The province of British Columbia introduced some new anti-smoking laws today. The city of Vancouver is taking things to an extreme – cue reporters on the morning news measuring exactly how far you have to be from a doorway before you can light up. The answer seems to be “in the road”.
I’m a life-long non-smoker who has already benefited greatly from BC’s previous laws, which prohibited smoking inside bars and restaurants. Moving here from Glasgow in 2002 brought instant relief from having to wash my hair as soon as I got home from a night out, and my clothes after every use. Now that the UK has its own smoking ban in place, going home is much more pleasant than it used to be and I am no longer addicted to second hand smoke. (I swear when I first moved here I used to inhale deeply every time I passed a smoker).
So I should be delighted with the new laws, right?
Wrong.
The thing is, smoke doesn’t bother me much on patios and on the streets. The only exception is when people at my table are smoking on a semi-enclosed patio, but fewer and fewer of my friends smoke these days.
Let people smoke outside if they want to!
I think the problem is that some non-smokers are overreacting to recent victories over smokers. Sensing signs of weakness, they’re moving in for the kill. After so many years of putting up with the obligatory inhalation of second hand smoke, they’re enjoying the feeling of power. And maybe taking it too far.
This brings me to my comment on last week’s debate, initiated by Henry Gee, about the discrimination that he thinks religious people in science are encountering from the more vocal atheists. (If you didn’t follow this debate, please read this first before reading the original post and its follow up).
I think that atheists, like non-smokers, are only recently experiencing some relief from their forced exposure to other people’s practices. As Henry pointed out, there are very very few cultures, past or present, in which the open expression of atheism is tolerated. Perhaps recent victories of free speech have caused some newly liberated atheists to go on a power trip and try to rid their environment of those pesky religious folks.
Personally, I don’t think that discussions of religious belief are appropriate for the workplace, but others may disagree. Either way, I hope that Henry’s experience is not typical and that science will remain open to all, regardless of religious, political1, sexual and other preferences.
Just don’t preach to me or blow smoke in my face. I won’t tolerate either attempt to force your habits onto me.
As someone2 once said, your right to swing your fist ends where my face begins.
[1] I wondered, in a comment on one of Henry’s original posts, how right wingers tend to fare in the typically liberal environment of the scientific workplace. I’m still wondering, because I don’t know any right wingers who are “out”. I think it’s an interesting comparison to the debate on religion.
[2] Google has let me down! I can’t find a definitive source for this quote.
I know a fair number of devoutly religious scientists at my institution. Some are religious but liberal (religious Democrats, for the US), and others are religious and conservative. I haven’t observed any attempts by the atheists, whom I might add are in the minority (many more consider themselves agnostic), to harass the religious. I myself am friends with several very religious people, and we simply agree to disagree on those matters. It doesn’t in any way affect our ability to be collegial. We do discuss religion in the workplace, but only with those who want to. Having said that, the second someone tries to tell me how my life is without meaning because I haven’t accepted God into my heart (yes, a postdoc I worked with once said that to me), I am wholly within my right to push back hard.
Thanks, Cath. I’m mildly religious, a recovering smoker … and vote Conservative. So sue me.
A little more seriously: what bothered me most about The God Delusion was that it represented such a lost opportunity. A book about science and religion needed to be written, and here was Dawkins, a peerless writer with a high public profile, in just the position to write a measured, calm account from which all could have derived benefit. But he overcooked it, and his cause, I think, has suffered. What’s more, as a Professor of the Public Understanding of Science, I think he had a responsibility to do a more meticulously researched job than he did. Just my opinion.
Second – an hypothesis. I wonder if hardline atheism goes with a kind of puritanical attitude to life in general, along with the PC attitude that says we can’t do (or say) the things we like? Like you, I like to breathe in secondhand smoke. I hear we’ll have to do without death-dealing sausages, soon, because a frozen sausage traveling at the speed of light can do serious damage, allegedly. Worse, we might even have to live without bacon, noch. Life without pleasure isn’t necessarily longer – it just seems like it.
I detest second-hand cigarette smoke. I hate walking behind people in the street if they’re smoking. But I think the banning of smoking has gone too far. I also (once a year or so) like a good cigar.
Politically I’m complex. I tend towards libertarianism, free (i.e. paid for by taxes) education and healthcare, an effective military, generous foreign aid and keeping the government out of bedrooms. Cannabis should be legal as long as tobacco and alcohol remain so. My theology is Reformed.
I like my steak rare, my vegetables crispy, wine German or Kiwi, my coffee strong and black, and would rather die than give up bacon and sausages.
Cath, I am completely with you here. My mother, a heavy smoker, died from lung cancer. She had been predicting that it would happen but was sufficiently addicted that some half-hearted attempts to stop evolved into resignation.
I was a highly asthmatic kid, perhaps as a partial consequence, and after taking the obligatory puff or two have never been tempted to inhale either first- or second-hand. Still, I firmly believe in diversity and all definitions of “degrees of freedom”. People who are addicted to tobacco should not have to downright suffer. A little inconvenience, okay (popping outside), but making a whole province stop cold turkey? Ridiculous, demeaning and cruel.
My non-PC admission is that I love foie gras. Although I think that battery-raised chickens and pigs probably suffer a whole lot more, I still eat them ofttimes, as do nearly all of us.
Cath – I have returned the compliment
Sausages? Sausages and bacon?! Do I need to come home and sort things out? That’s taking things way too far. Just make sure that people have the information in front of them and let them make their own choice. I’ve cut down on red meat because of the environmental impact, but try to take away my occasional steak (and Aussie red wine) and there will be trouble!
Henry, I still haven’t read the God Delusion. It’s next on my non-fiction pile, but I need to read a good novel first. Non-fiction takes me forever to read and I’ve just finished a big one (you were mentioned by name BTW). I’ve had a lot of people, especially atheists, tell me to brace myself for disappointment, but I’m still interested to read it for myself.
Oh, and just to clarify, I don’t actually enjoy breathing second hand smoke – I just did it for a few months when I moved here because I was addicted!
Non-fiction takes me forever to read and I’ve just finished a big one (you were mentioned by name BTW)
It’s all lies, I tell you! LIES!!!
The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, by Richard Fortey. Page 304 of the hardback version (you’re even in the index). Highly recommended – I’ll be reviewing it on my other blog some time soon.
I’d love to be mentioned by name in a book. One day maybe.
Cath: don’t read the God Delusion, download the audio version. It’s voiced by Mr and Mrs Dawkins themselves, which provides an extra dimension of zeal.
The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum, by Richard Fortey. Page 304 of the hardback version (you’re even in the index).
Oh bugger.
don’t read the God Delusion, download the audio version. It’s voiced by Mr and Mrs Dawkins themselves, which provides an extra dimension of zeal.
Sounds ghastly. You could of course listen to the abridged version
I’ve already bought the book, so I’ll have to imagine the added zeal.
I watched the first couple of seconds of that clip and had to close it down. I saw the whole thing on Pharyngula yesterday and it gave me most disturbing dreams in which PZ was actually Eminem. Seriously. That’ll teach me to eat cheese at night.
What they’ve done to poor Eugenie made me squirm a little, I confess.
Well, on the subject of right-wingers at work, I actually worked with a postdoc who firmly believed in evolution. Every now and then, he would espouse his beliefs, and to be honest, we didn’t really pay much attention. I never did understand though how he could discount his training, but we were immunologists and not bothered much with “how the immune system got there”, more with “how it works now”.
Kyrsten, did you mean that he did not believe in evolution? If not, I’m very confused 😉
Yeah, I was a bit thrown by that also, Kyrsten – an association of right-wing with ‘belief’ in evolution (or am I misreading you?).
That video is remarkable, if unnerving. I would quite like to hear the audio version of God Delusion as Mrs Dawkins did once play a Time Lord in Doctor Who, so clearly knows what she’s talking about.
Was that the Douglas Adams connection then? I seem to remember that he worked on Doctor Who.
Chalk that up to my pre-coffee brain. Sorry, he was firmly on the side that believed that God had a hand in everything.
Of course, this de-evolved into many arguments in the lab, but he didn’t take it personally…
I will come straight out and say that I am somewhat of a Dawkins fan. As a result, I happen to have read and listened to the God Delusion. Yes, the guy is passionate (sometimes to the point of looking red faced) about exposing the ludicrous and potentially damaging construct of religious faith. I have had pause to think that Dawkins has abused his position in Oxford as Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science in Oxford by ranting about religion excessively. However, on reflection, I would not agree with this as you just have to look at the number of other books he has published when popularizing science.
Just to clear things up, Dawkins, Harris, Dennet and Hitchens are not against religion per se, rather the premise of believing something on insufficient evidence, a practice roundly condemned in any other area of public discourse. It just so happens that religions considers this practice to be virtuous!
Henry, you consider Richard ‘overcooked’ his arguments by sounding shrill and zealous in his book, therefore missing his chance to generate a more affable conversation on the subject. I would point you to the first half of this YouTube video where Dawkins specifically addresses this point. Here is it
Cool discussion everyone!
Hi Haydon – well, I listened to four and a half minutes of this, but began to lose the will to live.
Just to clear things up, Dawkins, Harris, Dennet and Hitchens are not against religion per se, rather the premise of believing something on insufficient evidence, a practice roundly condemned in any other area of public discourse. It just so happens that religions considers this practice to be virtuous!
That’s the central flaw in Dawkins’ argument – faith does not require evidence, so asking that it should provide some is to misunderstand it. Sorry.
That’s an interesting point Henry, and one I should like to explore further elsewhere.
Briefly, I think that faith can be rational, and ‘evidence’ points to it, but does not prove it. The leap of faith — whether it be towards atheism or theism of some flavour — is the gap between evidence and belief.
I was expanding on this, but the margin of this weblog is not big enough to take it.
Cath – I like your analogising; however, the smoking thing is driven largely by the fact that it has been proven objectively to cause serious illness, which costs society a lot. As adults, we should be allowed to smoke if we want to (and we pay more in tax if we do; as we do if we drink)… but, I guess the point is the potential affect on others. So some kind of ‘remove’ from unwanted exposure to potential hazard is okay, although I agree that specifying a distance that consequently runs them the risk of being ran over is silly. Let’s hope they’re not taken out by a drunk driver, who, of course, should be discouraged from drinking and driving for the good of his/her safety, but, primarily, that of others.
But, as for religion… it shouldn’t be banned. I don’t think Dawkins advocates it this way (I read The God Delusion last year and don’t recollect that being his position as such; Cath, please update me when you get to it). That would be like trying to extract teeth through an elephant’s ass! Banning this kind of thing is totalitarianistic. Totalitarian regimes ban creeds, because they want total power and mind control exertion over the way of life of the population (by all means, people, help me out here if I’m wrong) and turn them into state robots. Religion gets banned because it’s a competitor. Now that is akin to fundamentalist religion – it doesn’t tolerate conflicting purpose. I personally think Dawkins is doing something that needs to be done – giving apathy a damn good rattle!
Did someone say ‘puritanical atheist’ somewhere? Yeeuch! What’s that? Not sure how much time I’d like to spend with that species.
But, as for religion… it shouldn’t be banned.
Very generous of you, Lee.
The leap of faith — whether it be towards atheism or theism of some flavour — is the gap between evidence and belief.
My point exactly.
I personally think Dawkins is doing something that needs to be done – giving apathy a damn good rattle!
True, apathy can always do with rattling from time to time.
@Kyrsten – that makes more sense! I’m breaking my own “no public typing before I’ve had some tea” rule this morning too, so anything could happen.
@Haydon and Lee – I usually post my book reviews over at my other blog, but I’ll let people here know when this particular one goes up! And Lee, there are hundreds of arguments around about the net costs / benefits of religion to individuals and society, but in this case I was considering merely my personal experiences of preaching and conversion attempts as the analogy to unwanted cigarette smoke. I guess I should have made that more clear!
@Henry and Richard, I’m not touching the faith-evidence thing with a bargepole. Have at it!
Oh, don’t worry, neither am I. Not after last time. I am resolved that if I even think about discussing this I should go and look at a picture of a golden retriever instead.
You’ll have seen a lot of this picture lately, which only goes to show how close I’ve been to frothing at the mouth and chewing the carpet. But a golden retriever can do that, so I don’t have to. Delegation. That’s what it’s all about.
What a cutie!
Delegation is yet another good argument for pet ownership. I shall put it to my husband. I can delegate the scratching of peoples’ eyes out to the cat. But not the sleeping, that’ll be a job share arrangement.
Hmmmm. I think you’ll find that cats have a closed-shop arrangement as regards sleeping.
S’okay Cath, it was perfectly clear. I was just ‘stretching’ your analogy. I had suffixed my first paragraph with ‘(stating the bloody obvious)’, and was going to touch on the benefit/cost issue in my second, but I’ve done that elsewhere and wanted to keep brief.
Of course, a committed smoker might argue that it helps their nerves, or some such. I’m an ex-smoker (often the worse group; bunch of whiners); when I was young, it seemed that all the adults in my world were smokers (think back earlier to all those 50’s/60’s films; everybody smoked on the big screen). Many adults would light up to “calm me nerves”. Taking up smoking was virtually a ‘natural progression’. And I remember enjoying it, but grumbling sinuses were probably the main motivation to stop. But they’ve kept grumbling on and off anyway.
I’m rambling. A future blog, maybe.
Isn’t a nicotine addiction the same as a caffeine addiction though, in that what feels like a boost is actually just bringing you back to normal?
Oh yes. So long as we place normal between inverted commas.
Normal is always between inverted commas.
I think we can make real change when asking for the things we want. When it comes to smoking it would be a better strategi to solve differences by seeking consensus on what we want. This could be more fresh air in our bars. In this way the differences between people will be solved by the positive attidue of saying thing we want.
This approach should be used on any issue that our world is needing. We have to say what we want. When it comes to global warming it is intelligent to say that “We can solve to climate crisis” (We project, Al Gore). This is to my mind how we change things fundamentally in the world because this sets the “Universal Law of Attraction” in power. My research points out that the Universal Law of Attraction works for everybody, though at a higher speed for people who believe in the Force.