The nasty bite of Poe's Law

I have a love-hate relationship with Poe's Law.

Poe's Law, you probably know, is a rule of thumb named after Nathan Poe, who said in 2005, "The better a parody is, the harder it is to tell from the truth."

I love Poe's Law because the targets of parody and satire are often so richly deserving of it.  Consider one of the most fantastic parody sites out there -- The Onion -- which combines absolute hilarity with acid-tipped social and political commentary.  (One particularly trenchant example is that every time there is yet another mass shooting in the United States, The Onion has an article with the headline, "'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.")

On the other hand, I hate Poe's Law because there is enough misinformation out there without waggish satirists adding to it.  The Law itself states that good satire will take people in; the point is to get people to say, "No, really?", at least for a moment.  But for some folks, that moment gets stretched out way too far, and you have people believing satire is the truth.

My favorite example of this -- once again from The Onion -- is the pearl-clutching woman who wrote an outraged letter to the editor of Reader's Digest after they did an interview with J. K. Rowling.  "How can you give this woman more publicity?" the letter-writer said.  "This is supposed to be a magazine that supports conservative morals and values.  J. K. Rowling is an avowed practitioner of black magic.  She has overseen the baptism of thousands of children into the Church of Satan.  There was a major exposé of Rowling's evil activities a couple of months ago in The Onion."

The editor of Reader's Digest, showing admirable restraint, printed the letter, responding only with, "The Onion is a satirical news source, not meant to be taken as fact."

The "hate" side of the ledger got another entry yesterday, when a frequent reader and contributor to Skeptophilia sent me a message about Tuesday's post, which was about a scientific study showing that people are more likely to follow absurd directives than reasonable ones.  The message said, "Um, Gord... I think that site is satire.  Check the 'About' section."

He then pointed out that the lead researcher, Fiona Hayes-Verhorsihs, has a ridiculous name.  Say it out loud.

Yup.  "Hay's for horses."  Funny thing, given my background in linguistics, that this bit of the joke went past me so fast it didn't even ruffle my hair.  I figured the last part of her name was some obscure surname, perhaps Dutch or Afrikaans by the look of it, and didn't give it any further thought.

Suffice it to say that the fellow who sent me the comment is right.  I got bitten in the ass by Poe's Law.  Not the first time this has happened, nor (I suspect) will it be the last.  I didn't really dig too hard into the antecedents of the story; if I had, I'd have realized my error pretty quickly.  The problem is, the conclusion of the faux study -- that people can be pretty irrational at times -- was something I've written about many times before, and I have no real doubt that the general point is true.  So when the study by Professor Hay's-For-Horses popped up, I didn't even question it.

Meaning that I not only fell for Poe's Law, I fell for confirmation bias.

Of course, I'm in good company.  Pravda and Xinhua have both been hoodwinked by hoax stories that sounded plausible.

But so has Fox News.  So maybe "good company" isn't the best way to phrase it.

Anyhow, once this post is up, I'll take the old one down.  I'd rather not add to the morass of wacky stuff online, and find out that someone else has mentioned the absurdity study -- and cited Skeptophilia as the source.  All of which has me rededicating myself to being careful about my own research, as should we all.  Check your sources, look for corroboration, see if you can find out the credentials of the people cited -- all before you post, like, or retweet a link.

And that goes double if you're the author of a blog devoted to rational thinking.

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I've been interested for a long while in creativity -- where it comes from, why different people choose different sorts of creative outlets, and where we find our inspiration.  Like a lot of people who are creative, I find my creative output -- and my confidence -- ebbs and flows.  I'll have periods where I'm writing every day and the ideas are coming hard and fast, and times when it seems like even opening up my work-in-progress is a depressing prospect.

Naturally, most of us would love to enhance the former and minimize the latter.  This is the topic of the wonderful book Think Like an Artist, by British author (and former director of the Tate Gallery) Will Gompertz.  He draws his examples mostly from the visual arts -- his main area of expertise -- but overtly states that the same principles of creativity apply equally well to musicians, writers, dancers, and all of the other kinds of creative humans out there. 

And he also makes a powerful point that all of us are creative humans, provided we can get out of our own way.  People who (for example) would love to be able to draw but say they can't do it, Gompertz claims, need not to change their goals but to change their approach.

It's an inspiring book, and one which I will certainly return to the next time I'm in one of those creative dry spells.  And I highly recommend it to all of you who aspire to express yourself creatively -- even if you feel like you don't know how.

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

Hot dog cure

There's nothing like a good parody to point up the absurdity of a claim.

Of course, when what you're parodying is itself ridiculous, you stand the chance of having your parody sound as plausible as the original claim.  (Which is the basic idea of Poe's Law.)  And that's why it took me about ten minutes to figure out that what Douglas Bevans was doing at Gwyneth Paltrow's "Goop Health Summit" in Vancouver, British Columbia, was a prank.

Bevans was there to sell Hot Dog Water -- which is, unfortunately, exactly what it sounds like.  It's a bottle of water with a hot dog suspended inside.  The product, he says, has innumerable health benefits.  "Our extraction experts have deemed it a miracle product and with reason.  First of all it’s keto-compatible, you can lose weight, look younger, increase vitality for sure, and last but not least, increase brain function."

It's also gluten-free, and "full of sodium and other important electrolytes."  Bevans says not only does he have drinkable hot dog water, but hot dog water lip balm and hot dog water breath spray.

The problem, of course, is that this sounds a great deal like claims Paltrow has actually made, such as "gemstone water," which is like hot dog water only replacing the hot dog with an emerald.  "Although humorous," Bevans says, "Hot Dog Water is not a prank, and people are not being tricked into drinking it.  Rather, in its absurdity, the art performance encourages critical thinking related to product marketing and the significant role it plays in our purchasing choices."

Well, it'd be nice to think that this'd be the effect, but having written here at Skeptophilia for eight years, I'm perhaps to be excused for thinking that he might be vastly overestimating the human race's capacity for critical thinking.  After all, people buy Quantum Downloadable Medicine (you pay by credit card, then sit in front of your computer as the medicine "downloads directly into your body"), homeopathic water (which is water diluted with water), and arranging your diet based on the phases of the moon (it is called, I shit you not, the "Werewolf Diet").  To me, Hot Dog Water is actually more sensible than any of those, although it pains me to admit it.

I mean, tickets to the Goop Health Summit cost $400 each, and she sold out.  I don't want to think of how much money she made from this event, and that's not even considering the fact that the whole point of the summit is that she's trying to get her products into Canadian markets.  She called it a "mind-expanding day," which apparently means that your mind turns into a gas and then drifts out of your ears.

Because in my opinion, that's the only way you could believe 90% of Paltrow's health claims.

Nevertheless, Paltrow considers the event to be a roaring success, and brags that she "goopified" Stanley Park Pavilion.

Whatever the hell that means.

So I'm not sure I should be encouraged by Bevans's Hot Dog Water stunt.  I mean, I laughed, not least because it reminded me of "hot ham water" from Arrested Development (Lindsay Bluth's one and only attempt to fix dinner -- ham soaked in hot water.  "It's watery," she bragged.  "With a smack of ham.").  But the fact that there are people who probably think Bevans is serious is a little disturbing.

I'd better go get a cup of my favorite health supplement -- "hot bean water."  With extract of the tropical plant Saccharum officinarum.

Better known as coffee with a teaspoon of sugar.

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This week's Skeptophilia book recommendation is a wonderful read -- The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  Henrietta Lacks was the wife of a poor farmer who was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1951, and underwent an operation to remove the tumor.  The operation was unsuccessful, and Lacks died later that year.

Her tumor cells are still alive.

The doctor who removed the tumor realized their potential for cancer research, and patented them, calling them HeLa cells.  It is no exaggeration to say they've been used in every medical research lab in the world.  The book not only puts a face on the woman whose cells were taken and used without her permission, but considers difficult questions about patient privacy and rights -- and it makes for a fascinating, sometimes disturbing, read.

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

Poe's law, absurd beliefs, and demon sex

There's this idea called "Poe's Law."  Named after Nathan Poe, the first person to set it down as a rule of thumb (although certainly not the first person to notice the phenomenon), Poe's Law states that a sufficiently well-done parody of a ridiculous or extreme belief is indistinguishable from the belief it is parodying.

Poe's Law, coupled with a lack of rigorous research, almost certainly explains how comedian Stephen Colbert got invited to be the keynote speaker at the Presidential Press Dinner during George W. Bush's presidency, probably selected by a staffer who was fired one microsecond into Colbert's speech, and whose job is now giving rectal exams to walruses in Barrow, Alaska.  The speech was a combination of funny and excruciating, as he stayed in his ultraconservative persona for a full twelve minutes while slyly lambasting the president, vice president, Chief Justice Scalia, and just about every Republican politician in office at the time -- right in front of their faces.  Poe's Law also explains how stories on the political parody site The Onion have suckered real, legitimate news reporters from Pravda and Xinhua, and have more than once spawned outrage (remember the firestorm that occurred when a story on The Onion claimed that the last Harry Potter movie was being split into seven separate films?).

So, parody, when done well, can fool you.  But that is part of what parody's function is, isn't it?  It's to take every flaw, every foible, every odd claim, every trope of what's being parodied, and exaggerate it just enough to make it look ridiculous.  And done well, it can be a powerful force for showing crazy beliefs for what they are.

The problem is, of course, that Poe's Law also works the other way.  A sufficiently crazy (but seriously held) belief can be so out there, so bizarre, that it looks like a parody.  We read about it, and stop, smile a little, and say, "No... really?  No, come on, no one can possibly believe that."

The problem is yes, often, someone -- and a lot of someones -- do believe that.   Fervently.

I ran into a perfect example of this yesterday, in the online magazine Charisma.  Far from being what it sounds like -- a magazine about romance, makeup, clothing, or something of the sort -- Charisma is a magazine featuring stories by, and about, devout Christians.  From their "About" page:

To passionate, Spirit-filled Christians, Charisma is the leading charismatic media source that inspires them to radically change their world. Since 1975, Charisma magazine has been a trusted source of news, teaching and inspiration to help spread the gospel of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

As the voice of the charismatic movement, Charisma has steadily combined award-winning news coverage of what the Holy Spirit is doing around the world with relevant, timely messages from leaders in the Spirit-empowered community. Yet even from its earliest days, Charisma has always been about more than what's on the pages of a monthly magazine.

All of which sounds like pretty standard Christian fare -- until you start looking at specific articles, many of which fall into the "Backing away slowly, keeping my eyes on you the entire time" category.  In fact, the article that I came across yesterday on their website is entitled, "Can You Be Raped By The Devil?"

Well, I'm sure you've already guessed that just by having this question as the title of the article, the author, Cedric Harmon, thinks the answer is "yes, of course."  It is, he says, "more common than you think."  (Well, given that I think the number of times it has happened is zero...)  To research this phenomenon, Harmon interviewed Contessa Adams, a stripper turned devout Christian who thinks she had sex with a demon not just once, but many times.  "Unless you're strong enough to rebuke it, they'll keep coming back," she says.  "You must speak the Word of God, knowing you have power in the name of Jesus."

So, what is the consequence of all of this satanic bow-chicka-bow-wow?  Harmon says that when people are tricked into having demon sex, it can change them in a variety of ways:

• It can make you not want to have sex with an actual human.  Demons, apparently, are that good.
• It can lead you to practicing voodoo or Santería.
• It can make you a homosexual.

Yes, dear readers, you read that right; Harmon believes that one way a person becomes gay is by fornicating with a demon.

I think this was the point that I did the "No... really?" thing.  Was this a parody, slipped into Charisma magazine by a parodist to see how absurd a belief they'd actually print?  The answer, apparently, is "No."  It appears that however absurd it sounds, Harmon seriously believes this stuff -- and so do many (although, thankfully, not all) of the people who left comments on the story.  As frightening as this is to me, there are people who read this sort of thing, and basically say, "Oh, of course.  That makes complete sense."

The eminent evolutionary biologist and science writer P. Z. Myers, in his awesome blog Pharyngula, recently wrote a piece called "No More Poes" in which he says:

I heard several announce “He’s a poe” or “he must be a poe”. Dear god, but I’m sick of that stupid word. It’s become a standard response to batty stupidity — lately, it doesn’t matter how ordinary a comment is or who said it or how well verified it is — there’s always someone in the crowd who has to show off how insightful or cynical they are by declaring that it must be a pretense.

Look, people, we live in a country with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Joseph Farah as prominent media sources; where Akin and Broun and Jindal get elected to high office; where every newspaper is full of common folk writing in to complain about those gays or those socialist commies or those egghead liberals. There is nothing unlikely or unbelievable about a down-home ministry that announces you’ll go to hell for believing in science. Bat-buggering bullshit is routine.

If you needed a good example of exactly that, look no further than Charisma magazine.  Parody, after all, is hardly needed when the people in question have descended so far into absurdity that they seem to be engaged in self-parody.

The Gospel according to Mr. Eyes

In today's news, we have yet another story that illustrates a variety of truisms, to wit:

• You can't argue with a woo-woo.
• If you try, your arguing makes their belief stronger.
• It's damn hard to tell if someone is an actual woo-woo or is parodying woo-woos.

This whole thing started because of a website called "The Men in Black Suits Are Real," which on April 24 got the woo-woo equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, which was a mention in HuffPost's Weird News.  (Read the article here.)  This resulted in the owner of the MIB site, who (because of security reasons) is known only as Bugeyes126 and lives in a Small Town In The Middle of Nowhere, don't try to find him because you won't succeed, to write an article crowing about how huge this is.  This began a back-and-forth between Bugeyes126 and the writer of the original article, Briony Westinghouse.

Eventually Bugeyes was asked to write an article for the HuffPost, which he did (here), and included some audio clips from people who were amongst the tens of thousands who left voicemails for him.

Okay, this is when my problem started, because as I was reading all of this I was working from the assumption that Bugeyes is serious, but I listened to the clips -- and one of them claims that Florida ice cream truck drivers are aliens.  My first thought was, "Okay.  Now I get it.  This is parodying conspiracy theorists.  Bugeyes is making fun of the whole MIB phenomenon."  But I felt kind of uneasy about that conclusion; nowhere was that moment when his commentary went so far over the top that I was certain that it was parody.  There was something awfully... earnest about him.  So I kept reading.

And eventually, Bugeyes somehow decided that not all Men in Black were Men in Black, because he accused Arianna Huffington herself of being an alien:

You're an extraterrestrial. I know it. You know it.

I'm not trying to expose you, but you have information I can't get from anyone else. I know you work with the Men in Black Suits. And I want to work with them, too. Please help me.

How did I find out? Last night, I received a call into my Men In Black Suits Are Real hotline from someone who asked that I conceal his identity "for the sake of the shareholders." The caller had specific information about The Huffington Post that nobody else could possibly know. And his message was clear.

It all makes sense now. With all you're involved with across the world, I've certainly had my suspicions.

This resulted in Arianna Huffington responding, in what may be one of the funniest video clips I've ever seen (starting with her referring to Bugeyes as "Mr. Eyes"), and you all need to watch it (here). Make sure you watch the whole thing, because the best part is at the end.

So, okay, Skeptophiliacs: what do you think?  Is Bugeyes126 serious?  Or is he a smart guy who is engaged in an elaborate parody?  In the conspiracy theorist column, we have the following evidence:

• Nowhere does he ever break from the True Believer Persona.
• The people who called in to his "hotline" sound pretty serious.
• He has over 43,000 followers on his Facebook page, many of whom (to judge by their comments) are True Believers to the point where they should be medicated. 

In the it's-a-parody column, we have:

• Neither does Stephen Colbert.
• Ice-cream trucks?  Really?
• He appears to be fourteen years old.

So, anyway, I'm not sure, which is a scary development, because it means I'm losing the ability to tell what's real from what's not, which is the very thing I always rail at the woo-woos about.

Whichever it is, I'm thinking that if what he's doing has attracted the attention of HuffPost, I may be approaching this blog writing thing the wrong way.  It has been a continual source of pain to me that ridiculous ideas have a much greater cachet than critical thinking does, which explains why astrology and fortunetelling and homeopathy are so much more popular than, say, classes in formal logic.  Maybe I need to get a little flashier.  Maybe I need to install a Woo-Woo Hotline.  Maybe I need to start featuring audio clips from people who have seen Bigfoot.  Maybe I need to make a mock-up, as Bugeyes126 did in a recent post, of my face featured on The Weekly World News.

Or maybe I just need to calm down and go have another cup of coffee.