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Question of the Week- 5/9/2017

Stephen Fry is an incomparable voice for reason, with a wit and skill with language that is rarely matched. What is your favorite Stephen Fry quote about religion, atheism, life, the universe, and everything?

Want to suggest a Question of the Week? Email submissions to us at qotw@richarddawkins.net. (Questions only, please. All answers to bimonthly questions are made only in the comments section of the Question of the Week.)

Our favorite answer will receive a copy of Brief Candle in the Dark  by Richard Dawkins.

Cassini completes second pass inside Saturn’s rings

By WILLIAM HARWOOD

NASA’s Cassini probe survived its second pass between Saturn and its innermost rings earlier this week, giving scientists increasing confidence the region between the rings and the cloud tops is clear of large particles that might represent a threat to the spacecraft.

Virtually out of propellant, Cassini is wrapping up its extended 13-year mission at Saturn by making 22 dives between the gas giant and its vast ring system, collecting priceless science data before crashing into the planet in September in a long-planned kamikaze-like maneuver to close out a remarkably successful flight.

On April 26, Cassini made the first of 22 planned ring-plane crossings, using its large dish antenna as a shield in case scientists had underestimated the amount of ring material that might be present. Crossing the plane at more than 76,000 mph, even relatively small particles could cause serious damage.

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The American Health Care Act’s Prosperity Gospel

By VANN R. NEWKIRK II

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A Trump voter in Trump country—maybe a coal miner in West Virginia or the patron of a sleepy diner in rural Kentucky—is a recipient of Medicaid coverage under Obamacare for a life-threatening illness or chronic condition, but still maintains total support for President Trump and a zeal for repealing the program.

Soon enough, there may be an addition to the tale of the anti-Obamacare Trump voter. On Thursday, the American Health Care Act, the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, passed the House after months of deliberation and frustration for the party. Party leaders celebrated in the Rose Garden; perhaps people in Trump country celebrated, too. But Democrats are likely fretting over the prospects of a bill that many of them deemed politically impossible. How did a bill that almost certainly makes health-care more expensive for low-income, sicker, older, and more rural voters who make up much of the Republican base even make it this far?

One good answer might come from a recent interview on the AHCA between Alabama’s Representative Mo Brooks and CNN’s Jake Tapper. “[The plan] will allow insurance companies to require people who have higher health care costs to contribute more to the insurance pool,” Brooks claimed. “That helps offset all these costs, thereby reducing the cost to those people who lead good lives, they’re healthy, they’ve done the things to keep their bodies healthy. And right now, those are the people—who’ve done things the right way—that are seeing their costs skyrocketing.”

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Anti-vaccine activists spark a state’s worst measles outbreak in decades

By Lena H. Sun

The young mother started getting advice early on from friends in the close-knit Somali immigrant community here. Don’t let your children get the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella — it causes autism, they said.

Suaado Salah listened. And this spring, her 3-year-old boy and 18-month-old girl contracted measles in Minnesota’s largest outbreak of the highly infectious and potentially deadly disease in nearly three decades. Her daughter, who had a rash, high fever and cough, was hospitalized for four nights and needed intravenous fluids and oxygen.

“I thought: ‘I’m in America. I thought I’m in a safe place and my kids will never get sick in that disease,’ ” said Salah, 26, who has lived in Minnesota for more than a decade. Growing up in Somalia, she’d had measles as a child. A sister died of the disease at age 3.

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Stephen Fry blasphemy probe dropped after gardaí fail to find ‘substantial number of outraged people’

By Cathal McMahon

Gardaí have decided not to proceed with a blasphemy investigation against Stephen Fry after they failed to find a large group of people outraged by comments he made on an RTÉ show.

Detectives spoke to the man who made the original report this evening and confirmed they will not be carrying out further enquiries.

Independent.ie understands that detectives were unable to proceed with the investigation as there was no injured party.

Under the controversial legislation, introduced by then Justice Minister Dermot Ahern in 2009, it is illegal to publish or utter a matter that is “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion”.

A well-placed source said: “This man was simply a witness and not an injured party. Gardaí were unable to find a substantial number of outraged people.

“For this reason the investigation has been concluded.”

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Fake football website reveals what makes us become nasty trolls

By Sally Adee

The internet can be a vicious place. The way we can hide behind anonymity online has often been blamed for the web’s abundance of trolls, but an experiment using a fake football website shows it is the behaviour of those we encounter that has the most influence.

Until now, anonymity has been the prime suspect behind aggressive comments, Twitter mobs and targeted trolling. We know that offline, people are more likely to behave antisocially when they cannot be identified: a classic 1976 study found, for example, that masked trick-or-treaters stole more sweets.

Studies that have extended the theory online suggest that stripping us of our real-world names and dropping us into virtual communities gives us licence to unleash the inner animal.

But there’s conflicting evidence. Research in 2008 found that even when people comment under their real names on Facebook, they can say aggressive things. And another study found that abuse only dropped by 0.9 percentage points the year after South Korea introduced a 2007 law requiring users of the most popular websites to register with their national ID or a credit card.

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“13 Reasons Why” and Suicide Contagion

By Patrick Devitt

The Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why, has caused a furor.  In the show, a high school student who has died by suicide has left 13 tapes, one for each person she believes have contributed in some way to her eventual decision. Each episode relates to an individual tape. The penultimate episode depicts the suicide in a gruesome manner. Some say the series is an accurate and sensitive portrayal of the inner angst of an individual that will help enlighten us as to the motivations behind suicidal behaviour and suicide itself.  Such an openness can only be good and may be helpful to others in similar predicaments. Critics, though, have worried that it may glamorise suicide or normalise it as a legitimate option when dealing with interpersonal predicaments—leading to more suicides.

It is well known that suicide can be a contagious phenomenon. “Copycat” suicides are seen in local clusters from time to time. Any possible causes of such contagion should be taken seriously, but the science shows that the role that fiction can play in inspiring suicide is at best unclear. 13 Reasons Why is not the first work of fiction to be embroiled in this type of controversy.  Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been accused of glamorising suicide.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, released in 1774, describes the pain and heartache experienced by Werther because of his affection for Charlotte, who eventually married Albert, Werther’s friend.  Unable to cope, Werther decides that one of them must die and ends up shooting himself with Albert’s pistol.  It was widely believed that von Goethe’s work led to a wave of young men deciding to end their lives all over Europe, many of whom were dressed in the same clothing as von Goethe’s description of Werther and using similar pistols.  Some even had the copies of the novel beside their bodies with the page opened to the page of the suicide scene.  The suicide researcher, David Phillips, coined the term, “The Werther Effect,” to refer to the phenomenon of copycat suicides.  The result of Phillips’ research from the 1970’s was the recommendation that stories about suicide not be placed on the front page of newspapers.

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Long-Awaited Miami Science Museum Comes to Life

By NICK MADIGAN

For decades, South Florida schoolchildren and adults fascinated by far-off galaxies, earthly ecosystems, the properties of light and sound and other wonders of science had only a quaint, antiquated museum here in which to explore their interests.

Now, with the long-delayed opening of a vast new science museum downtown set for Monday, visitors will be able to stand underneath a suspended, 500,000-gallon aquarium tank and gaze at hammerhead and tiger sharks, mahi mahi, devil rays and other creatures through a 60,000-pound oculus, a lens that will give the impression of seeing the fish from the bottom of a huge cocktail glass. And that’s just one of many attractions and exhibits.

Officials at the $305 million Phillip and Patricia Frost Museum of Science promise that it will be a vivid expression of modern scientific inquiry and exposition. Its opening follows a series of setbacks and lawsuits and a scramble to finish the 250,000-square-foot structure. At one point, the project ran precariously short of money.

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Pro-EU Macron wins France’s presidency, Le Pen hopes dashed

By JOHN LEICESTER AND SYLVIE CORBET, ASSOCIATED PRESS

Ripping up France’s political map, French voters elected independent centrist Emmanuel Macron as the country’s youngest president Sunday, delivering a resounding victory to the unabashedly pro-European former investment banker and dashing the populist dream of far-right rival Marine Le Pen.

Macron, who had never run for office before, celebrated with thousands of jubilant, flag-waving supporters outside the Louvre Museum in Paris on Sunday night.

The European anthem “Ode to Joy” played as he strode out to address the swelling crowd.

“France has won!” he said. “Everyone said it was impossible. But they do not know France!”

Marine Le Pen, his far-right opponent in the runoff, quickly called the 39-year-old Macron to concede after voters rejected her “French-first” nationalism by a large margin. Le Pen’s performance punctured her hopes that the populist wave which swept Donald Trump into the White House and led Britain to vote to leave the EU would also carry her to France’s presidential Elysee Palace.

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Coming Out Atheist, pgs 237-8

“And there are parts of the world where simply being an atheist and defying religion can result in your family beating you, personally imprisoning you, or worse – as atheist activist Amina discovered, when she posted a topless photo of herself with the slogan “my body belongs to me, and is not the source of anyone’s honour” and “fuck your morals,” and was kidnapped by her family, denied contact with friends and supportive organizations, beaten, taken to a psychiatrist, drugged, forced to read the Koran and take to imams, and given an invasive “virginity test.”

Elsewhere in this book, I’ve advised atheists to build a safety net before they come out, as much as they can: to find an atheist community in case they lose their religious one, and to build some savings and get their resumes in order if coming out could mean losing their job.

For you, that safety net should probably include a plan to get out of the country. Make sure your passport is in order. Make contact with people in other countries. If you possibly can, acquire job skills that you can take with you anywhere. And of course, for you, the whole “be careful who you tell, as soon as you start telling people the dam could burst, don’t tell anyone you don’t profoundly trust unless you’re willing for everyone to know” thing is a whole lot more important. It could be a matter of life or death.”

–Greta Christina, Coming Out Atheist, pgs 237-8

Discuss!