?

Quasar, for those of you not in the know, is a short form of "quasi-stellar object" : things that look a bit like stars, but aren't stars at all. They were discovered in the early 1960's using radio telescopes (that they featured in Star Trek as early as 1967 is a credit to the writers). The name comes from the fact that they were bright sources of radio waves but with only a star-like object seen in visible light. At the time, no-one even knew how far away they were, let alone what they were.

Pretty soon though, someone measured the redshift of one of them - that is, how fast it's moving away from us. It was found to be a whopping 48,000 km/s (a hundred million miles per hour, or nearly three hundred billion furlongs per fortnight) - much, much faster than anything in our Galaxy. Later, galaxies were discovered at the same positions as the quasars. So it's now a certainty - yes, really, a certainty - that quasars are very distant, incredibly bright objects.

48,000 km/s is about 15% of the speed of light, which is jolly fast. Accelerating something as big as a star to that speed takes an enormous amount of energy - roughly speaking the entire energy output of our Galaxy for a year. So for quasars to be natural, nearby objects is basically a non-starter. But other galaxies are doing this quite naturally - pretty much all of them, really (much more on this later). The more distant a galaxy is, the faster it's moving away from us, a discovery known as Hubble's Law though the real credit should go to Georges Lemaître*.

* Interestingly, it seems that Hubble didn't believe redshift was really equivalent to speed, but we'll get back to that later.

Anyway, quasars are tremendously far away (many hundreds of millions of light years), so they have to be extremely bright. But they can't just be unusual galaxies - as we've seen, their host galaxies don't look all that weird - because their brightness can vary on a timescale of days. Galaxies don't, indeed, can't, do that.

Whatever quasars are, they have to be small - no more than the distance light travels in a day or so (about 26 billion kilometres, several times the distance to Pluto). Since nothing can travel faster than light, if they were any larger than that there's no way the change in brightness would vary consistently across the object : some parts would be bright while others were dim, and vice-versa. It would all cancel out so it would look like there was never any variation at all.

Long story short, our current best guess for what quasars are is something like this :

The idea is that quasars look different from different viewing angles. So if we happen to be looking straight down the jet, they look very bright; if we're edge on and looking at the torus, they're dimmer. Image author unknown.

A huge black hole (by the standards of black holes, which is still tiny compared to galaxies) gobbling up material which swirls around it in an accretion disc. Before it falls in to the hole itself, from which nothing can escape, it gets hot and radiates energy. It turns out that accretion is one of the most efficient ways to release energy, second only, perhaps, to a matter-antimatter explosion. This is not so much because of the mass of the black hole, but more because that mass is very concentrated.

Imagine you dug a hole right down to the center of the Earth, and, feeling reckless, you jumped in. Obviously, you'd get faster and faster. But while your speed would always increase right until you met a miserable fate at the bottom of the hole*, your acceleration would steadily decrease. The further down you went, the less mass there'd be pulling you down. For a solid sphere, it turns out that you only feel the pull of gravity from the mass beneath you - all the mass above you cancels out.

* I said you dug a hole to the center. I never said it went right out to the other side.

This Wikipedia illustration is too sensible. It even puts
the little dude inside an elevator so the tunnel can be
a vaccum.

Not so with a black hole. To squish the Earth into a black hole we'd have to make it about the same size as a pea. Let's suppose we were clever and stupid enough to do this. Well, we'd suddenly find ourselves floating in space with a black hole now around 6,000 km below our feet. We'd start falling... but this time our acceleration wouldn't decrease. It would get higher the closer we were to the hole. All of the mass of the Earth would still be beneath us right until the bitter end - which means we end up with a much higher final speed (as in near light speed, though things get horrendously complicated with such strong gravity), releasing more energy.

Funny thing though - our initial acceleration wouldn't have been any greater than if we'd dug a hole. Turn the Sun into a black hole and it wouldn't start sucking everything in, in fact it wouldn't pull on us any more strongly than it does now. Even at where the surface of the Sun is now, the gravity wouldn't be any stronger - but get closer, and things get much, much worse. It's the concentration of mass that makes things go haywire, not the amount of mass.


What about Kirk ?

That's enough about science (said no-one, ever*). How can we reconcile what we know about quasars today with Kirk's standing orders ? Well... we can't. The Enterprise was limited to exploring our own Galaxy, it couldn't go flying off to study distant quasars. Unless... what if we got that whole redshift thing wrong ?

* No-one worth knowing, at any rate.

Bad news, we didn't. We know quasars are extragalactic because we've seen their host galaxies, remember ? But maybe we can make this work with what we knew about quasars in 1967.

The "quasar" as it originally appeared in the show. In the remastered version it looks like this.

The strictest definition of redshift is that the frequency (wavelength) of light is altered. It doesn't actually mean things are very far away or even moving very fast. There are actually three ways we know of creating redshift : 1) Expand space between us and the object; 2) Move it very fast; 3) Put it in a strong gravitational field.

Expanding space is basically the real-world answer (that's why galaxies can have high redshifts), sheer speed is something we'll come back to in a moment, as is strong gravity. Suffice for now that the latter two have problems.

Some astronomers were so startled by how frickin' bright they would have to be if they were as far away as redshifts would conventionally suggest, that they proposed a fourth mechanism : intrinsic redshift. The idea was that the light was emitted at at different frequency to begin with, but as to how this was supposed to happen was anyone's guess. It wasn't an outrageous idea, it just didn't work.

So that leaves us with gravity and speed. If we have incredibly strong gravity, we can create the same redshift we'd normally mistake for extreme speed. From this formula, all we need is the size of the object, its distance and redshift, and we can work out its mass.

We've got the redshift from the observations, so that's easy. We can place an upper limit on the distance given the size of the Federation (about 8,000 light years across) and the highest resolution observations available in 1967 (about 1" or 0.0003 degrees) - any larger than that and quasars would have looked like diffuse objects rather than stars, even with telescopes of the 1960's. Allowing the Murasaki quasar to be around 5,000 light years from Earth, this gives us an upper size limit of around 0.024 light years or 1500 AU.

Aaar ! Thaat quasaaar be one aaarcsecond across, arrr !

That means we now have size, distance, and redshift, so we can work out mass - which turns out to be 9 billion times the mass of the Sun, or 15% of the stellar mass of the Milky Way. The density wouldn't be that great by everyday standards (about 300x less than water, about the same as ordinary clouds), but it would still be staggeringly huge compared to most of the matter between the stars. The free-fall time (for it to collapse to a point ignoring everything except gravity) would be about two weeks. This could be prevented if the gas was hot enough, but the temperature needed to prevent collapse would be around six hundred billion Kelvin. Or Celsius. Or Fahrenheit. At that temperature it really doesn't make any difference.

An object that size with that temperature would have the energy output of five tredecdillion Suns. That's a number far larger than all the stars in the Universe. The energy received on Earth in one square metre would be the same as the total output of 200 Suns. This monster wouldn't be a planet killer, it would be a galaxy killer.

We'd die.

Admittedly, I'm pushing the equations well beyond their breaking points, but the point is that a giant nearby quasar with strong gravity is a bloody stupid idea.

But remember, the size limit was imposed only because of telescope resolution. Maybe we could still get equivalent gravitational redshifts from smaller objects ? Alas, not really. It turns out that to get a redshift of 0.15 (the lowest known), the light would have to be emitted from a radius only about four times the Schwarzchild radius, the size below which an object of a given mass becomes a black hole. As we've seen above, it's nigh-on impossible to get a large, stable object like a star that's so massive for its size.

But couldn't we just do this by having material emitting light when it's close to the surface of a different object, like a neutron star or a black hole ? In my email response, I made a mistake and said that to do this would require emitting material to be below the Schwarzchild radius, which is impossible. But that's not the case at all. Theoretically, you can get any redshift you like if the material is close enough to the event horizon.

Stellar mass black holes have event horizons ~10 km across, far smaller than the maximum 1500 AU size allowed by observations, so that's good. Emission that looks like it's at a redshift of 0.15 would have to come from around 350 km from the singularity. The problem is there's no obvious reason why the emission should peak at this distance - you'd have to somehow keep the material stable far above the hole itself, otherwise you'd see a much higher redshift as the material fell further in to the gravitational well. Also, apparently it just isn't possible to have material creating redshifts greater than 0.62, which are observed for many quasars.



What about a rocket ?

Good thinking, Batman ! The one remaining option to generating such high redshifts is sheer speed. But, how do we get material up to such a tremendously high speed ? Easy :

In the Trek universe, "aliens" are not only a perfectly valid explanation, but they're probably the most likely explanation. There's one alternative : white holes, a.k.a wormholes. Material falling into a black hole might be spat out of its opposite somewhere else in the Universe (but almost certainly isn't). Fortunately this one is easy to dismiss : in Trek cosmology, wormholes are very rare and very unstable (with one notable exception), nor do they ever eject huge quantities of matter. So these aren't a very likely explanation at all*.

* Naturally occurring jets from black holes can also reach tremendous speeds. The problem is that each black hole has two jets, pointing in opposite directions. So if quasars were actually black holes in our own galaxy, we'd see this second jet.

So natural explanations are out. Which leaves the question : what is it the aliens are accelerating up to such high velocities, and why ? Obviously, nothing larger than 1500 AU in diameter, but things which are bright enough to look like stars. So, stars then ? Well, as I mentioned, this would take a tremendous amount of energy, equivalent to the mass of a small asteroid in anti-matter. That's an awful lot in the Trek universe, but not out of the question. Also, of course, Trek science allows for faster than light travel - in reality this requires infinite energy. So maybe with Trek physics there could be a way to use far smaller quantities of anti-matter to achieve the same result.

There are a couple of other interesting observations about quasars that are also relevant in working out what the aliens are up to. One is that there are no quasars with blueshifts - they're all moving away from us, unlike some galaxies. That means that - accepting that quasars are not extragalactic, for the purposes of Kirk being able to visit them - they have to be a purely local phenomena. If other galaxies were spewing out there own quasars by some natural process, we'd see some of them heading toward us*. Which makes "aliens" a very plausible explanation indeed.

* In the real world, we don't see this because quasars are almost exclusively found in very distant galaxies, where the expansion of the Universe is much greater than their peculiar velocities.

The other interesting nugget is that quasars are found more or less evenly across the whole sky. Stars, of course, are not distributed like this - because we live in a spiral galaxy we see a band of them across the sky. Those outside the band are nearby.

With Earth at the center of the circle.

In reality, that means that quasars - if they are basically weird stars - have to be very close, within 2,000 light years or so. But since we've constrained quasars to be a local phenomenon distinct from stars, with redshift indicating speed, that's no longer the case. They can't be too far away though, or their density will be so low that Kirk is never going to be able to visit any. Say a cloud of about the same diameter as the Milky Way.

A huge cloud of star-like things rushing away from Earth is a plain ridiculous explanation in the real world, but totally satisfactory if you're allowed to say, "because aliens". Making this cloud about the size of the Milky Way also means that only a very few quasars will be within range of a Federation starship, so Kirk's orders then make a lot of sense. Not too close - or the Feds would already have investigated hundreds of the buggers - and not too far away, otherwise there'd be none to visit at all.


Enter the Voth

I mean, come on. A bunch of mysterious objects rushing away from Earth ? It could hardly be more sci-fi. A mega-engineering project to hurl stars out of our Galaxy is one possibility, a more obvious explanation is that quasars are in some way alien spaceships themselves.

Initially, I rejected the idea of star-hurling for several reasons. The energy requirements are huge, and their isotropic distribution implies something like an explosive event. But would the alien spaceship interpretation be any better ?

Given the brightness of the brightest quasar, and assuming it to be at a distance of 5,000 light years, it would be about 400 times as luminous (that is, its energy output) as the Sun. That's equivalent to combining 4 million tonnes of matter with 4 million tonnes of anti-matter every second. Which, for comparison, is roughly a cube of basalt (the densest rock) 100 metres on a side. With something as dense as the material inside a neutron star, things are a bit better - maybe 1 cubic metre per second or even much less, though storing such material is hazardous.

Hazardous here meaning, "mistakes will briefly make your starship shine as brightly as the Sun".

One wonders why aliens capable of such stupendous feats of engineering haven't, in the Trek universe, just invented warp drive like everybody else.

But let's assume they didn't. My initial thought would be that alien ships moving away from Earth that have been travelling for millennia sounds very much like the Voth. In Voyager, we learn that a bunch of dinosaurs managed to escape Earth before the asteroid hit (presumably before they even knew it was coming, otherwise deflecting an asteroid would certainly have been easier than launching a fleet of starships), eventually settling in the Delta Quadrant.

You know it makes sense.

The Voth are pretty advanced by Federation standards - they have transwarp drive and transporters which can beam aboard whole starships. But they're not nearly as advanced as one might imagine for a species that's been space-faring for 65 million years, and their politics is positively medieval. That suggests a generally very slow pace of development. They also command vast resources, with at least one spaceship that's tens of kilometres long.

They sound ideal. A species that's left Earth and has been travelling across the Galaxy, probably initially in very primitive craft. Presumably they would have travelled in many separate spacecraft travelling in different directions, to increase the chances that at least one of them would survive. So the Voth Voyager encounters need not be the only ones. Given Voth politics, it doesn't seem much of a stretch to suggest that maybe some of those others never even invented warp drive, and that's what 1960's scientists were observing as quasars.


Exit the Voth

But there are problems. The average speed to cross the galaxy in 65 million years is about 400 km/s. That's way faster than anything we have access to today, but it would still take over 3,000 years to reach the nearest star. Which is so long as to make the whole venture pointless, and given the Voth's stupendous feats of engineering, they ought to do rather better than that. We know they can manipulate energies equivalent to that of stars, which for a 10 km spaceship (assuming it to have a mass as though it were made of solid steel) should allow them to reach such a speed in a couple of seconds.

There's just no way the Voth - even the primitive ones - can be travelling so slowly. Especially given the redshift of what are supposed to be their ships, which are more than 100 times as great as their supposed initial speed.Worse, if quasars are spaceships, what exactly are we observing ? Their engine exhaust ? If so, we're seeing the engine exhaust rushing away from Earth...which means the ships themselves are heading right for us.

At this point I faffed an explanation, "maybe it's the bow-shock of their ships moving through the interstellar medium". Such features do exist around real-life high velocity stars (which are moving much more slowly than real quasars, < 100 km/s), but this is a stupid explanation. Only a tiny fraction of the material directly ahead of the ship would be forced up to the speed of the ship itself; the vast majority will be pushed aside into a tail.

Unnamed stars seen with Hubble.

The only realistic explanation of quasars for the Trek universe is that they are small, bright objects moving very rapidly away from us. That brings us back to the star-hurlers again.

What about Murasaki ?

OK, so by invoking some treknological solution, an ancient race of super-advanced beings started hurling stars out of the Galaxy several tens of millennia ago. One thing that worried me is that since no quasars are blueshifted, all of those stars would have to have been close to our own Solar System, suggesting a sort of explosion. That means not only having the mass of an asteroid in anti-matter, but also inertial dampers powerful enough to stop a star from being ripped to shreds.

However, as the inquirer pointed out, this isn't necessarily the case. The explosion could have been far away from Earth, if it occurred long enough ago that the stars flung towards us have now moved past us. Or, perhaps the stars were selected from completely random locations in the Galaxy but always flung away from the Galaxy, rather than specifically away from Earth. Redshift tells us about motion along our line of sight, but it doesn't mean the stars aren't also moving - from our perspective - across the sky.

So star-hurling it is then. Where does that leave the Murasaki quasar ? Err... floating around in space. That's about all, really. If we're saying that quasars are just ordinary but fast-moving stars, they wouldn't necessarily seem all that weird up close. I have absolutely no idea what the bow shock from a relativistic star would look like though. That Murasaki doesn't seem to have one could just a viewing angle effect - since we don't see a bright central source, perhaps the Enterprise was directly behind the quasar.

We're given precious little information about Murasaki. It's described as a "quasar-like formation", with "negative ionic concentration 1.64 times ten to the ninth power metres". I don't know what this means. "Ionic concentration" is an odd term, more suited to chemistry. Astronomers would probably talk of "ionization fraction" or just "ion fraction", for convenience - what fraction of the gas is ionized. Why it matters to specify that these are negatively charged ions, I don't know. As for the incredibly clumsy, "times ten to the ninth power", they could have just said "billion" or "giga". I guess they wanted to sound more sciency. And "metres" as a unit of concentration is like saying, "I'd like seven Pascals of sausages, please."

Quite. The second piece of information is that the radiation wavelength is 370 angstroms. That puts it in the UV band (almost X-rays), which will indeed ionise interstellar gas. So that one is totally accurate.

Finally, we learn that "Harmonics - upward along the entire spectrum". This could mean anything. A harmonic might refer to a multiple of some frequency of radiation, with interference being successively weaker at higher harmonics. Maybe.

The entire sector has been ionised : "four entire solar systems" - presumably referring to all of the interstellar gas. Well I suppose as it's travelling through space, it could be shock-heating the surrounding gas, ionizing it. Maybe.

In summary, Murasaki itself tells us nothing that prohibits it from being a relativistic star, though nothing that indicates it definitely is one either.


What if quasars really were high velocity stars ?

Or rather, what if quasars weren't giant, distant black holes ? Much more difficult to answer. Our Universe would require different physical laws, but just how different is impossible to say. No-one had predicted the existence of quasars prior to their discovery - so you might think that implies they're not all that important. The problem with that is that we barely had any understanding our galaxy evolution at all in the 1960's - after all, it was at that time only about 30-40 years since galaxies were proved to be distant objects.

There are two ways we could go about preventing quasars : change the laws of physics...

Oh, right, yes. Of course. Silly of me. Guess that option isn't available then. Anyway, I have no idea how much we'd need to alter gravity and/or themodynamics, let alone what would happen if we did. Probably nothing good.

The second option is to be semi-magical and say that pretty much everything in the Universe proceeded from the Big Bang just as it did in reality, until the point where quasars first formed. At that point, for some reason, they didn't. Exactly how important quasars are in galaxy evolution isn't clear. Oddly enough, the mass of the black hole correlates with the mass of a galaxy's bulge and even the angle of its spiral arms. There's probably some underlying common connection between the two, so preventing quasars might necessitate dramatic differences in galaxy structure.

Would this prevent the Universe from being habitable ? My guess is probably not. Many simulations have reproduced the basic features of the Universe without invoking quasars at all. That doesn't mean there might not be massive differences in detail though : totally different star formation histories of galaxies, different structures, maybe the wrong numbers of dwarf galaxies... all kinds of things. But I can't see any obvious reason why lack of quasars would lead directly to a lack of a Federation.


Why are the aliens doing this ?

What, you mean hurling random stars out of our galaxy at tremendous speed ?  The questioner suggested that it might relate, somehow, to the creation of the Galactic Barrier that (in Trek) surrounds the Milky Way. Possible, but it would have to be an indirect connection since quasars are distributed isotropically. Though I suppose this barrier might surround the entire galaxy like a shell, in which case its depictions in the show shouldn't be taken literally - for one thing, it couldn't be so visible at optical wavelengths, otherwise we wouldn't be able to see other galaxies.

A.k.a. the Very Pink Barrier, the Barrier of Slight Inconvenience,
or the Barrier of Thinking Two-Dimensionally.

Of course, there's always Q, if we're allowing other Trek series. Q is the sort of entity who would choose to randomly hurl stars into extragalactic space for the sole purpose of confusing bloggers. Which seems an entirely sensible possibility if you ask me.

Conclusion

Kirk's standing orders are a bloody nightmare to reconcile with real-world physics, bordering on impossible. It's barely possible to make them fit what was known in the 1960's, but, if we must, relativistic stars seem a strong possibility. No other natural explanation (that we know of) seems to fit - and the power requirements for alien spaceships don't seem plausible, especially given their absurdly slow speeds by Trek standards.

As for how the aliens have gone about hurling stars out of the galaxy, I have no really no idea. Their reasons for doing so, I think, are best left as an exercise for the reader.

The Unthinking Atheist

There's a peculiar phenomena I see frequently on the interweb - people who think that because they are atheists, they must be better people than those of a religious leaning. These people believe that any sort of faith is the source of all evil, and that if only everyone would just stop believing things the world would be a better, happier place.

Such people range from the very, very stupid sort who can't spell, to the extremely erudite and learned (i.e. Richard Dawkins). All of them share the conviction not only that there are no supernatural deities, but that no-one else should believe in them either. While most atheists simply go about their lives not believing in magical deities, this most peculiar variety spend an awful lot of time trying to unconvert people from their faith and frequently hurling vicious abuse at anyone who dares question them.

There are two quite unrelated triggers for this rant/essay. One is that I've just finished reading The Science of Discworld IV. For readers unfamiliar with the series, they're not books about the astronavigation skills of world turtles - rather, they use Discworld as a sort of lens through which to examine real-world science. And in this instance there's also a strong philosophical leaning (which is considerably more interesting than in the previous two books) that directly relates to much of what I want to blather on about here.

Obligatory world-turtle shot.

I thought about writing a full review of the book, but it's only one-half of the trigger. The other is the horrific killings at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (I'll only be tangentially referring to that though, and, lest there be any doubt let me state JE SUIS CHARLIE). So I'll be referring to SODIV frequently, but I've got my own ideas to explore as well.

What I want to raise attention to is partially the abusive, hate-filled attitude of certain atheists (a provisional label that I'll return to later) , and partially the closely-related issue that many atheists feel they no longer need to question whether religion is a good thing. For them, it is an absolute certainty : any religious ideas, even those which are very moderate, are inherently bad and must be stamped out. That they are so disgusted with religion that they feel free to openly hurl hatred at its participants is, err, testament (see what I did there ?) to their fundamentalist non-faith. Yet their unquestioning insistence that religion in any form is wholly bad, whilst they simultaneously claim the blind faith they suppose is required by religion is a major part of its many, many flaws, looks very strange indeed.

Obviously - but it doesn't hurt to emphasis this - I'm not talking about the vast majority of atheists here. Certainly my (ostensibly) atheist friends outnumber my religious or even agnostic associates considerably. Yet, bewilderingly, the sheer number of people who hold religion as a scapegoat for all the world's ills is simply too large to attribute them to being the occasional internet troll. No, unthinking atheism is a thing, and it needs to be dealt with. In principle, this could also apply to agnosticism as well, but I've yet to see a single example of this in practise. Anyway "The Unthinking Atheist" is a sexier title.

In this first half I'll examine some mistaken ideas people have about atheism being somehow a more logical, natural position. I'll also be putting in a stalwart defence of agnosticism, because it's my blog and I can if I want to. However, if sophistry and petty linguistic disputes aren't your thing, feel free to scroll down to the second section, wherein I tell Johnny Antitheist to take his bigotry somewhere else. You'll miss the bit about the invisible goat though, which would be a shame.


Atheism and anti-theism

SODIV makes a very eloquent case that science is not a belief system, "it's a disbelief system". Which is true. I've already expounded my views on science and wacky ideas at length here, so I won't repeat them, but the opening chapter of SODIV pretty much repeats a lot of what I said. What they develop much further is a passionate case for atheism being fundamentally different to a religious viewpoint, and they argue persuasively that science and atheism are not alternative religions :

"A UFO believer, for example, may argue that not believing in UFOs is merely another kind of belief. Namely, a belief that UFOs don't exist. However, when virtually all of the alleged "evidence" for UFOs turns out to be mistaken, or false, the contrary position isn't a matter of belief at all. Zero belief in UFOs is not the same as 100% belief in the non-existence of UFOs. Zero belief is an absence of belief, not an opposed form of belief."

Now, as far as science goes, you won't get any argument from me. But can we apply this to atheism ? I'm not convinced, as we shall see in a moment. The authors make another very important point, but, curiously, fail to examine its implications in any detail. They note that some scientists are absolutely convinced about things they really have no business being convinced about :

"There are some who like certainty; they like to know just where they are. They tend to get their knowledge, their beliefs, from authoritative sources : the Bible, the Q'ran, textbooks [my emphasis], or the practises of their profession. They know that those who disagree with them are wrong, and sometimes evil.
Over the years we have found, somewhat to our surprise, that many scientists are also like this... There are biologists who know that the most important feature of any organism is its DNA... There are physicists who know that the Universe is made up of these particles, with these constants and mechanisms."

Here we have examples of scientists accepting non-religious ideas on faith. Yet, what the authors only barely hint at is the fact that neither science nor, more particularly, atheism, are shields against blind faith. Somehow, they have failed to realise that while a genuine total lack of belief is possible, it is also absolutely possible to hold (in a sense) the opposite stance.

If there is good evidence either way, then a belief that UFOs don't exist is subtly, but importantly, different from a lack of belief that UFOs exist. Proponents of the first stance will seek to refute any evidence of UFOs - photographs of flying saucers, they immediately say, must be fakes - whereas those holding the second viewpoint will be persuaded either way - they will (or at least could) consider carefully if a photograph stands up to expert analysis and only then form an opinion.

Agnosticism is very explicitly this lack of belief - it is skeptical (that is, inquiring) of claims both for and against. Atheism is much more of a grey area. Often it too is, more or less, simply a lack of belief - many atheists just aren't interested in the subject. And that's fine. For some, it's the marginally stronger statement that God probably does not exist, and that's as far as they go. But for many others, it's not skeptical at all : it's a form of denial, an anti-theism, a resolute conviction that any religious ideology is not only wrong, but a Bad Thing.


Is atheism a religion ?

Antitheists (a term that is badly needed in common usage) deny this. They claim that they're merely atheists, that they don't have a belief system and that they're different to those of a religious ilk. Actually, there's a whole spectrum of possibilities. Certainly, the authors of SODIV do not fall into the hate-mongering variety I'll return to later, nor are they unthinking - they have considered the evidence carefully (one of them trained as a Rabbi) and found it wanting. Their conclusion is that God doesn't exist, but not necessarily that all religious beliefs are bad. However, they're utterly convinced that their conclusion must be the right one, which is rather stronger than their professed claim merely not to believe in God. They're also none too satisfied with agnosticism :

"Many religious people try to reject atheism as another form of belief, with the natural position being what they call agnosticism. They then interpret that stance as the view that the chances of God existing are about 50-50. So by being neutral, you are already halfway towards agreeing with them."

Worryingly, that's the only mention of agnosticism in the whole book. Yet I doubt most agnostics would agree the chances of God existing are 50-50. The whole point of being agnostic is that you don't know. That doesn't necessarily mean you think the chances are even (though some do), it can instead mean you think you can't even assess the probability. They continue :

"The default is to disbelieve. An atheist is not someone who believes God doesn't exist. It is someone who doesn't believe that God does exist."

Sir Terry, were it up to me, I'd take all of that hack Rowling's ill-gotten gains and deliver her fortune to you in cash in a great big truck. But you're dead wrong about this one. Firstly, a lack of belief (by itself) is widely accepted to be agnosticism, while someone who lacks belief in God and also believes God doesn't exist is called an atheist. I'm sorry, but that's just what the words mean. Redefining them in this particular way is a big mistake, which I'll return to in a moment.

Secondly, the ignorance of the existence of antitheists is a major problem : failing to acknowledge them undermines a lot of the rhetoric about atheism being the more rational position. It might be if atheism were really a true lack of belief - but it isn't, that's agnosticism ! And I agree, that should indeed be the default. Once evidence is presented (whatever kind of evidence that may be), we may form an opinion and, if we are so inclined, switch from agnosticism to theism/antitheism.

Suppose I were to tell you that there is an invisible hairy goat who lives on my head and farms mushrooms. You'd think I'd gone stark raving mad, obviously. But, until I told you about said goat, you were agnostic about its existence - you totally lacked any belief in a mushroom-farming invisible goat. The instance I told you about it, however, you became an atheist with respect to the head-dwelling goat : you believe it doesn't exist, maintaining agnosticism would be crazy. And in this case, your belief would be entirely, 100% correct. That's the point. Belief isn't inherently wrong or irrational. There's nothing inherently wrong with atheism, but there's no point pretending it isn't a belief.

Sometimes believing in things is right, sometimes it's wrong. Sheer belief neither makes a thing true nor untrue.

BUT I WANT TO EXIIIIIISSSST !!!!!

Many atheists choose to dismiss the possibility of God existing as you can't prove a negative - a sensible, rational philosophy, if you don't think there's any evidence. But there are also antitheists who are better described as being people who BELIEVE, with the same righteous fire normally associated with religious fanatics, that God does not exist. These people are convinced that everyone else must share their view and are on a mission to unconvert people. They have no problem in attacking anyone and everyone who disagrees with them. Just as a Creationist will dismiss any evidence of evolution, so antitheists will dismiss any suggestion that religion has ever contributed anything to society.

So the question, "Is atheism a religion ?" actually has a simple answer. Many (most) atheists aren't religious at all, nor is it necessarily a religious viewpoint. But for some of the more extreme antitheists, it absolutely is. It is this small but significant subset which concerns me here. Atheism itself is not a religion, but some people are giving a damn good try at making antitheism into one. If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck.... And I don't mean the sort of mainstream liberal-socialist duck- err, religion common in modern Europe (but for some reason much rarer in the US) - rather, the non-faith of antitheism is usually much closer to the extremist fundamentalism they profess to oppose most vehemently of all.


Terminology

As is no doubt already apparent, definitions matter. It should also be obvious that, as usual, things are better defined as a continuous spectrum rather than discrete categories, but we do need categories to simplify things. SODIV have, by their extreme conviction that there is no evidence whatsoever for the existence of deities, thrown a spanner in the works. Their definition of "atheist", which is far closer to the conventional "agnostic", is not what's usually understood by the term, which is more like "antitheist".

Now, as an agnostic, I admit to some bias against using "atheist" to mean "lack of belief". I greatly prefer the standard, widely-accepted definitions :

• Fanatical theist : Someone who believes in the existence of a deity or deities and insists that their existence is a certainty.
• Theist : Someone who believes in the existence of a deity or deities.
• Agnostic : Someone who lacks belief in both the existence and non-existence of deities.
• Atheist : Someone who believes deities do not exist.
• Antitheist : Someone who believes deities do not, and cannot, exist.

SODIV''s definition of atheism is a hair's breath from agnostic. It's true that as an atheist, you lack belief in deities. But if you don't qualify that with the additional statement "and I believe they don't exist", then you're for all intents and purposes an agnostic. Atheists, in my experience, do hold this second statement to be true - removing it would make them agnostics, which neither they nor agnostics want. And the reason we have separate terms goes far beyond pedantic hair-splitting.

The thing is, redefining atheist to only mean a lack of belief is highly disingenuous : it implies that it's only possible to believe in things, not against them. This means you've effectively declared the non-existence of deities to be such an absolute certainty that you can't even acknowledge other points of view. Which makes you an antitheist rather than an atheist in the usual sense. And yet few atheists would say they are absolutely certain no deities exist (see below), so I think the standard definitions are better. They certainly involve less semantics and, as a bonus, define a nice clear spectrum of positions. I'll be using them throughout the rest of the post.

Even SODIV acknowledge that, unlike the case of an invisible goat, they can't disprove religious beliefs :

"Science can't disprove religious beliefs. Nothing can. That's the problem... But the inability of science to disprove religious beliefs does not make it a belief system... When presented with extraordinary hypotheses, disbelief is not the opposite of belief. It is the default, neutral stance : "I'm not interested in playing this game, it makes no sense."

There's that ambiguous word "disbelief" again. If they mean "lack belief", then I agree - but that's agnosticism ! If they mean, "believe they do not exist", then that's atheism, but I don't think that should be the default stance, because it certainly isn't neutral. For some reason I cannot fathom, they seem hell-bent on ignoring agnosticism whilst desperately trying to promote its virtues. Which is a shame, because if they'd understood what agnosticism means they I could have made this post a lot shorter.



Antitheism vs Atheism vs Agnosticism

Relatively few people are convinced by agnosticism as an alternative to atheism. One argument often made against it is that by analogy, it makes no sense to be agnostic about whether Santa Claus exists. And that's true, just as with the goat... but in that case there's a far more sensible, falsifiable alternative argument : it was your parents putting the presents under the tree the whole time. So of course it makes no sense to be agnostic about Santa, unless you're six and only just beginning to understand how the world works.

I mentioned earlier that agnosticism is a sensible position if there's no evidence, or equal evidence both ways, with regard to an issue. Now, I don't propose to tell you if that's the case for the existence of God* or not. Make your own decision with regards to the evidence. If you think it supports God's existence, go ahead and believe. If you think the evidence is against God, be an atheist. If you're not sure, here's why I favour agnosticism.

* Remembering that there are many definitions of "God". The kind of people who take every word of the Bible literally are simply nuts - a classic antitheist mistake is to assume that this is what all religious people do. Certainly there are better, falsifiable alternatives to a God who constantly intervenes to cause mass flooding and hurricanes and what have you. But deities in general, such as a prime mover ? That is a much stronger, less convincing statement.

Santa Claus is a poor analogy. A better one would be something much more controversial, like climate change - at least, climate change science as it was 30 years ago, or as it is perceived by the public today. Scientists 30 years ago were very uncertain as to whether humans were causing global warming. There are several positions anyone could have chosen at the time :
1) Agnostic : Wait and see. More evidence is needed. Believe nothing.
2) Atheist / theist : Choose to believe that humans are not the cause of global warming.
3) Antitheist / zealous theist : Choose to believe that humans are not and cannot be the cause of global warming.
4) Al Gore : OMFG I'VE GOT TO SAVE THE POLAR BEARS !!!!

Do I need a reason for this ? No, I don't think so.

Obviously, I've given the theistic perspectives the wrong opinions (and given them the same as the atheist/antithesit) for dramatic effect. Of course, it's conceivable they would choose to believe the exact opposite - but at the time, this would be a completely arbitrary decision and for the wrong reasons. Admittedly, I'm not sure what the equivalent theistic position is with regard to Al Gore.

The important thing is that antitheism and extreme theism both reach "certain" conclusions, in their own minds. Their system of thought is essentially the same - it's based on what they want to believe, not the actual evidence. When evidence is lacking, the agnostic position is the most rational. Of course, both the more moderate theist and atheist will be willing to change their minds if sufficient evidence is presented - those are perfectly sensible viewpoints too. But zealous theists and antitheists will not, and those people are the dangerous ones.

Ultimately, even agnosticism is another opinion - an opinion that the evidence is equal, or cannot be judged. However, it's very rare (verging on "never actually happens") for an agnostic to say, "I'm uncertain and I think everyone else should be too." Far more often it is confined to being a personal point of view : "I can't make up my mind about this, so I don't see why I should try and change anyone else's." In contrast, someone who is convinced by evidence to hold a firm opinion one way or another is far more likely to want to persuade others to share that opinion.

People naturally assess evidence in different ways, hence they reach different conclusions. For some people, being a theist is the only view that makes sense (if they've had a religious experience, for example). For others, the concept of a supernatural deity running the show just doesn't cut it, and so these people can't be anything other than atheists. Agnostics, meanwhile, are content to remain uncertain given insufficient evidence. To me, this is better than atheism because it completely avoids making what I see as an irrational judgement. Of course, anyone who really does think the evidence is actually against the existence of deities should be an atheist.

But evidence, of course, is not proof. When something is proven beyond all doubt, it makes no sense to believe otherwise. If God decided to raise the dead tomorrow, no sane atheist would cling to their beliefs - but antitheists would. It's harder to disprove the religious beliefs, but if, say, science could find a simple alternative explanation to God (i.e. to explain why there is something rather than nothing), a lot of theists would abandon their faith - except for the most zealous. The moderates on both sides are people worth engaging with - the most extreme are beyond all hope. The problem isn't with people having opinions, it's people who've mistaken their opinions for facts.

Or as Stephen Hawking put it : "Ignorance allows you to learn. Knowledge does not."*. If you've decided to believe that deities doesn't exist, then you've closed your mind to the possibility that they do. If you're agnostic, you are no more committed to believing in them than atheists, but you're also not denying the alternative. In that sense, agnosticism is the most skeptical and inquiring of the possible viewpoints.

* That is why doubt (unless it becomes all-consuming), particularly self-doubt, is not a weakness, nor necessarily a state of fear of uncertainty, but a tremendous strength and even a source of comfort.

Agnosticism doesn't say that people should or shouldn't believe. All it says is that given the current evidence (or lack therefore), anyone who claims they are certain of the existence (or lack thereof) of God may be mistaken. It doesn't say their beliefs are definitely wrong, only that they're wrong to be certain of their beliefs. To me, this is quite different - and far more accommodating - than actually pronouncing judgement on the beliefs themselves. Saying, "you're certainly wrong" is very different from, "you're wrong to be certain".

Well, after that extremely lengthy preamble, I think we're finally ready to get to the heart of the matter.


APPENDIX : Feel free to skip ahead unless you're an enthusiast and really enjoy debating the nature of atheism.

In a very interesting discussion, a couple of points were raised on whether atheism is a belief :
1) Re : the mushroom-farming invisible goat - isn't that like saying you can believe in tables ? Your definition of belief could apply to anything, making it meaningless.
Hopefully readers won't get that impression when reading this in its proper context. Of course you can't believe in tables, because their existence is a certainty. But you can believe in things for which evidence is lacking which are later proved to be true. Hence the point stands that sheer belief neither makes a thing true nor untrue.

2) It's a logical absurdity to say you can believe that things don't exist. It's like trying to prove a negative; you can't distinguish between things which have no existence. Therefore you can only lack belief that they do exist.
I never really established what the questioner was driving at here. Belief is not necessarily at all logical. You might not be able to prove a negative, but you can still believe one. And certainly it's possible for the human brain to believe in specific non-existent things. Another way to phrase it, if you really insist that belief has to be in something, would be to say that someone who believes God does not exist is someone who believes God is fictional.

After thinking it over, I wonder if the questioner is a non-native English speaker slightly misinterpreting the word "exist". This is colloquially understood to mean, "have physical reality" - if I tell a child that Santa doesn't exist, they will know I mean, "Santa is imaginary". These two statements are identical in contemporary English. I would speculate that the questioner was trying to use "exist" in a very much stronger sense, to include the concept as well as the thing itself. In that case, telling a child that Santa doesn't exist is obviously a logical absurdity, because of course the concept of Santa most certainly does exist.

EDIT : After thinking it over some more, I realised that this is completely absurd. It's perfectly possible for things to not exist : buildings get knocked down, people die, things burn, bombs explode - all of these stop existing. So in when evidence is lacking as to whether something exists or not, it's perfectly possible and valid to hold the opinion that it does not exist, because non-existence is a real state. That things which don't exist can't be distinguished from one another is wholly irrelevant.
Or to put it another way, this idea is like saying, "I'm not saying I believe Elvis is dead. I simply lack belief that he is alive".

So yes, atheism absolutely can be a belief that deities don't exist. Note the emphasis. I am absolutely NOT trying to say that all atheists are believers of a different sort - not at all. The rest of the article, however, if focused on that subset that are believers.

Don't Fear the Feminists

I've always thought of feminism as a rather simple thing : the idea that men and women be treated equally. Yet in recent weeks there seems to have been a growing influx of anti-feminist rhetoric flitting about my Google+ stream, and it's time to do something about that. Much like those of the evangelical atheist ilk that treat all religions as morally equivalent to the mass human sacrifices of Aztec Mexico, so certain people seem to think that feminism is an idea that's really quite different to what it actually is.

This is a large, three-part article. It has to be, because this is a complex subject. In this first section I'll look at feminism and why it is - perhaps surprisingly - not actually incompatible with objectifying women; in the second part I'll examine what this means in practise; and in the third part will be a case study of the trigger for this article : shirtstorm.


1) What the heck is this "feminism", anyway ?

There are definitely mixed messages coming from the feminists. That's because feminism is an ideology, not a religion or political movement. Still, sometimes I can sympathise with Principle Skinner :

Don't worry, Seymour, there's an easy way out of this quagmire. In my view, "treated equally" really means with "equal respect". People are individuals and generally want to be treated differently from one another (perhaps less a case of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", and more a case of "do unto others as they would have you do unto them"*), but no-one wants to be treated like dirt. Everyone want to be valued equally, like-for-like. Treat people as individuals and don't generalise based on their gender - it's that simple.

* Well within reason. Just because someone wants a bribe doesn't entitle them to one.

"Equal respect" directly implies a meritocracy where everyone is allowed to compete equally based solely on ability. All other things being equal, everyone's opinion is equally important. But that's really all it says. It doesn't directly say anything about cheerleading, fashion modelling, the pornography industry, or heck, even the virtues of prostitution as a career choice. Rather what it says is quite simply that if these things are deemed acceptable for one gender, they must also be acceptable for the other. It does not actually say whether or not they are acceptable for any gender in the first place - that's society's choice. Feminism, as some wise individual wrote, is about elevating women, not taking men down.

Incidentally, this doesn't imply that we must demand equal numbers of men and women in the same jobs (though it most certainly does dictate equal pay for the same work). I strongly suspect that when we eventually do establish a society of truly equal respect, this is what will happen, even in careers where men and women are each currently tiny minorities - but I don't actually care about whether we have a precise 50-50 balance in all vocations. It's the opportunity that matters to me, not the end result.

Now, I sincerely hope that anyone reading this will have agreed that equal opportunities and equal pay for men and women are fundamentally Good Things (if we can't agree on that, I don't think we can be friends). It doesn't matter whether you look like Brad Pitt, Scarlett Johansson, or the back end of a bus - or whether you're a raging heterosexual, as gay as Dale Winton or as liberal as Captain Jack Harkness : your success in life should be determined by ability. Nothing else matters, except of course whether or not you treat others with the same amount of respect that they treat you.

Does this mean everyone should be treated in exactly the same way in all situations by everyone else ? Of course not, any more than you would go around assuming that everyone is an expert in neuroscience or has the same passionate hatred of elephants. And that leads us on to the area where so many people, both men and women, seem frightfully confused about feminism : sexuality.

Few people, if any at all, would complain about the following set of images :

Yet people most assuredly do complain about images like these :

Why is that ? Is there anything intrinsically different about the two sets of images beyond the genders displayed ? I would argue "no". I never heard anyone complain that the first images are in any way demeaning or that they treat men like objects for female gratification. Nor does it in any way disturb me that such images exist and that women enjoy them (indeed, certain female friends of mine have described, with consummate tact, the man in the first image as inducing a "lady boner"). Why should it ? Men and women find members of the opposite sex attractive, and as a short, scrawny yet slightly flabby nerd I don't feel in any way diminished by the use of uber-muscular young men as sex objects for women. More on that in part two.

Yet these are precisely the sort of complaints that are made about the second set of images. But it's not the images themselves that makes these complaints valid (for that, we must take a wider view). Image for image, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to say whether one is treating one gender more respectfully than the other. Remember, if we're assuming "equality" to mean "equal respect", the actual way in which we treat the genders is not important : the only thing that matters is that if we objectify one gender, we also allow objectification of the other*.

* I suppose in principle "equal respect" could mean "zero respect for both genders", but this trivial to dismiss. No-one wants to live in a world where the only thing that matters is how attractive everyone is... well probably not, anyway.

Now I have to make a very important point before we proceed any further. I am going to use the term "objectify" to mean, "to ignore all other qualities besides physical attractiveness". This is not the same as the way some people use the term, which is more like "to assume that a person has no other qualities besides physical attractiveness". Unfortunately the difference between the two is considered so subtle there isn't even a good alternative English word, but in fact it isn't subtle at all - it's critical. That should become more obvious as we go on, if it isn't already. But please, dear reader, do keep this in mind - otherwise you may think I'm saying something completely different to what I actually mean.

Right, so, do those above images objectify genders ? You betcha. Is this a problem in and of itself ? Arguably, no. Is this a problem in society more generally ? Hell yes - and it's only a problem for women. I'll return to this more in part two, but first I want to say a little bit more about objectification.


People are sexy, deal with it

I don't have a problem with objectification per se. A woman who chooses to objectify herself for male gratification is no more immoral than a man who does the same for women, and nor are men who enjoy objectifying images of women any more immoral than women enjoying those of men. The problems are twofold, and related : 1) the much, much greater extent to which society objectifies women than men; 2) the fact that many men seem to extrapolate wildly from the women in these images that all women exist solely for their own enjoyment. This extrapolation is absurd as saying that because Chris Hadfield can play the guitar, he cannot also be an astronaut. It's as mad as a bag of clams, but that's the world we live in.

Put simply, the objectification of women (partly due to the sheer amount of it) has led many men not to conclude merely that women are attractive (which is all an image of an attractive woman intrinsically says), but to conclude that women are attractive and that's all they are. In fact, reducing one individual to their physical characteristics for the enjoyment of the opposite gender does not, in and of itself, imply that all members of that gender have no other value. It does not mean that the particular person on display has no other value either, only that they have chosen, temporarily, to ignore their other qualities - not eliminate then. They're not toys, for crying out loud.

Speaking of which, a pretty close analogy would be the similarly-decried video games. The notion that video games are a direct cause of violent behaviour is patently absurd. I play (or used to, a lot) Total War games, in which battle casualties can often run into the thousands. I don't know the total number of casualties I've inflicted, but it's certainly in the tens of thousands, probably in the hundreds of thousands, and very possibly in excess of a million. As for more up-close-and-personal games, I haven't the foggiest idea how many people I've immolated, punched, beheaded, riddled with bullets (and in one case with high-velocity gnomes), hacked with a sword, and brutally beaten to death with assorted blunt instruments. These things are fun to do in games because they're not real. They no more induce me to go on an orgy of death and destruction than they make me want to start the world's first floating circus and start wearing a tutu : there is precisely zero correlation here. Zero. Nada. Zilcho.

Similarly, objectification in principle does not lead to sexism (it doesn't when women objectify men, after all). If you can differentiate between the fantasy world of gameplay and reality, you damn well ought to be able to tell the difference between a woman posing for a photograph and the idea that women are somehow subordinate to men. There ought to exist the same vast chasm between enjoying killing thousands in a video game and wanting to massacre people in reality, as between enjoying a photograph of the opposite gender (or indeed any form of adult entertainment) and assuming they're all somehow inferior to you. You ought to possess the modicum of intellect needed to realise that people aren't toys because they chose to dress (or undress) in a certain way - yes, even (especially) when they're deliberately doing it so that you can enjoy them.

You can't tell me that watching elephants trample people to death in a video game isn't fun. You also can't tell me that it is fun in reality. Granted, the analogy isn't perfect - attractive people are, so I'm told, also a lot of fun in reality. But in reality, killing thousands of people isn't fun because people aren't toys - exactly the same goes for disrespecting women.

Now one could argue that we shouldn't objectify people at all. A debatable point, certainly, but I don't see this working. If people find the opposite gender attractive, there will always be people willing to exploit that and happy to be exploited by it. For the sake of the extremely important reason of the survival of the species, people generally want the opposite gender to find them attractive. It is simply too small a step, too slippery a slope, from this basic truth to people making money from this.

Moreover - if (note the maximum possible emphasis here) people treat "sexploitation" images in the same way they treat video games (i.e. they don't let them influence their real-world actions), then I fail to see anything immoral here. Far better - and frankly more fun for everyone - to simply demand equal levels of sexploitation of men and women. That could either mean much less objectification of women than at present, or much more of men, or something in between.

In short, objectification (by the definition I'm using) is scarcely intrinsically worse than simply finding someone attractive. Few people could honestly say they'd don't assess someone's physical attractiveness at all if presented with no more than a photograph. No-one thinks, "I must make a detailed inquiry into the personal habits and moral values of this person before judging their attractiveness." No-one. That is nonetheless a form of objectification - a part of human nature, which, like aggression, is only dangerous if not properly controlled.


So that's the theory covered. In summary, people can be hot. Judging them on this, and even ignoring their other qualities, is not damaging in and of itself - women happily do this to men with little harm done. But assuming that they don't actually have any other qualities, to treat them like a toy... this is immensely harmful. This level of objectification is far worse, but as we'll see in the next section, in practise even just ignoring their other values can be seriously degrading if it's allowed to run rampant. We'll also examine the ways in which things are much worse for women, and why when women objectify men this isn't damaging for men.


2) If objectifying people is OK, why can't I catcall random women in the street ?

Because that makes you a massive douchebag and have completely missed the point of what I wrote, that's why. I'm trying to tell you that fancying women is absolutely fine (duh !), and if you want to admire an actress' tits and don't really care about her personality then even that can be OK*, but actually treating them as objects - the most literal sense of "objectification" - is not. Allow me to explain in more detail.

* Sorry, but writing, "physical attributes" became intolerably dull.

We've established that feminism means giving equal amounts of respect to both genders, but doesn't actually say anything about what that level of respect should be. We've also seen that appreciating the physical qualities of the other gender, even while ignoring their other values, is not wrong in and of itself. So why do many people seem to think that it is ?

You'll notice I chose sets of images of both men and women that were as blatantly objectifying as possible. That was a deliberate choice to tackle the moral aspect of objectification head-on. In practise, imagery which deliberately objectifies women is just one aspect of the issue we need to address.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a good example of an outrageously attractive lead actress in a show I don't think anyone in their right mind would describe as anti-feminist (similarly the X-Files). Xena Warrior Princess is an even better example : here we have a woman in a very revealing outfit that would not look out of place alongside the earlier images, yet anyone watching the show would have to be a demented lunatic to think it was anti-feminist - and of course, comic books are littered with similarly attired heroines. Star Trek Voyager's Seven of Nine is an interesting grey area : although brought in quite unashamedly for male viewers to have a nice big pair of boobs to distract from the largely mediocre plotlines, it quickly transpired that both the character and the actress were a lot more capable than most of the others on the show. Irony, thy name is Jeri Ryan.

So feminism and sex appeal are not even remotely mutually exclusive, no matter what the misogynists might say. But even feminist icons, if they're considered attractive, are most certainly objectified by male viewers regardless of what they're wearing or how they conduct themselves. I know I certainly did. And do*. So deliberate objectification at the source is only part of the story. But even when it is deliberate, it is not necessarily an outrageous moral offence. The problem is not women choosing to look classically attractive to men, or even women being objectified, or even men objectifying attractive feminists on TV : it's that women are constantly objectified, and to to a degree that men simply do not suffer from.

* If that seems unpleasant, please remember the definition of "objectify" I'm using.

The ever-wise Robert Minchin puts it thusly :

"The difference is that the relationship is asymmetric. Women are objectified by men in a way that both affects their progress in their careers and can be a physical threat. Men do not suffer this. For example: if a female presenter is called 'sexy', there is an implication that this is why she got the job, rather than her talent; if a male presenter is called 'sexy', this is considered a bonus to his talent rather than taking away from it."

For a truly outstandingly brazen example, see this clip by the nefarious, shameless Donald Trump (watch the whole thing later, it's good - but for now skip to exactly 5 minutes in) :

Women are objectified far beyond the narrow confines of modelling or adult entertainment. Actresses - especially younger ones - are almost invariably judged on their appearances (fine) at the expense of their abilities (not fine) - for an excellent review, see this. Another recent example is the Russian cosmonaut Yelena Serova - here we have one of the most elite, capable members of society being asked repeatedly about her hair. Why ? She's not a model. Her appearance has no influence on the mission, it's not relevant. And while individual comments on social media that "she's beautiful" might not be damaging (but see below), the fact that so may comments were exclusively of this nature, and showed little interest in her at all - well, that's the heart of the problem right there.

Years of training and they ask her about her hair. No wonder she's pissed.

This habit of ignoring other qualities is almost universal. Asking a cosmonaut about her hair is fine - only asking about her hair is not. Looking good isn't her job - if she wants to, that's her choice, but it shouldn't matter if she's Helen of Troy or one of the Gorgons*, because it's not relevant to what she's doing. Yes, sometimes men are also judged exclusively on their appearance - but not to anything remotely approaching the degree to which it's done to women.

* Minus the snakes. Obviously in this case asking about the "hair" would be entirely legitimate.

A major part of the problem is choice. Women have little choice as to whether men objectify them or not. Some women do chose to objectify themselves in no uncertain terms, and personally I find it anti-feminist when people complain about this. No, they're not "demeaning all women" any more than male underwear models demean all other men. Again, it only requires an iota of intelligence to realise that the actions of one do not represent all.

Others do not seem particularly disturbed by being sometimes objectified, at least in the limited sense that I'm using it here. Yet all too often, as we've seen with GamerGate, it goes far beyond this, and well into the sense of "assuming women have no other qualities" rather than "temporarily ignoring their other qualities". At this point, even "compliments" on appearance become derogatory. It would be bad enough to have one's status reduced to the physical all the freakin' time with one's other qualities merely ignored, but it is far worse if people don't even think you have any other qualities.

A crucial caveat : whether or not people really think women don't have, don't care about, or "merely" ignore their other qualities -  if this is done often and consistently enough, the effect is the same. If you ignore intellect all the time, it becomes the same as if you don't think it exists at all. As I said before, feminism doesn't say objectification is always wrong, but it does require equal objectification or none at all - and that is clearly not the world we live in.

It seems that women rarely, if ever, adopt the much more literal form of objectification, nor do they reduce men to their sheer physique anywhere like as frequently as men do with women. This is why male comments on attractiveness are perceived very differently to female comments on attractiveness. Given the wider social context, the implications are very different -  even though the intention of both may well be equal. Hence my friend can shamelessly declare, "I liked it when footballers had to change their shirts during a match", but I'd better be rather more careful if I want to comment on the chest quality of the cheerleaders (a job for which there is no male equivalent).

Even if these were morally equivalent - and I don't think they are - their context in society is radically different. Hence one is sometimes perceived to be offensive while the other is not.

That's why my female friends admiring the manly nature of certain public figures doesn't make me feel diminished in any way. The degree to which men are objectified is far less than that experienced by women - they don't carry on the harmless admiration of tremendously manly men and expect me to conform to that stereotype. No pressure is put upon me to do the slightest thing to live up to an unrealistic expectation of masculinity. I can live my life however the hell I like and not be judged for it; they are very much expected and obliged to try and meet certain ideals that exist only to appease male sexuality (but see this).

Feminism not only requires equal levels of objectification, but it also requires the same type of objectification. I suggest that we men adopt the demonstrably superior manner that women have done : they admire certain physiques, they even ignore male personalities on occasion*, but they don't require all men in all professions to meet those standards all the time. This really shouldn't be difficult.

* OK, for some men, quite often.

This is of course a huge subject, but I need also to mention one other factor : women as rewards.

Fortunately, there's a well-known and excellent article about this here, so I won't go into details. But it's worth summarising. Wanting a partner because you think they're attractive is fine. Thinking that they somehow owe you something because they're attractive is not. It doesn't matter how nice you are, how much help you give, how courteously you treat them - people are people. They are under no obligation to grant you sexual rewards for your good behaviour. It is entirely their choice as to how they behave, and while there's nothing wrong with trying to woo the, err, object of your affections, there's something very wrong if you think that at some point you've "done enough", or "deserve a reward". Men don't feel the slightest bit obliged to grant sexual favours towards women they're not interested in; why the hell should women ?

And incidentally, when was the last time you saw a movie where an ugly man wins a beautiful woman ? And when was the last time you saw a movie where this was the other way around, hmm ?

Again, people are individuals, free to choose. If some men and women feel they should grant sexual favours under certain conditions, fine - but that in no way obliges anyone else to behave the same way. Stop it with the "friendzone" nonsense already.


The massively greater extent to which men objectify women (both in the lesser and more literal sense) occurs not just in the case of prominent public figures like actors but also occurs in everyday life - which is something that really just doesn't happen to men. As this video demonstrates quite clearly.

Many commentators have made much of the fact that, the two creepy stalkers aside (everyone seems to be against them, at least), what's being said the the lady is ostensibly complimentary. There'a a heck of a lot wrong with that on every level.

There seems to be an odd idea that the analogy for men in this situation would be to have hundreds of beautiful ladies trying to chat them up. Yet this woman isn't in a nightclub flirting with people or even wearing anything the slightest bit provocative. She's walking down the street, fully clothed. In no way has she given the merest hint that she's remotely interested in acquiring a partner, temporary or otherwise. Absolutely no clue is given as to what the woman in this video thinks of her would-be suitors - do you really think she finds them all as attractive as supermodels ? Of course not.

A better analogy might be to have a random mixture of hundreds of different men pursuing our hapless male subject. Men, try mentally replacing the woman with yourself and change nothing else about the video, and see how that works. You really want random dudes shouting, "DAH-MN !" at your ass as you walk by ? Because I sure don't.

Although comments directed towards men and women may be ostensibly the same, they have radically different implications - unfortunately, society treats women differently. As we've seen, compliments on men are usually seen as nothing more than compliments, which enhance their status - compliments on women often degrade them to the status of objects.

If you're the sort of douche who thinks it's OK to shout out, "Nice tits !" to a random woman in the street, it is possible that you meant :

"Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

     So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

Or more colloquially and to the point, perhaps you meant something like : "I have great admiration for your physical attributes and would like to investigate them further, provided that, after suitable discourse, we have established a state of mutual respect. Or, if you are of such leaning - though a priori I have no reason to assume so - that you would wish to skip this stage and commence immediately to the "getting jiggy with it" part of the proceedings, I would also be willing to consider this. I have now made my inclinations clear, and of course it is entirely your choice as to how we proceed."
Even in the insanely unlikely scenario that that's what you meant - do you really think that's how it will be perceived ? Or is it more likely that she'll think, "I am a complete scumbag. I like your boobs, and that's all I'm interested in. I have zero interest in your personality because I see you as a toy for my amusement. As a man, I think my compliments are as precious as unicorn tears and you should be grateful for each and every one. In fact the very gaze of my eye can turn water into wine, my breath smells of roses, and I have the physique of a demigod. If you don't appreciate this, you must be a worthless raving lunatic."

Now, it's very difficult to judge individual comments - men are as individual as women. So you don't really know what a man means from a single comment - he could in principle mean nothing further than remarking on the fine qualities of a lady, just as, as we saw earlier, images of people don't themselves convey any other information. But the wider pattern of behaviour makes it infinitely more likely that he does not, that he is in fact part of this amazingly widespread misogynistic culture.

Finally, those comments which are ostensibly nothing more than, "Hello how are you ?". Sure, that could mean nothing more than, "Hello how are you ?" just as "Nice tits !" can mean nothing more than "Nice tits !". In context, this is ridiculous. Frankly, if I had to endure dozens of people asking me how I was every time I went for a walk, I'd be freaked out. The only time this happens to me is when people are conducting surveys or asking for donations - they're using me, I am being objectified. I know full well that their surface-level question hides their true meaning - I'm not annoyed by the questions, but by what they represent.


Before I move on to the specific case of shirtstorm, a summary. Yes, you can fancy people. Yes, you can ignore their other qualities sometimes, without doing the slightest harm to anyone. What you can't do is automatically assume that all women are perfectly comfortable with this in all situations - and/or to literally objectify people and treat them as toys.

We've now got the tools we need to deal with shirtstorm. The salient points are these :

• Feminism is about equality of respect more than it is about equality of behaviours. People are individuals, don't force them to comply with your gender stereotype.
• Sex appeal and even sex objects are not incompatible with feminism. Because people are individuals, they can do what they want provided equality of respect is maintained.
• Ignoring the intellect of men/women and only caring about their bodies is fine in certain limited circumstances. Women can and do objectify men in this way with no harm done to anyone.
• Always (or more often than not) ignoring the intellect of women is as harmful as if you think they haven't got one - you end up treating people like toys.
• Men objectify women to a far greater extent, and far more frequently, than women objectify men. This is why some people take every objectifying comment as implying something far more derogatory than the comment itself.
• Even if you aren't a misogynist, you need to be aware of what society thinks your comments mean. People may be wrong to be offended by your comments, but they are absolutely right to be offended by what they think your comments imply. The social context cannot be avoided.

3) Case study : shirtstorm

For the sake of those living in a cave, "shirtstorm" is the term for a recent press conference in which Rosetta scientist Dr Matt Taylor (no relation) wore a shirt made up of pictures of scantily-clad young ladies (designed, incidentally by a female friend of his). He also told a sexual joke, though that gets less attention.

I'm going to tackle this one be responding to the various anti-feminism memes which sprang up in response to this. I'm not going to comment on the shirt itself much until after addressing the memes. Let's start with the easiest one.

Meme 1

No idea what Facebook is doing in there. As for Kim Kardashian (sadly not a Cardassian) it's pretty obvious this isn't sexist - this improbably large-buttocked woman chose to reveal herself to the internet. She's perfectly free to do so. There's nothing anti-feminist or sexist about this whatsoever. Yes, it does exploit women (or a woman, at any rate), but as I've been at pains to point out, this isn't anti-feminist in some circumstances - and it ought to be abundantly clear that is is one of those circumstances.

Verdict : This meme is stupid.



Meme 2

Say wha ? Fuck equality and mutual respect ? Err, no, I don't think I will, actually. Leaving the shirt itself aside for the moment, he apologised profusely for offending a huge number of people. These people believed, rightly or wrongly, that he was propagating a highly offensive, demeaning message - it's absolutely right that he apologise. Whether those people were right to be offended, and whether the magnitude of his reply (which really was very emotional), is another matter which we'll return to later.

Verdict : Stupid meme. But was it really warranted to move someone to tears ? I'm not so sure.


Meme 3

Ooh, controversy ! Now on face value, I'd have to say Taylor's shirt is massively less offensive than Valenti's. If we look at what they say intrinsically (ignoring just for a moment the wider social context), Taylor's shirt is equivalent to declaring, "I LIKE WOMEN !!!!" in a big, booming, Brian Blessed voice. Valenti's shirt is directly stating that she likes offending men and making them cry - which is clearly much, much worse. To put it another way, if Taylor had worn a shirt that said, "I bathe in female tears", he wouldn't have just been harangued by the internet - he'd have been (rightly) tarred and feathered.

But of course, ignoring the wider social context is daft. Given what feminism is really about, it's highly unlikely that Valenti takes pride in moving any and all men to tears. Not to mention that male dominance is so established that it could damn well use - and can most certainly tolerate - the occasional insult. "Misogynists", however, would have been a much better word than "male".

Remember, male "compliments" sometimes carry very offensive connotations because of this wider culture of demeaning women. By the same token, female insults can also mean something very different from their face value. Assuming for a moment that Valenti is a true feminist (and not some sort of weirdo man-hater) and believes in equality, is it really likely that she means to say, "I want to make every single man cry ?" I think not.

Verdict : I can see where you're coming from, but no. Good try.


Meme 4

Accusations of double standards have been pretty common, but completely miss the point. No-one ever said that women should be able to wear literally anything they liked - they certainly can't go around professing their allegiance to the Klu Klux Klan. Taylor's shirt certainly isn't as hateful as that, but it still conveys (at least to some people) a very damaging message. The intention of the above parade was clearly about sexuality and male treatment of women; Taylor's shirt has those pesky negative connotations in that area - so yeah, it's going to offend people.

To re-iterate, equality of respect doesn't mean the same treatment. Yes, you should damn well be able to wear what you like and not have men treat you like dirt. Yes, a thousand times yes, your clothes aren't your consent - that is a great message. No, you can't go to the office in a bra and not expect men to make sexual advances toward you - that's just plain silly. But men finding you attractive and men treating you like a toy are not - and should not be - the same thing. Not at all.

Verdict : Partial credit. Taylor's shirt has connotations that aren't the same as women themselves choosing to dress like the women pictured on his shirt do not. Yet if women are allowed to dress like that, it does become a bit weird to say men can't wear images of the same thing.


Meme 5

This is part of a longer meme you can read here. Also, I altered the quotation
marks as in the original they use the German style (,, '') which was confusing.

Hmm. My initial reaction was indeed that landing a comet is indeed overwhelmingly more important than the shirt. So it's somewhat ironic that I'm writing all this, although it does also help to have a go-to article about feminism. However, the mainstream media did focus on the comet - it's on social media where the shirtstorm rages. It was right that someone pointed out the negative message implied by the shirt.

As to the second part, this is plain ridiculous. It's not about people who are already in science - it's about inspiring young people who want to go into science. No sane person is going to quit their job because of the shirt - even in the case that they find it offensive, working with people with conflicting views is part of life. Scientists are a tremendously diverse and opinionated bunch. Prior to the shirstorm, Taylor was noted for breaking the mould of boring scientists - a laudable goal, which I believe is extremely important in encouraging more people into science. Many people, however, think a shirt like this is discouraging... although, to my knowledge, no-one has actually gone and asked the young people what they think.

Verdict : Partial credit. I'd like to know more about what wannabe scientists think of this, ideally in a statistical approach. I've seen opinions on both sides, read support messages from both men and women in favour of this (see below for the designer's opinion). Show me the result of a halfway-decent poll from high school and university students, then we'll talk. As I've said previously, anecdotes are not evidence, only the base unit of evidence.
Don't get me wrong, I can certainly see why it might be discouraging. I just want to know if it actually is or not.


That's what the internet thinks, and what I think about what the internet thinks. But what do I think I think I think ?


Ironically, given that I'm writing this, I think the reaction was overblown. It's true that the shirt has negative implications - but it's also true that Taylor is a happily married man and a father of two, and the shirt was designed by a female friend (read that link and also this one) of his. Does this sound like a misogynist to you ? Because it certainly doesn't to me. To reiterate yet again, the objectification of women in certain circumstances does not lead to damaging misogyny or sexism. I further contend that a truly feminist society, where men and women don't have a problem with each other valuing looks (i.e. without values being limited to looks), would not have a problem with Taylor's shirt.

The shirt's designer, Elly Prizeman, had this to say :
"There is no ‘meaning’ behind the shirt. I just bought material and sewed it together.
Nothing sinister at all was meant behind it at any point. It was just a bold and individual fashion item."
"[Pinup imagery] can be construed that way [sexist], I suppose. In its time, yes, but not in the modern day with women being more empowered and accepted in all walks of life. I love the female form, and these pinup prints and pictures are unique and beautiful."

So, a female designer creates a shirt with no intrinsic message beyond "I like women" for a happily married scientist, and the internet enters its usual paroxysm of rage.

Ricky Gervais once said, "Just because you're offended doesn't mean you're right", although the considerably more erudite Stephen Fry elaborated further :

This is a very important message. Racists and homophobes are sincerely offended by all kinds of ridiculous things - and more importantly, a century ago it was normal to be a racist homophobe. Without people standing up and saying, "well so fucking what ?" we would have had considerably less social progress in the last century. And yet, just because you're offended doesn't mean you're wrong either. It is indeed no more than a whine : without an explanation as to why you're offended, it's a meaningless statement of your own emotions, totally uncorrelated with whether the subject of your objections is truly right or wrong.

Then again, George Takei had this to say about free speech :
"Let me try to clear something up. "Freedom of speech" does not mean you get to say whatever you want without consequences. It simply means the government can't stop you from saying it. It also means OTHERS get to say what THEY think about your words."

The debate between freedom of speech and freedom of consequences has been raging for at least 2,400 years .The whole situation is somewhat messy. About the only thing that's clear is that some people were offended by the shirt, and some people weren't - men and women on both sides. So how do we decided who's right and who's wrong ? Is it possible to judge when someone's offence is in some way more correct than another's enjoyment ?

After 2,400 years, almost certainly not (Robert Minchin has some sensible, practical guidelines though). But it's important to remember what people are being offended by. And so now I'm going to break Godwin's Law in the biggest way possible.

Are you offended by the geometric shape ? Of course you're not. Are you offended by the evil it represents ? You should be - if not, get the hell away from my blog and don't come back - you are not welcome here.

The evidence seems pretty clear to me that Taylor did not intend to convey an image of oppression or anti-feminism (not least because of his heartfelt apology, and the fact the shirt was designed by a woman). Rather it seems that quite unintentionally, he's used an image which represents something very different to what it intrinsically says. What people are being offended by is not (I hope) the idea that men like sexy ladies, but the idea that men only value women for their looks and don't care about their personalities, intellect, or achievements.

So perhaps we can solve this paradox after all. Taylor's shirt isn't demeaning in and of itself, and perhaps it was wrong for the internet to jump down his throat and assume it represented something vile. A few minutes of checking would have revealed that in all probability this man is not a misogynistic creep. At the same time, conditioned responses are pretty powerful - it's not unreasonable that some images carry hugely negative symbolism, and you can't expect people not to lash out.

Assuming that Taylor isn't a misogynist, he was wrong to apologise for the shirt. But he was absolutely right to apologise for the offence it caused people, who assumed (mistakenly, in my opinion) that he was propagating an excluding, demeaning image of women in a professional, scientific environment. Large elements of society are currently not able to deal with the fact that sometimes judging women on their appearance does not mean never judging them on intellect - but there are very, very good reasons for this. So, people of the internet, NO, it's not those "feminists who can't get laid" complaining on twitter that make the shirt a problem - it's that society is nowhere near the level of feminism needed for such images to be acceptable.

Finally, Taylor's effort to avoid the boring scientist image was commendable. But he didn't have to use that particular image  - there are plenty of other shirts or jackets he could have worn to look cool without causing the slightest offence. And since outreach is about communicating with as many people as possible, wouldn't that have been better for everyone ?

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