Coincidences and Beliefs (Part 2)

Posted on May 30, 2012 by zoeweil

I’ve written about coincidences before and about how important it is not to assign illegitimate meaning to chance events. But sometimes it’s hard not to believe in supernatural forces in the face of truly amazing coincidences.

One such coincidence happened recently to my husband, Edwin. A wasp got into our house. It was a big wasp. It buzzed around the ceiling and then disappeared. Edwin doesn’t like bees and wasps, probably because his father was allergic, and he himself has huge reactions to them when he’s stung. The next morning we were planning to take the dogs on a long hike a couple of hours from home. We’d be gone for 12 hours, leaving our cat at home alone. With the wasp.

I hadn’t given the wasp any thought at all, but Edwin had. In fact he’d gone to sleep worrying about leaving the cat in the house with the wasp, and had awakened in the middle of the night, fretting about the cat if he didn’t find the wasp. In the morning, he couldn’t find the wasp. As he went to put on his boots, he found himself wondering if the wasp was in his right boot. He put it on, and then put on the left boot, and then stood up and felt something under his right arch. He took off the boot, and there was the wasp, dead. Even my scientist husband couldn’t shake the strangeness of that coincidence. Why on earth had the wasp wound up in his boot? But even more perplexing, why had he wondered if it was there? He hadn’t wondered if it was in his slippers when he put those on as he got out of bed.

And so we crafted a story. Our cat, not wanting him to worry, caught the wasp in the night and deposited it in his shoe to reassure him. A selfless act from an otherwise self-centered creature. Edwin liked the story.

I’m in the midst of reading an excellent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel prize winner in economics. The book describes the differences between our two modes of thinking – fast: intuitive, emotional, making causal connections that may not be valid; slow: deliberate and logical. As a scientist, Edwin is very deliberative and careful not to indulge in rash and emotional thinking. He’s not very susceptible to superstition and doesn’t normally jump to invalid conclusions, but the wasp threw him off. And so we’re enjoying the image of our cat, risking himself to catch a wasp and deposit it just where it needed to be to reassure Edwin. It’s a good story, even if it’s not true.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Occam’s Razor and Animal Cognition and Emotion

Posted on May 28, 2012 by zoeweil
I’m sometimes startled by the lengths to which some scientists will go in insisting that nonhuman animals cannot feel, think, plan ahead, mourn, etc. In a recent Wired Science essay, “Stone-throwing Chimp Thinks Ahead,” author Michael Balter cites psychologist Sara Shettleworth’s article denying that the chimp in question actually planned ahead when he gathered stones to throw at visitors. The actual language Balter uses is whether “some humanlike animal behaviors might have simpler explanations.”

Occam’s Razor, the principle of accepting the simpler theory or hypothesis over a more complex or convoluted one, is normally accepted as a worthwhile guiding approach to adopting explanations; yet when it comes to animals, scientists often go out of their way to refute the simplest explanation, which is that many other animals are able to think, feel, plan ahead, mourn, and so on.

Anthropomorphism can be dangerous and misleading, and readers of my blog know how much I appreciate the scientific method for determining what is true and what is not; yet it’s ironic that Occam’s Razor is so quickly abandoned when it comes to anything related to animal cognition and feeling.

Isn’t is simpler to assume that other mammals evolved to learn from experience, plan ahead (what else are squirrels doing when they store nuts for winter), and to feel? Descartes’ belief that a dog’s yelp was akin to a robotic program rather than an expression of feeling is preposterous to anyone who’s ever spent any time with a canine, yet such outdated opinions about animal emotions are still normative among many scientists. It seems both silly and unscientific to believe that humans are unique in our capacity to feel and think, as if we didn’t evolve, along with other mammals, to have these capacities for a purpose. Such assumptions seem more the purview of those who deny the reality of evolution than those who embrace science.

But things are changing. Jane Goodall, who was once excoriated for naming the chimpanzees she studied in Gombe, is now a widely respected ethologist. Other ethologists, like Marc Bekoff who wrote the wonderful book, The Emotional Lives of Animals, are published regularly in respected journals. And stories about chimps thinking ahead make sense to most of us, even as the citations of those who deny this ability seem odd, old-fashioned, and unscientific.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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The Politics of Food: Freedom to Choose ≠ Freedom to Impose Costs on Others

Posted on May 23, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy stevendepolo via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for One Green Planet, a website dedicated to ethical choices. Here’s an excerpt from “The Politics of Food: Freedom to Choose ≠ Freedom to Impose Costs on Others”:

“Although nothing Glenn Beck says surprises me anymore, it seemed rather unconservative to lambast Michelle Obama’s efforts to combat childhood obesity. Beck is quoted as saying, ‘Get your damned hands off my fries, lady. If I want to be a fat-fat-fattie and shovel french fries all day long, that is my choice.’

On the face of it, the statement sounds reasonable, if not overly bombastic. After all, this is supposed to be a free country. But those who express such sentiments are often the same people who oppose mandated health insurance. Ironically, if an uninsured obese child or adult faces years of health care costs they can’t afford, or winds up in an emergency room, the rest of us foot the bill through our increased insurance and health care costs. And when meat and dairy products, processed foods, and Big Ag are subsidized through our tax dollars, while organic, small farms are not, all of us wind up paying the costs of unhealthy diets, even if we personally choose to eat healthy, plant-based, organic foods.”

Read the complete essay.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Awakening Eyes

Posted on May 21, 2012 by zoeweil
Image copyright Edwin Barkdoll.

Years ago, when I first heard spring peepers and ventured out at night to see them, it took forever to find them. If I was lucky, I’d spot one after much searching. True, in those years they weren’t as plentiful at our pond as they are now. The family that dug the pond behind our house 20 years ago did so primarily to stock it with fish so that they could go fishing; but the second summer we lived here we had a heat wave that killed all nine fish over the course of a week. I remember feeling so sad as day after day the fish I’d loved to swim with in the small pond floated dead to the surface.

But in the absence of fish, the amphibian population has grown dramatically. Half a dozen species have found a home here, and this year we had spotted salamanders lay eggs for the first time. It’s deafening now in the spring, and on warm nights, we head out with flashlights to catch a glimpse of the small spring peepers with their big sounds.

Last night I had just 10 minutes between returning from my Aikido class and a scheduled conference call. I headed out, and in those ten minutes saw 20 peepers. Now I also see the night crawlers, earthworms who venture out of seemingly invisible holes, moving like a writhing earth as I walk by. They too were invisible to me years ago, and now they’re everywhere. My eyes are ready to see all this now, attuned as I’ve become to the night life in our backyard. I love that. I love that once we learn to see, we can always see. It’s a metaphor for me for awakening in general. May we each awaken to the mysterious, awesome life around us.

Enjoy this video of a spring peeper peeping in our backyard:

Spring Peeper video

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Star Trek, William Shatner, And a Humane World for All

Posted on May 16, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of JD Hancock via Creative Commons.

For my blog post today, I’m sharing a recent post I wrote for Care2.com, an online community for people passionate about creating a better world. Here’s an excerpt from “Star Trek, William Shatner, and a Humane World for All”:

“In my TEDx talk, I ponder the Star Trek phenomenon. There’s no easy explanation for the enduring power of a TV show from the 60s that got cancelled after three years; for the millions of fans; for the continued success of Star Trek in its many permutations; for any of it. But for me, the power of Star Trek lies in its profound hopefulness and its vision of an essentially peaceful and healthy human society in which we’ve become explorers without being conquerors, in which we treat other species with respect and care and where our curiosity is endlessly fulfilled with adventure and discovery and an aversion to harm. Star Trek makes me optimistic about our future. If we can envision such a world, surely we can create it.”

Read the complete essay.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed. 

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The Last Beet for Mother’s Day

Posted on May 14, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of sean dreilinger via Creative Commons.

I’m writing this post on Mother’s Day, which is one of those days that’s complicated for me. On the one hand, I don’t like being manipulated by a Hallmark holiday – a day created to sell products. On the other hand, I do like having a day each year that I can consider special. It’s always been a great opportunity to do something fun with my husband and son. But my son no longer lives at home, and so now I find myself full of expectations around this fake holiday that set me up for silly hopes and even sillier disappointments.

I returned home last night after a 7-hour drive and several days away. When I awoke, the day was full of possibility. We could drive to a favorite spot we love to visit at this time of year when the fiddlehead ferns emerge, and hike a 10-mile loop with the dogs; but after such a long drive the day before, I wasn’t up for what would be a fairly long drive again. We could canoe, but the dogs wouldn’t like that as much. As I considered the possibilities I ventured outside, where I was confronted by the enormity of work that needed to be done in the garden and around the house. Already, the garden is full of weeds. The dandelions around it are in bloom, and much as I love them, are threatening to seed the entire garden. Our small pet grave area also needed weeding and tending. Plus the big projects that await us, like blazing a new trail through the woods.

So instead of venturing away, I got to work in the garden, and I wondered, as I periodically do, about whether it was worth all this work. So much work! Theoretically, I love that I grow so much of my family’s food, but practically, I sometimes think I should just go to the farmers’ markets or join a CSA instead. It’s hours and hours every week tending the garden. I remind myself that if I enjoy it; if it’s a good break from my primary work in Humane Education, then of course I should do it. But it’s often more a chore than a labor of love. As I weeded around the beet seedlings that I had planted a month ago, noticing that there were way more weeds than seedlings, and as the black flies started biting me, I thought, It’s time to go do something else – at least today, on Mother’s Day.

And then I went inside and stopped to check the big trash can of vermiculite in which I store our beets during the fall and winter; and lo and behold, there was a perfect beet at the very bottom, the last one from last year’s garden. I remembered the juice I made all last fall, mixing a beet and carrots and pears and apples – all from our garden and property. I recalled how delicious and beautiful that juice was. I looked forward to cutting up this big remaining beet for our salads at dinner, and I remembered why I grow food. Finding that beet was a lovely Mother’s Day treat – reminding me that tending my garden is worth it. So we’ll do some more work around the house today. And then, we’ll take those dogs on a walk in the woods and be a good mom to them, too.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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Resisting the Urge

Posted on May 7, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy of Mel B via Creative Commons.

I was in a tiny, cramped thrift shop in New York City last weekend, and a woman in the shop was talking loudly on her cell phone with a thick New York accent. She was sharing the kind of personal information one doesn’t usually broadcast, probably not realizing that she was indeed broadcasting it because her voice was so loud. I found myself amused enough to think, “That would be a good addition to share in my 1-woman show” (the U.S. debut of which is Thursday, May 10).

Later, I found myself starting to write a wall post on Facebook about what I’d heard her say, because it was funny. Right before I posted it, however, I thought better of it. What value will this have in the world?, I thought to myself. None, really. And so I resisted the urge to post it.

Then today I read this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt:

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

May each of us spend more time striving to share important ideas and less time sharing gossip. May each of us resist the urge to write and speak those things that really aren’t of value and commit to writing and speaking those things that will contribute in a positive way. And may I heed my own suggestion.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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“My Ongoing Problems With Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl” Debuts in U.S.

Posted on May 4, 2012 by zoeweil

On Thursday, May 10, I will be debuting my new 1-woman show, “My Ongoing Problems with Kindness: Confessions of MOGO Girl” in the United States. I’m excited. I’ve already had the nightmare during which the curtain opens and I flub my opening line and forget the rest while standing on the stage barefoot (which my director promises me is a very good sign!).

The show has already had its international debut (in Fredericton, NB, Canada), and the organizer had this to say about it:

“With healthy doses of wit, candor, and insight, Zoe Weil shows us just how tricky — and funny — it can be attempting to live as a full-time compassionate citizen on this wonderful, complicated planet.  If you like laughter, deep thought, and hearty challenges, then you don’t want to miss My Ongoing Problems with Kindness.  Long live MOGO Girl and her growing band of solutionaries!” – Kurt Schmidt

So, I feel set to embark upon this adventure, bringing the issues I care about so deeply to new audiences who wouldn’t otherwise come to a presentation or workshop but would come out to be entertained.

If you would like to bring the show to your community, please let me know.

~ Zoe

Filed under: humane education, MOGO (Most Good), Zoe Weil appearances | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Green Conversations with Michael Tobias

Posted on May 2, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy MichaelTobias.org.

On May 6, I will be attending a fundraising event in Los Angeles to support the great work of the Dancing Star Foundation. In honor of this fabulous organization, I invite you to read the fascinating and important interviews and essays in Forbes that Dancing Star’s director, Michael Tobias, posts in his column “Green Conversations.”

I was honored to be one of the interviewees last week and have been finding the interviews with others so crucial and thought-provoking and wanted to share them for my blog post today.

For a humane world,

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

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