Apocalypse not

Well, here we are, the day you've all been eagerly awaiting; December 21, 2012.  So far, nothing very apocalyptic has happened, as far as I can see from my limited perspective here in upstate New York.  Everything is pretty much cornfields and cow pastures, like it always has been.  The only thing of note is that my dog started barking at 2:30 AM, and when I got up to see what was bugging him it turned out that the emergency was that he had had a sudden uncontrollable urge to play tug-of-war with someone.  After I told him to put the damn rope toy down and go back to bed, he did, although he gave me a rather reproachful look as he did so.  I'm thinking that if the zombies come for me today, he's not going to intervene.

On the other hand, my lack of sleep means that we're going to have some serious Armageddon happening in my classroom today, if any of my students give me a hard time.

What's funny about all of this doomsaying is that the whole idea of the world ending (or being transformed, or whatever) didn't originate with the Mayans.  They Mayans knew the Long Count had cycles, and like every cycle, it started anew when the old one was done, like any good calendar does.  So the fact that the "13th b'ak'tun" supposedly ends today -- which the most skilled experts in Mayan language and culture don't even agree on -- doesn't mean we're about to be devoured by a black hole, or anything.  In fact, the first clue should be that the Mayans thought we'd already had twelve of the things, so you'd think someone would have said, "Hey, you know, if the world didn't end the first twelve times, it probably won't end this time."

But that's not how these people think, unfortunately.  The origins of the 2012 phenomena can be traced back to a few books and a lot of hallucinogenic drugs that were widely shared about in the 1970s.  José Argüelles' The Transformative Vision mentions 2012 as a "year of transformation," although it never mentions a date; the same is true of The Invisible Landscape, by noted wingnut and psychotropic drug enthusiast Terrence McKenna, who is living proof that when you screw around with your neurotransmitters, what you observe might be entertaining but it isn't necessarily real.

But in the 1980s, research by Robert J. Sharer and others into the Mayan language and calendar provided Argüelles and McKenna a finer brush with which to apply woo-woo principles to actual legitimate archaeology and linguistics, and they became convinced that December 21, 2012 was the day of days.  But it seemed a long time to wait, so they decided to arrange for an earlier transformative event to occur.  A sort of pre-apocalypse, as it were.  It was called the "Harmonic Convergence," and was scheduled for August 16, 1987.  A whole bunch of woo-woos showed up at Mount Shasta on August 16, and chanted and waved crystals about and did all sorts of other mystical stuff, but they all went home on the 17th when no converging, harmonic or otherwise, happened.

None of this discouraged Argüelles and McKenna, however, and they said that the really big stuff was going to happen... Today.  As in, right now.  Because the Mayans said so.  Never mind that when people talked to some actual, real Mayans, and asked them if the world was going to end because their calendar was going to run out, the Mayans said, "What do we look like, morons?  That's not how calendars work."

None of that has stopped the woo-woos from believing, nor has it stopped entrepreneurs from cashing in on their gullibility.  Tour companies sold out on excursions to Central America for the Fatal Week two years ago, just proving that there's no belief so ridiculous that some clever person can't exploit it to turn a quick buck.

Anyhow, it looks like December 21, 2012 will come and go without anything like what was predicted in the phenomenally bad movie 2012.  The Himalayan Mountains have not, last I heard, been washed away, and there have been no giant earthquakes, volcanoes, or other such cataclysms.  I'm guessing that we'll all wake up tomorrow and pretty much go about our business as usual.

Until, that is, the next forecast of doom, gloom, and/or global spiritual transformation.  You know there'll be another one.  Woo-woos just don't give up that easily.  It takes more than a 0% success record to discourage them.  It's a pity they can't turn this kind of persistence and dogged determination onto something that needs solving, like world hunger.  Because man, with that kind of single-mindedness, we'd have food to every starving child on the planet in no time flat.

Lights out

So apparently we don't already have enough nonsense being thrown about online regarding the End of the World, now the Tibetans have gotten involved.  [Source]

I find it interesting how many folks here in the Western World automatically give more credence to a story if it comes from somewhere mystical-sounding.  Look at how many "alternative medicine" treatments come from places like Peru, India, or the American Southwest (adding "Hopi" to a product's name is a sure-fire winner, which makes me wonder how the actual Hopi feel about all of this).  Of course, being from one of those places is no guarantee of not being a complete raving wackmobile, as was evidenced just yesterday in a pronouncement by Gyandrek, a Tibetan lama, who sent the following highly illuminating message to NASA, which I present here verbatim:

In late December, the Solar system planets line up in a row, which is a unique case.

Fall and winter will be warm, and from 12/21/2012 Earth will begin to pass through the galactic zero band.  This is a special state space where the blanked and not be subject to any energy.

Was complete darkness and silence. The electricity and communications. Darkness will be accompanied by flashes of light, as well as the play of light and shadow.

Sometimes it may seem that roam figures – as if the dead rose from their graves. earth will shake slightly – like a small earthquake. Some buildings can be destroyed.

Animals feel the earth before the coming of the cosmic dark and go to ground. People in cities do not feel so are the victims of insanity. Can be lost 10% of the population.

You need to prepare for this change of cycles to complete all the works in 2012, not to tie new, pay off debts.

20.12.2012 to take their children, all documents, cash and get out of town into the countryside. Prepare a supply of food for two months, as supply will be restored for a long time.

It is necessary to have in the house supply of water, firewood and candles for lighting. You need to have the stove in the house, as the electricity stops flowing from 21.12.2012 on the wire.

Communications and TV are turned off. During the "dark days" hang windows dark, not to look at them, do not believe your eyes and ears, not to go out. If you see the need to go, you cannot go far – you can get lost, as you’ll even his own hands.

After the appearance of the world is not in a hurry to return to the city, it is better to live in the nature of spring.

Well, I think we can all agree that this sounds pretty dire, especially the "darkness accompanied by light" part.  I'm sure that all of the scientists at NASA were tickled that Gyandrek felt obliged to weigh in on the situation, and are sincerely thankful that he warned them that according to his information, the "Solar system planets" are all going to line up in a row, sending us into the "galactic zero band."  Whatever the hell that is.

Now, you're probably thinking, "Why are you even bothering to post this?  How could anyone whose IQ exceeds his shoe size believe any of this?  I mean, really?"

Apparently, tens of thousands of people in China could.  According to a story in The Telegraph, there has been a run on candles and non-perishable food in local markets, because of the predictions of "continuous darkness" and fear that the electrical supply will fail.  A 54-year-old university professor's wife in Nanjing took out a £100,000 mortgage on her £300,000 home and plans to give all of the money to underprivileged children, so that she can "do something meaningful before the world ends."  (Hard to imagine how the underprivileged children are going to spend all of that money in just ten days, but at least the sentiment is nice.)  The Chinese government has tried to counteract all of the silliness, putting out messages directing people to ignore any End-of-the-World nonsense, but apparently it's not having much effect.

For me, the effect is to make me weep softly while banging my forehead on my computer keyboard.

Let's just be clear about this, okay?  The planets are not going to line up a week from Friday.  We are not going to have two months, or even three days, of darkness at the solstice.  There is no such thing as a "galactic zero band."  And while I'm sure the Mayans and the Tibetans are lovely people, their ability to predict stuff kind of sucks.  No one at NASA is taking any of this seriously, although I'm sure that their receptionist is going to be really glad when the 21st has come and gone so that (s)he can stop having to field calls from panicked wingnuts wondering what the scientists recommend doing to maximize your chances of surviving.

Of course, my tendency to scoff doesn't mean I can't have a little fun with the whole idea.  As for me, I'm hosting a party on the 21st.  We'll have plenty of high-fat food, and sugary desserts, because after all, we won't have to face any repercussions with our doctors if we're all dead (or ascended, or in the dark, depending on which version you go for).  There will, of course, be lots of beer and wine.  For the Rapture-minded, we'll have a Confess Your Sins booth, although offhand I can't think of any of our friends who is nearly holy enough to hear confession and grant absolution.  My wife wanted to dress up as either a Mayan princess or like Tina Turner in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, but the costume store was all out of both of those, so she's just going to surprise me.  As for me, I'm coming as a zombie, and just hope that no one thinks to bring a cricket bat.

France vs. the Mayans

Alarming news is coming out of France, where the true believers are heading to await the Mayan apocalypse that is due to occur in a little more than a month; the only safe spot in the world is being declared off-limits by the government.  [Source]

In a move that is bound to cause consternation amongst that segment of humanity that has pancake batter where the rest of us have brains, local officials in the town of Bugarach, France have made the decision to seal off access to the nearby mountain, the Pic de Bugarach.  Devotees of Mayan prophecy believe that on December 21, the top of the mountain will pop open, in the fashion of a jack-in-the-box, and an alien spaceship will rise out which will then save any people who happen to be in the area at the time.  I hardly need to point out that there are some flaws in this scenario, the main one being that after intensive study, geologists have concluded that the rule "mountains are made of solid rock" is almost never broken.  But true believers never let a little thing like science get in the way.

My feeling is that they also are unlikely to let official rules get in their way, and allow me to put any French officials who are reading this on notice: I have been studying woo-woos for some time now, and if there is a group that is less likely to completely ignore such a ban, I don't know what it is.  Come December 20, I think you should prepare yourselves for an onslaught.  These people fully expect the world to end, and there is no way in hell they are going to go back home and die when they could be climbing a mountain in France to wait for a spaceship just because you said "non." 

It all brings up the question, though, of what all of them are going to do on December 22 when it becomes obvious that (1) the world didn't end, and (2) the mountain didn't pop open, and (3) the spaceship never showed.  You'd think that this would induce them to say, "Wow, what goobers we've been," and to settle down and revise their worldviews into something more in line with common sense.  But studies have shown that when nutjobs make prophecies, and those prophecies don't pan out, rather than causing the true believers to give up, it makes them believe even more strongly.  Yes, you read that right; you spend the night huddled together, waiting for the Second Coming of Jesus, and midnight arrives and Jesus doesn't, and the next day, you still believe.  It was just that (1) something was amiss with your prediction of the time, or (2) Jesus changed his mind and has now decided on a later date.  It was not that your fundamental premise -- that Jesus was on his way -- was incorrect.

So what is the right approach, then?  It's a tough question.  Every once in a while, I'll have a woo-woo sign up for my Critical Thinking class.  You'd think that given my solid reputation as a skeptic, they either wouldn't sign up for the course, or else would sign up and keep quiet about their beliefs, but I've found that these sorts inevitably want to argue, and they never give up.  (The two most memorable examples were a girl who was an ardent believer in astrology, and a boy who belonged to the aliens-built-the-pyramids set.)  They just can't take my scoffing lying down, and are determined to bring me to my senses.  But given that this is also basically my approach toward them, I suppose it's only fair.

In any case, I hope that the police in Bugarach are ready for a riot, because that's what it's likely to come to.  Myself, I wonder what the next Big Thing is going to be, once they realize that December 21 was a wash.  Will they revise the date, in the fashion of Harold Camping?  Or come up with a whole new prediction?  Either way, it should be interesting, and I suggest you plan on monitoring woo-woo websites the week after the non-apocalypse.  I can barely wait.

Ignorance, evolution, and space weather

Self-awareness is tragically uncommon amongst humans.

There are lots of kinds of self-awareness, and I suspect that none of them are abundant; but here, I'm thinking in particular of the kind of self-awareness that involves an understanding of what you don't know.  Ignorance, per se, is not something to be ashamed of; it is simply something to correct.  Ignorance only becomes a problem when you are unaware that you are ignorant -- and then trumpet your views to the world as if they had the same relevance as those of someone who actually understands the topic being discussed.

I find this problem to be especially bad in the realm of politics, where everyone seems to feel the need to have an opinion about everything, despite the problem that many of those opinions are entirely unencumbered by facts.  But given that this is a touchy subject for many, and one that I myself am admittedly ignorant on, let's turn to a different and (hopefully) less controversial example.

A friend of mine sent me a link yesterday to the webpage of one Susan Joy Rennison.  Ms. Rennison begins her homepage thusly:

This website keeps online some of my research about the new phenomena of space weather driving massive evolutionary change. When I wrote my book Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spiritual Evolution, I was well ahead of the curve. I realised that Modern Mayan Elders were trying to point out that the citizens of planet Earth were entering a New Age dominated by aether or space, and the basic premise of my book was that the dramatic increase and impact of Space Weather was the predicted arrival.

We are put on notice that she is perhaps not a pinnacle of self-awareness a little further along, wherein she states:

Please note: I am NOT a New Ager and this is NOT a New Age website. Please read my Joyfire Philosophy webpage and my essay Spiritual Evolution in the Cultic Milieu, where I make it very clear that not every Seeker in the Cultic Milieu is a New Ager and thus steeped in certain New Age beliefs.

Ah.  So, you think that the Mayan Elders are ushering us into a "New Age dominated by aether or space," but you're not a New Ager.  Thanks, it all becomes clear, now.

Anyhow, Ms. Rennison's lack of awareness of her own ignorance is demonstrated fairly graphically when she starts blathering about solar weather, geomagnetic storms, and their significance to... evolution.  Yes, she seems to think that space weather is causing evolution.  No, I'm not making this up.  To wit (this is a bit of a long quote, but worth reading):

In September 2008, NASA announced that the inhabitants of Earth will be exposed to significantly more cosmic and galactic radiation, as part of a long term trend that started in the mid 1990s. The new phenomena of Space Weather, is the bombardment of Earth by solar, cosmic and galactic energy now causing concern to government agencies, satellite communication manufacturers and the power supply industry. Yet, the September 2008 announcement by NASA, that our planet is now being flooded by galactic cosmic rays as part of a long term trend that started in the mid 1990s, was even more startingly [sic], as scientists speculate that the shielding around our solar system might 'evaporate'.

On January 5th 2009, a press release about a NASA funded study stated that severe space weather will have “an impact” on humans, after years of only stressing the impact on technological systems. As galactic cosmic radiation floods our planet, this will most certainly cause an increase in DNA mutations and therefore generate evolutionary change. Certainly, environmental signals are now being affected by fluctuating geomagnetic signals, which humans use to maintain balance.

Whatever, as the shield around our solar system provided by the solar wind continues to drop, as the Earth's magnetic field also continues to drop, with the December 2008 announcements of recent evidence that current magnetic configurations are generating massive breaches that will permit stronger geomagnetic storms in the future and the ionosphere has also contracted permitting more radiation to reach the ground, there can be no denial that all life on Earth will be greatly influenced by new cosmic conditions. My book, Tuning the Diamonds: Electromagnetism & Spiritual Evolution explains the myriad of effects, including the spiritual and evolutionary implications of this high energy bombardment. The Human Genome Project that cost 2.7 billion dollars over 13 years revealed that our DNA is actually 'tuned' by the environment and our consciousness. Therefore, I hope the many recent announcements from the Space community will propel many in the alternative and mainstream world to consider how well placed they are to co-operate with this evolutionary impetus.

Well, now.  Where do I begin?  Here's a list of the errors I found in this passage, without even trying hard:

1.  "Space weather" is nothing new.  All of the indications we have are that solar storms, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections have been going on for millennia.  Yes, the incidence of such violent solar events waxes and wanes, for reasons that are poorly understood; but they seem to have relatively little effect on the Earth, causing minor problems for communications networks but otherwise not doing a hell of a lot except for creating impressive auroras.

2.  Humans do not use "geomagnetic signals" to maintain balance.  Balance is maintained by the fluid pressure in the semicircular canals, a structure in our inner ears that works a little like a carpenter's level.

3.  The shielding around our solar system is not "evaporating."  To be honest, I don't even know what the hell that means.  I can only think that she's referring to the heliopause, the point outside the solar system where the solar wind finally is slowed to zero by contact with interstellar material.  But this point is not some kind of Star Trek-style "shield" that's keeping cosmic bad stuff from hitting us, and there's no evidence whatsoever that it's somehow contracting.

4.  Evolution is not speeding up because of "galactic cosmic rays."  Yes, cosmic rays do cause mutations, but so do naturally-occurring radiation from radioactive minerals, and chemical mutagens (both natural and artificial) in the environment.  The speed of evolution is far more sensitive to the amount of selective pressure than it is to the amount of mutations in any case; and since most mutations are deleterious, an increased mutation rate (should it occur) would cause more cases of cancer than it would some kind of burst of evolution.

5.  The Human Genome Project said nothing about DNA being "tuned by the environment and our consciousness."  This statement makes me wonder if Ms. Rennison actually has any background in science at all, or, perhaps, is simply incapable of reading a press release.


Okay, so I guess I've hacked enough at the poor woman's webpage for now.  My point in going through all of this is not simply to poke at another New Ager -- heaven knows, those are a dime-a-dozen, and if I started to analyze every one of them I'd never be done.  My main point here is that it is as critical to be aware of what you don't understand as it is to be aware of what you do.  There are many areas in which my knowledge is significantly lacking, but I try my hardest not to pontificate on those topics as if I actually knew what I was talking about.  And if it's an area in which I feel that I should be more knowledgeable, I work to rectify that gap -- because, after all, ignorance is correctable.

It puts me in mind of a conversation I had with my dad when I was perhaps ten years old.  He was talking about a man we knew, and he said the man was ignorant, and then amended his comment to state that the man was actually stupid.  I asked my dad what the difference was.

"Stupidity is willful ignorance," he said.  I said I still didn't understand.

My dad looked thoughtful for a moment.  "Ignorance is only skin deep," he finally said.  "Stupidity goes all the way to the bone."

The Higgs boson visits Atlantis

Well, the Higgs boson is apparently a reality, a finding that had one CERN researcher stating to reporters, "A lot of bets are going to be settled up today."  The likelihood that the particle observed in two separate experiments, CMS and ATLAS, was the Higgs was placed at 99.9999%, which seems like pretty good odds to me.  (Source)

The finding is a major vindication for the Standard Model, the theory that describes how particles interact, generating fields, forces, and a variety of other phenomena, and will surely be the springboard to launch a whole new set of experiments designed to expand what we know about physics.

Unfortunately, it has already been the springboard for a variety of Non-Standard Models by woo-woos who take the Higgs boson's nickname ("The God Particle") far too literally.  And it didn't help that within the past few weeks we have had announcements from two other fields, Mayan archaeology (the discovery of a text that allegedly confirms the calendar "end date" of December 21, 2012) and paleoclimatology/geology (a seafloor survey that describes the topography of "Doggerland," the land mass that spanned what is now the southern North Sea between Britain and Denmark when the sea level was lower, during the last ice age).

Maybe you'll see where this is going when I tell you that the media has already nicknamed Doggerland "Atlantis."  (Sources here and here)

So.  Yeah.  Higgs boson + Mayans + Atlantis = WHOA.  And if you add the Easter Island statues into the mix, we just have a coalescence of woo-woo-ness that makes you wonder why we don't just have a Celestial Convergence right here in our living rooms, just from reading about it.

Regular readers of Skeptophilia will not be surprised that the assembly of these four unrelated topics together into some kind of Cosmic Hash is the brainchild of frequent flyer Diane Tessman, who has written about it here.  Ms. Tessman starts off with a little bit of self-congratulation:

It’s been a week of exciting, dynamic 2012 events! I made a prediction back in the early 1990s that archeological discoveries in the final phase of the Change Times would be landmark events that would answer long-unanswered questions.

I predicted that not only these landmarks were significant in themselves but they would be a catalyst for UFO disclosure, alien landings, and a change in reality-perception (level of consciousness) for all humankind.

Maybe my predictions expect too much to manifest from these pivotal archeological discoveries but this is not the time to be a skeptic, because after all, I was right about the astounding discoveries. We shall see about the rest of my predictions in the future.

Yup.  That we shall.

She then goes on to describe (1) how the discovery of mammoth bones, human artifacts, and terrestrial features like river beds on the North Sea floor shows that Atlantis is real, (2) the discovery that the Easter Island moai statues have bodies shows that UFOs are real, (3) the discovery of the new Mayan text shows that the whole Mayan prophecy nonsense is real, and (4) the discovery of the Higgs boson shows that God/Celestial Consciousness is real.  Or something like that.  With Diane Tessman, it's hard to tell, sometimes.  Here's what she had to say about the Higgs:

So, science has confirmed what spiritual people knew all along: There is a God Spark, a God particle. Of course many people feel “it” (he/she/it) is within us, not out there in the universe of physics. Truth might be, it is everywhere, just as sub-atomic particles are everywhere and just as consciousness itself is everywhere. The universe is consciousness!

Yup, I'm sure that's what the physicists at CERN are saying today.  "Wow, I'm glad we showed that the Higgs exists.  But after all, I felt it all around me, all the time, because, you know, consciousness.  And god.  And everything.  So we really didn't need to do that experiment, we could have just experienced the Higgs."

I get kind of hot under the collar when people who don't understand science hijack discoveries made by actual trained, working scientists for their own silly purposes.  It misleads, it muddies the water, and (worst) it cheapens the years of work done by the people who are some of the clearest thinkers in the world.  I'll be the first to admit that I understand only the vaguest, shallowest bits of the Standard Model and how the Higgs boson fits into it; but then, I don't go pontificating to my readers about what it all means as if I were a physicist.

Okay.  I should just calm down a little, because (after all) it's not like the scientists at CERN (or the geologists who are studying Doggerland, or any other working researchers) are losing much sleep over Ms. Tessman and her ilk.  So, I guess, let her have her spiritual quantum-physics-powered UFOs from Atlantis, or whatever the hell it is she believes in.  Me, I'm just going to have another cup of coffee and read some more press releases from the physicists, because however you interpret it, you have to admit that this stuff about the Higgs boson is pretty freakin' cool.