A self-portrait drawn by others

As you might imagine, I get hate mail pretty frequently.

Most of it has to do with my targeting somebody's sacred cow, be it homeopathy, fundamentalist religion, ESP, homophobia, climate change denial, or actual sacred cows.  And it seems to fall into three general categories:

• Insults, some of which never get beyond the "you stupid poopyhead fuckface" level. These usually have the worst grammar and spelling.

• Arguments that are meant to be stinging rebuttals. They seldom are, at least not from the standpoint of adding anything of scientific merit to the conversation, although their authors inevitably think they've skewered me with the sharp rapier of their superior knowledge. (Sometimes I get honest, thoughtful comments or criticisms on what I've written; I have always, and will always, welcome those.)

• Diatribes that tell me what I actually believe, as if I'm somehow unaware of it.

It's the latter I want to address in this post, because they're the ones I find the most curious.  I've got a bit of a temper myself, so I can certainly understand the desire to strike back with an insult at someone who's angered you; and it's unsurprising that a person who is convinced of something will want to rebut anyone who says different.  But the idea that I'd tell someone I was arguing with what they believed, as if I knew it better than they did, is just plain weird.

Here are a handful of examples from my fan mail, to illustrate what I'm talking about:

• In response to a post I did on the vitriolic nonsense spouted by televangelist Kenneth Copeland: "Atheists make me want to puke. You have the nerve to attack a holy man like Brother Kenneth Copeland.  You want to tear down the foundation of this country, which is it's [sic] churches and pastors, and tell Christian Americans they have no right to be here."

• In response to my post on a group of alt-med wingnuts who are proposing drinking turpentine to cure damn near everything: "You like to make fun of people who believe nature knows best for curing us and promoting good health.  You pro-Monsanto, pro-chemical types think that the more processed something is, the better it is for you.  I bet you put weed killer on your cereal in the morning."

• In response to a post in which I described my frustration with how many of our elected officials are in the pockets of fossil fuel corporations: "Keep reading us your fairy tales about 'climate change' and 'rising sea levels.'  Your motives are clear, to destroy America's economy and hand over the reigns [sic] to the wacko vegetarian enviro nuts.  Now that at least the REPUBLICANS in government are actually looking out for AMERICAN interests, not to mention a good man running for president who will put our country first when he's re-elected, people like you are crapping your pants because you know your [sic] not going to be in control any more."

• And finally, in response to a post I did on the fact that the concept of race has little biological meaning: "You really don't get it do you?  From your picture you're as white as I am, and you're gonna stand there and tell me that you have no problem being overrun by people who have different customs and don't speak English?  Let's see how you feel when your kid's teacher requires them to learn Arabic."

So, let's see.  That makes me a white English-only wacko vegetarian enviro nut (with crap in my pants) who eats weed killer for breakfast while writing checks to Monsanto and plotting how to tear down churches and deport all Christians so I can destroy the United States.

Man, I've got a lot on my to-do list today.

I know it's a common tendency to want to attribute some set of horrible characteristics to the people we disagree with.  It engages all that tribal mentality stuff that's pretty deeply ingrained in our brains -- us = good, them = bad.  The problem is, reality is a hell of a lot more complex that that, and it's only seldom that you can find someone who is so bad that they have no admixture whatsoever of good, no justification for what they're doing, no explanation at all for how they got to be the way they are.  We're all mixed-up cauldrons of conflicting emotions.  It's hard to understand ourselves half the time; harder still to parse the motives of others.

So let me disabuse my detractors of a few notions.

While I'm not religious myself, I really have a live-and-let-live attitude toward religious folks, as long as they're not trying to impose their religion on others or using it as an excuse to deny others their rights as humans.  I have religious friends and non-religious friends and friends who don't care much about the topic one way or the other, and mostly we all get along pretty well.

I have to admit, though, that being a card-carrying atheist, I do have to indulge every so often in the dietary requirements as set forth in the official Atheist Code of Conduct.

Speaking of diet, I'm pretty far from a vegetarian, even when I'm not dining on babies.  In fact, I think that a medium-rare t-bone steak with a glass of good red wine is one of the most delicious things ever conceived by the human species.  But neither am I a chemical-lovin' pro-Monsanto corporate shill who drinks a nice steaming mug of RoundUp in the morning.  I'll stick with coffee, thanks.

Yes, I do accept climate change, because I am capable of reading and understanding a scientific paper and also do not think that because something is inconvenient to American economic expediency, it must not be true.  I'd rather that the US economy doesn't collapse, mainly because I live here, but I'd also like my grandchildren to be born on a planet that is habitable in the long term.

And finally: yes, I am white.  You got me there.  If I had any thought of denying it, it was put to rest when I did a 23 & Me test and found out that I'm... white.  My ancestry is nearly all from western Europe, unsurprising given that three of my grandparents were of French descent and one of Scottish descent.  But my being white doesn't mean that I always have to place the concerns of other white people first, or fear people who aren't white, or pass laws making sure that America stays white.  For one thing, it'd be a little hypocritical if I demanded that everyone in the US speak English, given that my mother and three of my grandparents spoke French as their first language; and trust me when I say that I would have loved my kids to learn Arabic in school.  The more other cultures you learn about in school, the better, largely because it's hard to hate people when you realize that they're human, just like you are.

So anyway.  Nice try telling me who I am, but you got a good many of the details wrong.  Inevitable, I suppose, when it's a self-portrait drawn by someone else.  Next time, maybe you should try engaging the people you disagree with in dialogue, rather than ridiculing, demeaning, dismissing, or condescending to them.  It's in general a nicer way to live, and who knows?  Maybe you'll learn something.

And if you want to know anything about me, just ask rather than making assumptions.  It's not like I'm shy about telling people what I think.  Kind of hiding in plain sight, here.

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The postman always rings twice

When I started this blog ten years ago, I knew that I was gonna get hate mail.  It was inevitable, given my own strong opinions and the nature of the topics I write on.  I try to be as fair as I can, but I have no particular problem with identifying bullshit as such, and that has the effect of pissing a lot of people off.

 The thing that never fails to amaze me, though, is which posts get people stirred up.  I wrote a post comparing Donald Trump to Hitler, and nary a peep.  And yesterday I get two -- count 'em, two -- vitriolic screeds, both from posts I did ages ago -- one from the post I did in 2013 about the claim that hair is basically extended nerve endings, and the other about the claim I looked at a year earlier that there are giant glass pyramids on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean that collect and focus cosmic ray energy.

The first one lambasted me for not going out and doing a study on the topic myself before criticizing it, despite the fact that the story I was responding to had no evidence presented whatsoever except for an alleged study by someone whose name was changed to protect privacy.  Because, presumably, studying hair is frowned upon by the scientific community and could result in death threats, or something.  The original article was also laced with claims that were demonstrably false (such as that hair "emits electromagnetic energy"). But I guess my pointing this out pasted a target on my chest:

Humans have predators in the natural world...you're trying to say that our primitive ancestors were as lazy and non-attentive as some random douche canoe 'skeptic' on his computer, shovelling Bugles into his mouth in his Family Guy jammie pants?  HA!  No.  They slept in fucking trees to stay alive (hence the hypnic jerk) and had to intuit and be aware of their surroundings.

No, what I'm saying is that hair, being dead strands of keratin, are not nerves.  Keep your eye on the ball, here.  Also, being that I spent years teaching a neuroscience class, I'm well aware that we have sense organs, and the evolutionary origins thereof.

You honestly believe that there is NO WAY somebody with longer hair might be able to sense changes in the wind, movements from other animals around them, foreign predatory energy (as in E=MC squared) approaching?  REALLY?  It makes SO much sense, that it warrants a study, and it should be done.

Actually, if you'll read what I wrote, you'll see that I did say that hair increases skin sensitivity, and that whiskers in many animals function as tactile sensors.  And did you really just say that Einstein's mass/energy equivalence has something to do with picking up "foreign predatory energy?"

And as far as this warranting a study, I'll simply quote Christopher Hitchens: "What is asserted without proof may be dismissed without proof."

You clearly have no fucking CLUE what you're talking about, and that's coming from somebody who actually comes from the scientific community.  Stop trying to play scientist; you're bad at it.  So many of you Atheist/skeptics/whatever say the things you BELIEVE a scientist would say, when they would NEVER say it; you don't have the knowledge to back a claim, and just go around saying something is bullshit because you think it makes you appear intelligent...but something you clearly don't know is that an actual researcher or scientist would know WITHOUT A DOUBT that something was correct or incorrect before saying so. 

Cf. my earlier comment about my teaching neuroscience. Your move.

[Image is in the Public Domain]

The second one, about the ocean floor pyramids, was, if possible, even snarkier.  It began as follows:

The thing that makes me fucking angry about idiots like yourself is that you dismiss stuff you've never seen.

Another quote comes to mind, this one from Delos McKown, to wit: "The invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike."  But point made. I've never been to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.  Do continue.

If something doesn't fit the way you think the world is, you say it doesn't exist, piss on it, and walk away. 

It's hard to see how I'd piss on something that doesn't exist.  Even worse, how I'd piss on a nonexistent object that's not at the bottom of the Atlantic.  But all purely mechanical problems aside, I guess I was a little dismissive.

How do you know what the effects of cosmic rays are on the energy of the planet?  You talk like you have proof that pyramids couldn't be channelers of energy, but you can't prove it because you never leave your fucking armchair long enough to do anything but scoff.

I get out of my armchair pretty frequently, actually.  As far as how I know what cosmic rays can and cannot do, I once again feel obliged to point out that I have a degree in physics, teaching certificates in physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics, and the ability to read.  Those put together give me at least a reasonably good ability to understand actual science.

And another thing: there's this fallacy called "shifting the burden of proof."  If you make an outrageous statement -- such as there being giant glass pyramids in the ocean that focus quantum energy frequency vibrations -- it is not the responsibility of those who say "bullshit" to prove they don't exist.

The pyramid guy ended by saying:

I bet you don't even have the balls to post this comment on your blog.  People like you hate it when you're challenged, because you want to be right without doing any work.  Anyhow, fuck you.

You're right that I'm not posting it, because it is, as you point out, my blog.  (Although I am writing an entire post about it instead, the irony of which does not escape me.)  Let me be plain about this: commenting is a privilege, not a right.  I'm happy to post contrary points-of-view -- not that I enjoy being wrong, mind you, but having new information brought to light is how we learn.  I've more than once printed retractions when I have been dead wrong, an experience which is profoundly humbling but is necessary for honesty's sake.

But it's a little frustrating to be accused of being a shallow-minded scoffer by people who retort with shallow-minded scoffing.  If someone has legitimate science -- not just a screaming post of "it could be so, and you can't prove it isn't, so fuck you!" -- I'm happy to listen.

Until then, I'm sticking with my original stance, and don't expect me to rise to the bait and argue with you.   Or even post your comment.  Call me a douche canoe skeptic, but there you are.

In any case: keep those cards and letters coming.  I'm not fond of hate mail, but as Brendan Behan put it, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."  

So I tend to agree with Captain Jack Sparrow.  If people are sending me hate mail, at least they're reading what I write, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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Just last week, I wrote about the internal voice most of us live with, babbling at us constantly -- sometimes with novel or creative ideas, but most of the time (at least in my experience) with inane nonsense.  The fact that this internal voice is nearly ubiquitous, and what purpose it may serve, is the subject of psychologist Ethan Kross's wonderful book Chatter: The Voice in our Head, Why it Matters, and How to Harness It, released this month and already winning accolades from all over.

Chatter not only analyzes the inner voice in general terms, but looks at specific case studies where the internal chatter brought spectacular insight -- or short-circuited the individual's ability to function entirely.  It's a brilliant analysis of something we all experience, and gives some guidance not only into how to quiet it when it gets out of hand, but to harness it for boosting our creativity and mental agility.

If you're a student of your own inner mental workings, Chatter is a must-read!

[Note: if you purchase this book using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to support Skeptophilia!]

From the mailbag

Being a blogger means I get some interesting emails.

A lot of them, as you undoubtedly know if you read Skeptophilia frequently, are recommendations for future posts.  I appreciate these tremendously, even the ones of the "I think you're wrong and here's a link proving it" type.  Hey, if I wasn't willing to reconsider topics, and admit when I was wrong, I'd be a poor excuse for a skeptic.  So don't stop sending suggestions, and don't stop reading carefully so someone's keeping me honest.

Then there are the emails telling me what readers think of me.  Laudatory ones are lovely, of course, but I find the hate mail rather interesting.  Most of it seems to be generated because of my general disdain for pseudoscience -- by which I mean practices like astrology, homeopathy, auras, and (most) psychic/paranormal investigation.  (I emphasize the word most because there are groups that approach it the right way.  A good example is the UK-based Society for Psychical Research, which looks at such claims with a skeptical eye, and is perfectly willing to call out hoaxers when it's merited.)

Then there are the religious ones.  I got an interesting one in this category day before yesterday, and that's what spurred me to write this post.  I call it "interesting" not because I think the writer was right -- about pretty much anything (s)he said -- but because it brings up a few stereotypes that are all too common.  So here's the email in its entirety, with some interjected responses from me.

Dear Mr. Skeptic Atheist, 

I'm going to identify myself right away as a Christian.  I always have been and I always will be.  I know you'd like to talk me out of it, but it wouldn't succeed.

Well, you started off on the wrong foot.  I have no interest whatsoever in "talking you out of" Christianity or any other viewpoint you might have on which we disagree.  I'm a firm believer in something my mom taught me when I was little -- "my rights end where your nose begins."  So you can believe in God, you can believe in Allah, you can believe in Zeus.  Hell, you can believe that the universe is controlled by a Giant Green Bunny from the Andromeda Galaxy if you want.

I do, however, object when religion (or any other framework for belief) starts impinging on the rights of non-adherents.  An example is the virulently anti-LGBTQ stance of a lot of evangelicals.  You have every right to refrain from same-sex encounters yourself if you think they're sinful or repugnant.  What I won't stand by silently for is when you say, "I belong to the Church of XYZ, so you should be punished for being gay," or "I have a right to discriminate against you because my religion says I should."

Beyond that, I'm not trying to talk anyone out of, or into, anything.  I state my opinions -- rather strongly at times, I'll admit -- but I have the same right to do that as you do, and I have no more right to compel you than you do me.

I don't know why you feel like you have to trumpet your hate for Christians the way you do.  It isn't right. 

Asking me "why I hate Christians" is a little like asking "when did you stop beating your wife?"  In point of fact, I don't hate Christians.  I may disagree with them, but that's not the same thing.  And I'm happy to say that I am friends with people of a great many religions, and every gradation of faith, questioning, doubt, and disbelief, and honestly, we all get along pretty well.

Because I went to high school in rural southern Louisiana, you might imagine that I know a good many devout people -- and you'd be right.  Because of the wonders of Facebook, a lot of my classmates have kept in touch, and (surprise!) I can't remember any of us saying to another, "I don't like you any more because your religious views are different from mine."  Mostly what we do is argue about stuff like whose grandma had the best gumbo recipe.

And what made you hate God?  God shows nothing but love for his people, he wants the best for all of us, and you return nothing but spite.  Try looking at His creations without the fire in your eyes and you might be surprised.

Once again, I don't hate God, I just don't think he exists.  Which is hardly the same thing.  At the same point, being a skeptic (as I mentioned before), I'm perfectly open to being convinced, if anyone has credible evidence that I'm wrong.  (You may recall Bill Nye's comment during the infamous Bill Nye/Ken Ham evolution/creation debate that Bill was asked what would it take to convince him he was wrong, and he said, "One piece of evidence that couldn't be explained another way."  That's how I feel about pretty much everything.)

So if you have some evidence, let's hear it.  I promise I won't burn you up with the fire in my eyes.

The worst part is you're a teacher.  So you're influencing a whole generation of children who look up to you, inducing them to abandon God and putting them in danger of hell.  I can't think of anything worse.

This part made me think of how the author of this email must picture my classes.  What, do you believe that I run into my classroom every day, yelling maniacally, "THERE IS NO GOD!  WORSHIP SATAN!  BOW DOWN TO EVIL!  HA HA!" or something?  Let me tell you, with all of the actual science I have to cover, I simply don't have time to indoctrinate my students in Satan worship.

In fact, every once in a while -- this comes up most often in my Critical Thinking classes, although the question is sometimes raised when we're studying evolution in my biology classes -- some student will ask me if I'm religious.  My usual response is, "My own religious beliefs aren't relevant here."  I mean, given that my background is in evolutionary genetics, it's a pretty shrewd guess that I'm not a fundamentalist.  But other than that, I suspect the majority of my students don't have a clue about my own beliefs or lack thereof.

And that's exactly how it should be.

It's not too late for you.  You can still dedicate your life to Jesus.  The lost lamb can be found.  But not if you persist in your hateful, God-denying ways.  I'm asking you to repent and beg forgiveness, for your own sake. 

I will be praying for you daily that you will come back to your Creator rather than having to face him at the End of Days and be cast away in despair.

Well, I suppose that's all nice enough.  I'm not a big believer in prayer, myself, but I'll never turn away well-wishes in whatever form they may take.  And it's nice to know you don't want me to burn for eternity.  (And I have actually gotten emails of the "When you die I'm going to laugh because I'll know you're being tortured in hell" variety.  But they're not very common, which is rather heartening.)

The email wasn't signed.  It just sort of ended there, without a "have a nice day" or anything.  Although I can see that given what went before, that'd be a little ironic.

Anyhow, I suppose it could be worse.  At least there were no death threats.  And like I said, the writer seemed to be coming from a generally compassionate point of view, even if his/her interpretation of my beliefs was a few degrees off of due north.  So keep those cards and letters comin', although I'd prefer it if the "burn in hell unbeliever" and "I'm going to track you down and kill you" people would find another hobby.

Oh, and it was my grandma.  My grandma clearly had the best gumbo recipe.  Thanks for asking.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is from one of my favorite thinkers -- Irish science historian James Burke.  Burke has made several documentaries, including Connections, The Day the Universe Changed, and After the Warming -- the last-mentioned an absolutely prescient investigation into climate change that came out in 1991 and predicted damn near everything that would happen, climate-wise, in the twenty-seven years since then.

I'm going to go back to Burke's first really popular book, the one that was the genesis of the TV series of the same name -- Connections.  In this book, he looks at how one invention, one happenstance occurrence, one accidental discovery, leads to another, and finally results in something earthshattering.  (One of my favorites is how the technology of hand-weaving led to the invention of the computer.)  It's simply great fun to watch how Burke's mind works -- each of his little filigrees is only a few pages long, but you'll learn some fascinating ins and outs of history as he takes you on these journeys.  It's an absolutely delightful read.

[If you purchase the book from Amazon using the image/link below, part of the proceeds goes to supporting Skeptophilia!]

Vitriol in the mailbox

Whenever I write a post that's critical of Donald Trump, I always cringe a little as my finger is poised above the "Publish" button.

Because it never fails to result in hate mail, which runs the gamut from implications that I'm hopelessly stupid to spittle-flecked, obscenity-laden screeds, many of which make suggestions that would not have been anatomically possible even when I was in my twenties and was a great deal more flexible.

I've never seen anything quite like this.  I've written this blog for going on eight years, and during that time I have been critical of a large number of public figures.  Those public figures represent a reasonably good cross-section of political and philosophical ideologies; I try my best to be even-handed and criticize faulty thinking wherever I see it, regardless of whether the person in question belongs to the political party I favor.

So, as you might expect, people often take exception to what I say, and pretty frequently will come back at me with some kind of response, question, or rebuttal.  This is fine.  I have no problem being challenged; if I did, I wouldn't be a blogger, I would stay home and talk to my dog, who no matter what I say looks at me with this adoring expression that says, "Good heavens!  I would never have thought of that!  That's absolutely brilliant!"

But I have never seen anything like the vitriol that gets thrown at me over Donald Trump.  There's something about him that seems to incite either blazing hatred or defend-till-death loyalty.  I find this a little puzzling, but it played out again apropos of my post from two days ago, wherein I described the peculiar evidence-resistance I've seen in Trump and his spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders, wherein they will not admit to being wrong even when the facts are incontrovertible.  Here are just a few of the responses I got within twenty-four hours of the post.  I'm leaving out the ones that were pure vulgarity, because you can only write "go fuck yourself" so many times.

You liberals are doomed.  You know that, right?  We threw away the elephant and the donkey, and elected a lion.  You're [sic] days are numbered.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the polls aren't really bearing this out.  Support for Trump dwindled into the low 30s by mid-2017 and have pretty much stayed there, and most pundits are predicting that the Democrats are poised to have a good shot at taking back both the House and the Senate.  Now, I'm well aware that a lot can happen between now and November.  Hell, given the last week's headlines, a lot can happen between now and next Thursday.  But even so, the "lion" seems to be in some serious jeopardy of ending up in a very, very small cage.

What part of Trump is in the WH do you not understand?

I understand who the president is all too well, thanks.  My primary concern at the moment is not wishing someone else had won, it's wishing he wouldn't lie every time he opens his damn mouth, not to mention do something idiotic that gets us into yet another war.  And if you don't see him as  increasingly erratic, you're not paying attention.  To take one example (of many), consider his calling out Obama for making public a plan to send the military into Syria, then posting a tweet that... made public a plan to send the military into Syria.  The only difference was that this one came along with a slam against Russia for supporting Assad.  Then -- twenty minutes later -- he backpedaled and said our relationship with Russia is just fine.  And followed it up with saying that he didn't really say he was going to bomb Syria, and if he did, he didn't tell them the actual launch date, so it was all cool.

The man is a petulant, moody, ignorant toddler, whose response to everything is to call people names, lie, and sulk.  And I'd feel this way regardless of which political party he belonged to.  He could agree with me on damn near every political stance there is, and he'd still be completely unfit to run the country.

Finally we have someone whose [sic] doing something about stopping the immigrants from taking over, and people like you can't handle it.  Let's see how you feel when sharea [sic] law is declared in your home town.

Let me quote from my own post: "I'm not here to discuss immigration policy per se.  It's a complex issue and one on which I am hardly qualified to weigh in."  I never once said, either in that post or in any other, whether I'm for tightening or loosening immigration laws, whether I support DACA, whether there should be amnesty for illegals living in the United States, and so on.  (And I'm not going to.  When I don't feel qualified to comment on a topic, I don't comment on it.)  What I did comment upon was that both Trump and Sanders have said that illegal immigration is increasing now, and increased steadily throughout the Obama presidency, both of which are simply false.  I'm not so much concerned with the specific topic of immigration as I am with the fact that the president seems to be incapable of telling truth from fiction.

There has never been a president who has been so abused, so criticized, and had so many roadblocks placed in his way.  People criticize him for not accomplishing his agenda, but he's spending so much of his time defending himself against unfair attacks and criticism that it's no wonder.

First, allow me to point out that if a Republican president with a Republican Senate, Republican House, and Supreme Court dominated by conservatives can't achieve his agenda, it's hardly the fault of the Democrats. But about the abuse -- geez, how short a memory do you have?  Every president gets a dose of criticism (fair and unfair), ridicule, and so on, but have you forgotten what happened when Obama was elected?  The man couldn't wear a tan suit without Fox News having a complete meltdown.  He had a Supreme Court nomination stalled for nine months (an act that Mitch McConnell said was "the proudest moment of [his] political life"), resulting in the nomination never coming to a vote, something that was completely unprecedented.  And as far as how he was treated by the voters, do you remember this photograph?

Oh, wait, maybe you didn't see it, because it was never mentioned by Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity.  And it's only one of many.  If you do a Google image search for "Obama lynched in effigy," you'll see what kind of shit he and his family had to face on a daily basis.

So anyway.  I've probably just opened myself up to another waterfall of vitriol, which is fine.  Like I said, I'm used to it; it's an occupational hazard of what I do.  But the point I made in my original post still stands; if you hold a stance, and you are presented with hard, unassailable facts that the opposite is true, the only honest thing to do is to admit you were wrong, not to claim that you "still feel you're right" or that there are "alternate facts."

And sending the person who pointed it out anatomically impossible suggestions really doesn't help your case much.

*ding* You've got mail!

There's a quote from Winston Churchill that goes, "You have enemies?  Good.  That means you've stood up for something, some time in your life."

By that standard, I'd have gotten some serious props from Mr. Churchill for yesterday's post, which generated quite the deluge of hate mail.  I don't know where my link got posted, nor by whom, but evidently it was in a place where there are a significant proportion of people who took umbrage at my identification of Donald Trump as a liar, a racist, and a misogynist.

The responses varied from the banal to the highly creative.  Several of them invited me to do things that even thirty years ago I didn't have the flexibility to accomplish.  But I thought it'd be fun to respond to a few of them, even though all I'll probably do is generate more hate mail.

Oh, well.  I'm all about throwing caution to the wind.

[image courtesy of photographer Jessica Flavin and the Wikimedia Commons]

Here's one that I thought was kind of interesting:

You really don't get it, do you?  From your picture you're as white as I am, and you're gonna stand there and tell me that you have no problem being overrun by people who have different customs and don't speak English?  Let's see how you feel when your kid's teacher requires them to learn Arabic.

Well, my kids are 26 and 29, so unless they decide to enroll in college, they're unlikely to face this particular issue.  But ignoring that for a moment -- I would have been elated if my kids had had the opportunity to learn Arabic in school.  They each took three years of French, but to say they weren't enthusiastic about it is something of an understatement.  I would welcome any opportunity my kids, or kids in general, had to learn about other cultures.  In fact, I think a lot of the hatred and ugliness we're seeing right now is largely generated by the fact that the people who are the most racist don't know even a single person who is of a different race.

Once you get to know someone, realize that they have the same dreams, needs, and desires as you do, it becomes a hell of a lot harder to hate them.

Then there was this one:

Fuck you, you left wing libtard.  We finally have a president who speaks his mind, and you can't handle it.  Well, sorry, jerkoff, but this is America, and we're taking it back whether you like it or not.

"Taking it back?"  From whom?  Or do you mean taking it back in time?  Because that's a hell of a lot more accurate.  To the 30s, when racism and sexism was institutionalized, when there were still lynchings of African Americans, when being Jewish or Italian or Hispanic or Chinese meant that you were automatically disqualified from most high-paying jobs, and when you didn't even mention it if you were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

I can only hope we aren't going back there, and as a nation that we've learned the lesson that you don't gain more rights for yourself by denying others theirs, but in the last few days I've begun to wonder.

I also got an email sending me a link to a news article about the Justice Department demanding names of 1.3 million people who visited an anti-Trump website.  It was accompanied by the following cheery message:

Watch your back.  We know who you are.  There's a list of treasonous assholes like yourself, and you better be careful, because this shit is not going to be tolerated any more.

I have two things to say about this one:

1. The "we know who you are" thing cuts both ways, to judge by the number of white supremacists and neo-Nazis who were at the Charlottesville protest, who were identified from photographs, and who are now losing their jobs, facing censure from families and friends, and having their websites shut down.  Apparently a good many of them are boo-hooing the backlash, but don't do the crime if you can't do the time.
2. For the record, I've never tried to hide.  Not my political beliefs, nor my religious ones, nor much of anything else.  So if you want to put my name on your list, knock yourself out.  Write it in capital letters and underline it three times.  Bring it on.

Last, we have this one:

You alt-left pussies make me want to puke.  I bet if you were in any real danger, you'd run home to mama.  You're pretty tough when you're sitting there on your computer, aren't you, big man?

To be honest, I don't think I'm all that tough.  I'm a wuss about pain, frankly.  But I am willing to take significant risks to stand up for what I believe in, to follow Roy T. Bennett's exhortation to "Stop doing what is easy.  Start doing what is right."

And it's interesting that I'm already a member of the "alt-left," a group that President Trump invented two days ago.  I suppose I should be honored, really.  I was expecting it to take at least a few weeks just to have my application processed.  I hope this means that my official alt-left badge, commemorative t-shirt, and decoder ring will be in my mailbox soon!

Anyhow, that's a sampler of what was in yesterday's mailbag.  For damn near all of them, I pretty much just read the first line or two and deleted them, because there's only so many times you can read "go fuck yourself."

So I guess I struck a nerve, which is to me a good thing.  At least it means people are reading what I write, and (on some level) thinking about what I'm saying.  And with this crowd, any inroads I can make in the "reconsider your beliefs" department is movement in the right direction.

The postman always rings twice

When I started this blog five years ago, I knew that I was gonna get hate mail.  It was inevitable, given my own strong opinions and the nature of the topics I write on.  I try to be as fair as I can, but I have no problem with identifying bullshit as such, and that has the effect of pissing a lot of people off.

The thing that never fails to amaze me, though, is which posts get people stirred up.  I write a post comparing Donald Trump to Hitler, and nary a peep.  And yesterday I get two -- count 'em, two -- vitriolic screeds, one from the post I did in 2013 about the claim that hair is basically extended nerve endings, and the other about the claim I looked at a year earlier that there are giant glass pyramids on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean that collect and focus cosmic ray energy.

The first one lambasted me for not going out and doing a study on the topic myself before criticizing it, despite the fact that the story I was responding to had no evidence presented whatsoever except for an alleged study by someone whose name was changed to protect privacy.  Because, presumably, studying hair is frowned upon by the scientific community and could result in death threats, or something.  The original article was also laced with claims that were demonstrably false (such as that hair "emits electromagnetic energy").  But I guess my pointing this out pasted a target on my chest:

Humans have predators in the natural world...you're trying to say that our primitive ancestors were as lazy and non-attentive as some random douche canoe 'skeptic' on his computer, shovelling Bugles into his mouth in his Family Guy jammie pants?  HA!  No. They slept in fucking trees to stay alive (hence the hypnic jerk) and had to intuit and be aware of their surroundings.

No, what I'm saying is that hair, being dead strands of keratin, are not nerves.  Being that I teach a neuroscience class, I'm well aware that we have sense organs, and the evolutionary origins thereof.

You honestly believe that there is NO WAY somebody with longer hair might be able to sense changes in the wind, movements from other animals around them, foreign predatory energy (as in E=MC squared) approaching?  REALLY?  It makes SO much sense, that it warrants a study, and it should be done.

Actually, if you'll read what I wrote, you'll see that I did say that hair increases skin sensitivity, and that whiskers in many animals function as tactile sensors.  And did you really just say that Einstein's mass/energy equivalence has something to do with picking up "foreign predatory energy?"

And as far as this warranting a study, I'll simply quote Christopher Hitchens: "What is asserted without proof may be dismissed without proof."

You clearly have no fucking CLUE what you're talking about, and that's coming from somebody who actually comes from the scientific community.  Stop trying to play scientist; you're bad at it.  So many of you Atheist/skeptics/whatever say the things you BELIEVE a scientist would say, when they would NEVER say it; you don't have the knowledge to back a claim, and just go around saying something is bullshit because you think it makes you appear intelligent...but something you clearly don't know is that an actual researcher or scientist would know WITHOUT A DOUBT that something was correct or incorrect before saying so.

 Cf. my earlier comment about my teaching neuroscience.  Your move.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

The second one was, if possible, even snarkier.  It began as follows:

The thing that makes me fucking angry about idiots like yourself is that you dismiss stuff you've never seen.

Another quote comes to mind, this one from Delos McKown, to wit: "The invisible and the nonexistent look very much alike."  But point made.  I've never been to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.  Do continue.

If something doesn't fit the way you think the world is, you say it doesn't exist, piss on it, and walk away. 

It's hard to see how I'd piss on something that doesn't exist.  Even worse, how I'd piss on a nonexistent object that's not at the bottom of the Atlantic.  But all purely mechanical problems aside, I guess I was a little dismissive.

How do you know what the effects of cosmic rays are on the energy of the planet?  You talk like you have proof that pyramids couldn't be channelers of energy, but you can't prove it because you never leave your fucking armchair long enough to do anything but scoff.

I get out of my armchair pretty frequently, actually.  As far as how I know what cosmic rays can and cannot do, I once again feel obliged to point out that I have a degree in physics, teaching certificates in physics, biology, chemistry, and mathematics, and the ability to read.  Those put together give me at least a reasonably good ability to understand actual science.

And another thing: there's this fallacy called "shifting the burden of proof."  If you make an outrageous statement -- such as there being giant glass pyramids in the ocean that focus quantum energy frequency vibrations -- it is not the responsibility of those who say "bullshit" to prove they don't exist.

The pyramid guy ended by saying:

I bet you don't even have the balls to post this comment on your blog.  People like you hate it when you're challenged, because you want to be right without doing any work.  Anyhow, fuck you.

You're right that I'm not posting it, because it is, as you point out, my blog.  (Although I am writing an entire post about it instead, the irony of which does not escape me.)  Let me be plain about this: commenting is a privilege, not a right.  I'm happy to post contrary points-of-view -- not that I enjoy being wrong, mind you, but having new information brought to light is how we learn.  I've more than once printed retractions when I have been dead wrong, an experience which is profoundly humbling but is necessary for honesty's sake.

But it's a little frustrating to be accused of being a shallow-minded scoffer by people who retort with shallow-minded scoffing.  If someone has legitimate science -- not just a screaming post of "it could be so, and you can't prove it isn't" -- I'm happy to listen.

Until then, I'm sticking with my original stance, and don't expect me to rise to the bait and argue with you.  Or even post your comment.  Call me a douche canoe skeptic, but there you are.

In any case: keep those cards and letters coming.  I'm not fond of hate mail, but as Brendan Behan put it, "There's no such thing as bad publicity."  If people are sending hate mail, at least they're reading what I write, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Message for you, sir!

It's an occupational hazard as a blogger that occasionally you get hate mail.

I was thinking about this because I got not one but two emails yesterday informing me that I'm going to hell.  I suppose that's natural enough, too, given my criticisms of religion, but two in one day did seem a bit much.  The first one was succinct enough -- it was in response to a post from earlier this year, in which I described a guy's claims that Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster et al. were signs of the End Times, as hath been prophesied by the scriptures.  Here's what I was told, regarding that post:

Scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, "Where is the promise of His coming?"  For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. (2 Peter 3: 3-4)

To be fair, the person who made the comment is the guy who is made the original claim about El Chupacabra being mentioned in the Book of Revelation, so it's understandable that he'd more or less tell me to fuck off.  But it is the first time in my life that anyone has accused me of walking lustfully.

The second was more detailed, if only marginally more coherent, and was in response to a post I did two years ago about the "Quwave Defender," a device that costs hundreds of dollars and is supposed to protect you from "psychotronic manipulation" by the government.  I know from experience that the conspiracy theorists tend to be even touchier than the religious folks, so when you combine the two you get a mixture that makes nitroglycerin look like KoolAid.  Here's what the commenter told me about my opinions apropos of the Quwave Defender:

If someone such as Mr. Skepticism comes "just happens" to come across a site like Quwave and doesn't bother to research Targeted Individual harassment, etc., obviously the writer is guilty of the crime and spreading disinformation.  Entering the phrase, "targeted individuals in the usa" returns 54 million !!! results.  The overwhelming amount of information that is out there on this atrocity is incomprehensible in light of the fact the Mr. Skepticism and his partners in crime continue to get away with their sinister motives.  Don't worry, Mr. Skepticism, your crime ring will reign free....for a while.  Eventually it will fall like a house of cards, you can count on it. Then you will be homeless, hungy [sic], jobless, friendless, and dying...like all your victims.  Then you get to go to hell and be tortured far more terrifying and obscene than what all of you did to innocent victims in your lifetime.

So she sure told me.  It does cross my mind, however, that saying you get "54 million results" from a Google search is no indicator of whether what you're searching for makes sense.  Just for fun, I did a Google search for "magic alien weasel," and got 618,000 hits, which is considerably smaller than 54 million, but still pretty impressive for something that doesn't, technically, exist.  It also netted the following photograph:

So I was curious, in that game of free-association way that internet searches frequently exhibit, to find out where the photo came from.  Turns out it's from a movie I'd never heard of called The Man from Planet X, a 60s-era B-grade science fiction flick which sounds pretty amazing.  But better yet, the search turned up the photo because it had been used in a blog called A Writer's Universe, which at a glance looks absolutely wonderful -- a blend of science and fiction and musings about the universe, and you should all definitely check it out.

So a piece of hate mail threatening me with hellfire led me to a cool blog that I certainly will be coming back to.  One of those weird silver-lining things.

One of the funny things about blogging, and hate mail, is that I never know which posts are going to generate the most vitriolic responses.  Sometimes I'll post something pretty brutal, and when I hit "Publish" I think, "Man, I'm going to get blasted to smithereens over this one."  And... nothing.  Then I'll post something that seems so gentle and conciliatory that I won't give it a second thought, and...

BAM.

This happened just this week with my piece called "Bias Testing," in which I tried to strike a cautionary note and suggest that we all (myself included) need to keep our biases in mind when we react to a news story.  The news story I used as an illustration had to do with a Muslim woman, Tahera Ahmad, who was allegedly denied an unopened can of soda on an airplane, ostensibly because she was wearing a headscarf.  I even said explicitly that we only had Ahmad's side of the story, and that the airline was investigating the incident, but I was still lambasted repeatedly for being (1) a bleeding-heart left-winger who fell for Ahmad's obviously bogus story only because I suffer from white liberal guilt, and (2) a bigoted America-first racist because I mentioned that I didn't like Islam as an ideology, and therefore am complicit in the humiliation Ahmad experienced.

Well, make up your mind.  You can see as how I can't be both at the same time.  But that'll teach me to try to steer a middle course between two extreme (and, allow me to add, biased) views; you end up hitting the rocks no matter what.

So that's today's visit to the mailbox.  I've grown a thick enough skin after five years of blogging that most of the time, these missives don't cause me any more than a momentary bother, but it's still interesting to see what prompts people to respond.  And at least they're delivered via email.  Because even if it wasn't a Mortal Wound, I'd rather not follow in Fair Concord's footsteps and catch an arrow to the chest.