Secular indoctrination and spoon-bending

It used to be that when I was accused (usually because I teach evolution) of "indoctrinating students into a secular, materialist, rationalist worldview," that it would set my teeth on edge.

And yes, the above is an actual quote.  However, the same charge has been levied against me, and other science teachers, using a variety of verbiage.  Teachers should not teach students to doubt, to question authority.  By adhering to an evidence-based, rationalistic approach, we are calling into question faith and spirituality.

Worse still, public schools are "atheist factories."

On one hand, I question the extent to which teachers really can create seismic shifts in students' worldviews.  With very few exceptions, the kids in my classes who come in religious, agnostic, and atheist leave my classes (respectively) religious, agnostic, and atheist.  It takes more than forty minutes a day for 180 days to undermine an entire belief system, even if that was my goal (which, incidentally, it isn't).

On the other hand, though, the critics do have a point.  We science teachers are promoting rationalism as a path to knowledge.  And we damn well should be.  Rationalism has provided us with the medical advances, engineering, and technology that the majority of us are happy enough to use without question, regardless of the fact that they were produced by a methodology that has nothing whatsoever to do with faith or divine inspiration.  If you want to call what I do "indoctrination into a rationalistic worldview," then have at it.

What's funny is that a lot of the extremely religious get their knickers in a twist if someone steps in and tries to teach students a different spiritual, non-evidence-based set of beliefs.  It's okay to let religion into public schools, apparently, as long as it's the right religion.

As an example, consider the odd bedfellows that have resulted from decision by the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics to allow a self-styled psychic to come in and teach telepathy and telekinesis to high school students.  (Hat tip to the wonderful site Doubtful News for this story.)

Here's how the story was reported:

Mentalist and mind reader Gerard Senehi recently partnered with the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics to offer classes meant to help students develop life skills like self-confidence and answer tough questions about themselves, such as “Do you have the courage to pursue what you really care about?” and “How much do you have a sense of direction and purpose in life?” 

The program, called The QUESTion Project, kicked off with a Dec. 19 performance at the school where Senehi dazzled students with tricks like bending wine glasses, spinning spoons in other people’s hands and making accurate predictions about the future. 

Edward Tom, the school’s founding principal, was also impressed by how well Senehi managed to keep the students’ attention. "The whole purpose wasn’t to give kids a magic show," he said. "It was to let them know the power of belief, that there are so many things that are possible…"

No, Mr. Tom, you're right about that.  It isn't a magic show.  In a magic show, the magician is clear on the fact that what (s)he is doing is an illusion.  Senehi claims that what he's doing is real.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

This has appalled a number of people, including the very religious (who don't want evil stuff like psychic powers influencing teenagers) and secular rationalists (who are appalled that such claptrap is being presented as reality, and in a science center, no less).  Both, of course, are right, although in different senses.  Such a performance could influence students' beliefs.  Stage magicians (which Senehi is, even if he won't admit it) can be terribly convincing.  They only become famous if they're good enough that you can't see how they do what they do.  Presented with an inexplicable trick, and the message, "You can learn how to do this, if you try hard enough!", I can see how people (not just teenagers!) could get suckered.

Which is why people like Senehi should not be allowed anywhere near school-age children.  Adults sometimes have a hard enough time telling fact from fantasy; encouraging teenagers to further blur this distinction is irresponsible.

Magician and skeptic Jamy Ian Swiss put it most succinctly.  In a piece about Senehi, Swiss said, "If you tell the audience you’re doing anything other than tricks, …you’re not doing entertainment. You’re doing religion."

And to anyone who objects to his characterization of what Senehi is doing as religion, allow me to point out that as a set of bizarre claims with zero evidence, psychic beliefs are clearly religion.

So to the people who would eliminate "rationalist indoctrination" from science classrooms, let me ask: what would you put in its place?  If we allow spiritualistic and faith-based beliefs to guide what we do in schools, we have stepped onto that fabled slippery slope.  Do you really want kids to sit through presentations by people who claim that they can learn how to do telepathy and bend spoons with their minds?  Are you honestly comfortable with allowing any and all faith-based belief systems to guide instruction?

If not, maybe the safest thing for all of us is to let science teachers keep on with the rationalism, and leave the faith stuff -- of all flavors -- to the homes and the churches.

Allahu akbar, Frosty!

Islam has had some serious problem with its PR in the past couple of weeks, what with the Charlie Hebdo massacre, a series of Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria that left an estimated 2,000 dead, a horrific incident involving a ten-year-old female suicide bomber, and the flogging of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi for "insulting Islam."

So let's do a little thought experiment, here.  You're a prominent Muslim cleric, and you read the litany of bad news.  You're concerned not only about how the rest of the world views your belief system, but how Muslims themselves must feel when they hear about the atrocities being done in the name of their religion.  What do you do?

1. You make a strongly-worded statement repudiating violence in the name of religion.
2. You put pressure on religious and governmental leaders to consider human rights reform.
3. You encourage your followers to donate money to groups that are fighting terrorism.
4. You open a discussion of the passages in the Qu'ran that encourage such behavior.
5. You issue a fatwa against snowmen.

If you picked #5, you understand the leadership of Islam all too well.  Muslim leaders have been far more willing to mess around with prohibitions against random behaviors than to stand up against the horrors perpetrated in Islam's name.  (Some leaders have done so, fortunately; there have been several Islamic groups who have spoken out, especially regarding Charlie Hebdo.)

But in theocratic Saudi Arabia, mostly what we've heard on the topic of human rights, freedom of speech, and eliminating terrorism is: silence.

But woe unto you if you build a snowman.  Saudi cleric Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid said that it was forbidden to build a snowman, "even in fun:"

It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun...  God has given people space to make whatever they want which does not have a soul, including trees, ships, fruits, buildings and so on.

So now snowmen have souls?  What, did this guy think that Frosty the Snowman was a historical documentary?

While some Muslims are shaking their heads about how ridiculous this is, there are a lot who apparently think this is perfectly reasonable.  "May God preserve the scholars, for they enjoy sharp vision and recognize matters that even Satan does not think about," one responder wrote.  "It (building snowmen) is imitating the infidels, it promotes lustiness and eroticism."

My opinion is that if seeing snowmen makes you feel lusty and erotic, you have an entirely different problem, unrelated to matters of religion.

[image courtesy of photographer Thomas Cook and the Creative Commons]

And seriously.  Do they really have that big a snowman problem in Saudi Arabia?  It's no wonder that Satan hasn't thought about it.  Last I looked, Saudi Arabia is basically a big desert.  Prohibiting snowmen in Saudi Arabia is about as reasonable as me, up here in the arctic wasteland of upstate New York, issuing a fatwa against palm trees.

But rationality has little to do with this.  If Islamic leaders keep tightening the grip on every move their followers make, even in realms that have little to do with reality, it'll obviate them of the need to focus on the real issues.  It reinforces the message that Allah is watching, that he knows when you are sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows when you've been bad or good, so be good or you get 1,000 lashes on your bare back.

Even if it does convince most of the rest of the world that the worldview is, at its basis, completely insane.

An aura of divergent thinking

First, let me just say that I love my students.

Far from conforming to the slacker, disaffected teenage stereotype, I find that nearly all of my students are natural questioners, are interested in the world around them, and are willing to be engaged with learning.  We as teachers have only to hook on to that energy, avoid putting a bell jar over the flame of their inborn curiosity, and half the battle over "higher standards and academic achievement" will be won.

Take, for example, my Critical Thinking classes.  An ongoing exercise we do once weekly through the entire semester is media analysis; students submit an analysis of an example from popular media, as an illustration of some concept we've studied during the previous weeks.  We look in turn at print media, audio/visual media, and online media, but other than that, there are few strictures on what they can turn in to receive credit for this project.

It's amazing what they find.  Once tuned in to a few basic principles of media analysis, high schoolers rapidly become adept at sorting fact from fiction from outright bullshit.

As an example of the last-mentioned, take a look at the site one of my students submitted last week, a little gem called Reading Auras.  In particular, she drew my attention to the page, "Aura Dating for Seniors -- A New Way of Looking at Love."

If you're sitting there thinking, "No... that can't mean what it sounds like...", unfortunately, you're wrong.  This is precisely what it sounds like.

This site is suggesting that senior citizens find new love by comparing the color of their aura with that of a potential significant other.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

It starts out in a remarkably condescending fashion:

One of the more interesting applications of this knowledge is in dating, with special emphasis on senior dating.  Seniors are less familiar with the Internet and because of this they might not be able to give an accurate or complete description of their personality details and likes and dislikes.  Neither they would [sic] be able to describe too well what they are looking for in a partner.

Now that we've established that once you pass the age of 65, you are no longer articulate, let's take a look at the solution:

The aura personality map, in this case, would work like an automatic scanner that reads and translates all that the seniors could not put in words.  Besides, matching the auras is much more accurate in finding the right partner than any other method.  This is because each color of the aura would provide information about the person that would be a better guide to find the right person. 

The relationships that come out from aura colors matching are more meaningful for it is based on the vital energy sources.  This means there would be a better chemistry between the matched senior dates right from the beginning, which in turn would have better chances of developing into a long term significant relationship.

Well, this is correct in one sense; if I was re-entering the Dating Game, I'd want to know right away if a potential partner thought I had a nice-looking aura, because no way would I want to become romantically involved with someone who sees nonexistent halos around people.

On this site, we also find out that it's not a good thing if you have a brown aura, unless it's "caramel brown," which means that you're "fun;" that you can compliment your aura readings with reading a person's tongue, because the tongue's "size, shape, color, and topography" tells you a lot (for example, if your tongue is blue, you have circulatory problems); that your pets have auras, and that if you tune in to your pet's aura (s)he will "show more pleasure than usual;" and that children are naturally adept at seeing auras, and we should encourage them in this rather than dissuading them by silly old narrow-minded rationalist nonsense like teaching them to sort fact from fantasy.

This last-mentioned is at least within hailing distance of the truth.  There is one skill at which children outstrip most adults by a mile, and that's divergent, creative thinking.  A study by Robert McGarvey, which gained traction largely because of its use as an example of how schools fail by the phenomenal speaker Sir Ken Robinson, shows that by one measure of divergent thinking, preschoolers score 84% -- and second graders an average of 10%.  This is, Robinson says, because by second grade, kids have already learned "that there is one answer, and it's in the back of the book -- but don't look."

In my experience, though, you can resurrect this long-suppressed ability for creative critical thinking, but it requires teachers to do something that many of us find pretty scary -- to let go of the reins some. Turned loose on academics, most students can re-engage their curiosity and capacity for divergent thinking quickly.  Take, for example, a recent study that showed that when students are given the opportunity to make choices about what they read for their classes, they read more often and more enthusiastically.  Who wouldn't?  It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar to see that autonomy is a motivator.  As literacy advocate Pam Allyn put it, "You become a lifelong reader when you're able to make choices about the books you read, and when you love the books you read.  You tend to get better at something you love to do."

But our response, as educators, has been to tighten down more, to place more restrictions on how students learn and on how they demonstrate that they have learned, all behind the rallying cry of "raising standards."

As my student's analysis of the aura website showed, when given the opportunity to dig into a topic, students are capable of doing so with gusto.  My student's presentation of her media submission to the class began with the statement, "This may be the most extreme example of confirmation bias that I've ever seen -- these people are literally seeing what they want to see."

But are we, as educators, doing the inverse of that -- not seeing what we would prefer not to see?  More student autonomy, more divergent thinking, more ways of getting to answers, more ways of expressing them?

And how much of that reluctance comes from our conviction that there should be only a single way to learning?

It seems fitting to end with a quote from Sir Ken Robinson:

We have to go from what is essentially an industrial model of education, a manufacturing model, which is based on linearity and conformity and batching people.  We have to move to a model that is based more on principles of agriculture.  We have to recognize that human flourishing is not a mechanical process; it's an organic process.  And you cannot predict the outcome of human development.  All you can do, like a farmer, is create the conditions under which they will begin to flourish.

Speaking out for Raif and Soheil

As a blogger, I am thankful every single day that I live in a society where I am free to write, to criticize, to be provocative.

I try not to offend, but I know I occasionally do.  On those occasions where the offense was my fault, when I cross the lines of propriety, I apologize.  Because that's how civilized, rational people act.

Not so in many parts of the world.  There are dozens of countries where to write what I write, to be who I am, would be to take my life, liberty, and safety into serious risk.  Yet there are still brave individuals who continue to speak out, who are willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of freedom of speech.

Such a man is Raif Badawi.  Badawi is a Saudi blogger who set up a network for freethinkers, and who made plain his views about the control the religious establishment has over the Saudi government (i.e., total).  And last year, Badawi was arrested, tried for "insulting Islam," and sentenced to ten years in jail and 600 lashes.

His lawyer filed an appeal.  The judge responded by increasing his sentence to 1,000 lashes.

Raif Badawi [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Yesterday, Badawi was brought out into the city square in Jeddah, stripped to the waist, had his wrists tied to a post, and was given fifty strokes with a whip on his bare back.

Only 950 to go, which are to be given in sessions of fifty lashes each, every week for the next twenty weeks.

What are you implying, Saudis?  That your Allah is so weak, so fragile, that a blogger who criticizes him deserves to be whipped?  That a single man with a computer is so strong by comparison that the only response is to give him a sentence that probably will never be completed, because he'll have died of his injuries first?  Badawi's criticisms of you, your regime, and your religion were mild, so let me up the stakes.

Your leaders and your judges are barbarians.  Their acceptance of violence for thought crimes makes them no better than the Inquisition.  Your religion and your holy book, which do mandate such penalties, is a skein of lies that is one of the worst things that the human race has ever invented.

Is Allah outraged?  Good.  Because Je Suis Raif.

In Iran, another blogger is likely to be hanged soon, for similar "offenses."  Soheil Arabi, a thirty-year-old writer from Tehran, was convicted in August of "insulting the prophet of Islam" and "sowing corruption on the earth" for posting material critical of Muhammad on several Facebook pages under assumed names.  Had he been found guilty of being critical "while drunk or when quoting others," he would "only" have been given 74 lashes in the public square.

But instead, he confessed, probably under torture, and the judge handed down the death sentence.  Arabi said that he is "remorseful," but under Iranian law, that doesn't make any difference.

Soheil Arabi [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

So once again, we have a lone man who has so much influence that his posting on Facebook is going to make people question their reverence for the Prophet?  That'd imply that the Prophet must not have much going for him, if he can be so easily insulted.

But yes, that's what they're implying.  And it is likely that soon Arabi will find himself standing on the gallows, with a noose around his neck and a black hood over his head, all because he did not show enough respect for a worldview that merits none.

Je Suis Soheil.

Human rights include the right to think freely and to speak freely.  A religion that can be destroyed by questions and criticisms deserves to be.  The vicious barbarians currently in charge in Saudi Arabia and Iran are, perhaps, correct to be afraid that such freedoms would represent a threat to their power; when people are given an opportunity to point out the evils in society, they can no longer be painted over with a coating of sanctity and holiness.  The inhumanity and outright cruelty become obvious to all.

And you'd think that the crowd that witnessed Raif Badawi being whipped yesterday, that the ones who may soon witness Soheil Arabi hanging by his neck from a rope, would have the same awakening, even if seeing such horrors make them unlikely to speak out.  But now that we have the internet, now that such things cannot be kept hidden away, now that people can speak and write and interact with others across political borders and barriers of religious ideology, such criticism cannot be crushed forever.

So to the people in power in Saudi Arabia and Iran, I have this to say: your days are numbered.  You may be able to torture or kill your citizens for thought crimes now, but the number of people who are willing to put their lives at risk for the right to speak out is growing exponentially.  And they have millions of supporters worldwide who will make sure that the message gets out there.

Je Suis Raif.  Je Suis Soheil.

Zombie nanobots from hell

For the latest reason that you should avoid being vaccinated, as long as you have zero understanding of science, we have:

The medical establishment puts nanobots into vaccines, which then eat your brain.

This, at least, is the contention of one Jim Stone, who runs a site called Environmental Terrorism.  And it turns out that the nanobot doesn't eat your whole brain, it just destroys the part of it that allows you to go to heaven:

(A) virus they are creating will attack the “God Center” of the brain and destroy it! He tries to sell it by saying that this will stop suicide bombers by people that believe in God but of course this is just the sell job.  He says it will take somebody that believes in God and turn them into a “normal” person!  So if you’re a Christian it will make you no longer believe in God and Jesus Christ which is your key to eternal life!  This is the pure evil that is the new world order government running the US!

Well.  Isn't that special.  But in the parlance of the 1980s infomercial, "Wait!  There's more!"

There have been many reports about nanobots being developed that will destroy people. This report actually identifies that nanobot and what it is based upon. Once this nanobot is received via a tainted vaccine, it inserts DNA into your cells which instructs your own cells to produce more copies of itself and THAT is how it replicates. And it NEVER backs off, it simply orders your own cells to keep producing it until your cells die from being over worked doing exactly that. And it’s completely verified this thing came from a lab in 2007.

You have no idea how relieved I was when I read the last sentence, because I got the majority of my vaccinations before 2007.  Which, presumably, is why I still have a brain.

Who would do this evil stuff, you might ask?  And of course, the answer is:

The Jews.  But you probably already knew that.

I plan on asking my wife, who is Jewish, why she would do such a thing.  I mean, making me eat matzoh balls, which in my opinion taste like chicken-flavored play-doh, is one thing.  Infecting me with a microorganism that eats my brain is quite another.

Then Mr. Stone shows us a picture of the nanobot that does all of this nasty business:

When I saw this, I said to my computer, and I quote:  "What the fuck?  That's a bacteriophage."

But this doesn't stop Mr. Stone.  He claims that this creature didn't exist prior to 2007, which will surprise the hell out of my AP Biology students because I've been teaching them about bacteriophages ("bacteria-eating viruses") since 1994.  It's also quite natural, and completely harmless unless you're an E. coli bacterium.

You'd think that an amount of research that's as microscopic as the virus itself would be sufficient to convince Mr. Stone that his claim is complete and utter horse waste.  Starting with the fact that it's called a "bacteriophage," and not a "brainophage."  But no.  Not only is this thing going to turn you into an irreligious zombie, you can tell it's a Jewish nanobot because of its shape:

(T)heir little hexagonal leg patterns and star of david phage bodies (are wreaking) havoc on the rest of mankind.  And on that note, I may have stated above that the reason for re engineering a phage to do the job rather than a known infectious virus would be to make good and sure it could not spread to other people in the wild, but I can´t help but imagine that such a profoundly Jewish looking micro organism would not be selected simply for its appearances.

A passage which, I suppose, demonstrates why Mr. Stone himself is immune.  If you don't have a functioning brain, that would presumably make the Jewish brain-eating nanobot virus less interested in infecting you.

At the end, we get the coup de grâce:

(E)verybody must make their own decisions about vaccines.  I’m not a doctor and cannot give you medical advice.  All I’m saying is that evil men control the medical system and they already have a virus that can change your brain so you no longer believe in God!

Have a nice day.

So, there you have it.  The least plausible reason yet that the anti-vaxxers are suggesting that you not get vaccinated.  At least it's more fanciful than Jenny McCarthy and her hand-waving "vaccines cause autism" nonsense.  Given a choice between Jenny McCarthy and brain-destroying nanobots, I'll take my chance with the nanobots.

Culture, criticism, and Charlie Hebdo

I'm certain that all of you by now have heard about the deaths of twelve members of the staff of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in an "apparent Islamic militant attack."

The cover of Charlie Hebdo following a 2011 firebombing of the magazine offices by Muslim extremists.  The caption says, "100 lashes with a whip if you don't die of laughter."  [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

The use of the word "apparent" is journalistic waffling, given that bystanders heard the gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar!" and "We have avenged the prophet Muhammad!"  The gunmen are still at large as of the time of this writing, and are the subject of a huge manhunt.

Leaders all over the world have responded to this atrocity.  Let's start with my favorite one so far, Ahmed Aboutaleb, the mayor of Rotterdam, himself a Muslim, who told the terrorists (and this is a direct quote) to "fuck off."  Here's the full quote, as translated by a friend:

It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom like that, but if you don't want that freedom, in heaven's name, take your suitcase and leave.  There might be a place in the world where you can be yourself and be honest about that to yourself, but don't go around killing innocent journalists.

That is so backwards, that is so incomprehensible -- disappear if you cannot find peace with the way we want to build our society here. Because we only want those people -- also all those Muslims, all those good-willing Muslims whom people are now looking to -- together, only those who are what I would call "our" society, and if you don't like this place because you don't like a bunch of humorists who are making a little newspaper, yes... how shall I put this...  how about you fuck off?

There has also, of course, been some opposite sentiment, and not just from Muslims in the Middle East.  Maori Party candidate Derek Fox of New Zealand said, basically, that slain Charlie Hebdo editor Stephane Charbonnier was himself responsible for the deaths:

The editor of the French magazine has paid the price for his assumption of cultural superiority and arrogance, he was the bully believing he could insult other peoples culture and with impunity and he believed he would be protected in his racism and bigotry by the French state. 

Well he was wrong.  Unfortunately, in paying the price for his arrogance he took another eleven people with him. 

Power cultures all like to use the old chestnut of freedom of speech when they choose to ridicule people who aren't exactly like them, and mostly they get away with it.

These guys liked the privilege but didn't think they'd be caught up in the ramifications - they were wrong. 

This should serve as a lesson to other people who believe they can use the power they wield by way of dominating the media to abuse and ridicule others they believe to inferior to them -- just like [in] this country.

Well, the backlash against Fox was immediate and vitriolic.  Fox was victim-blaming, people said.  National Party MP Chris Bishop said that Fox's comment was "horrific, ridiculous, (and) shameful," adding that supporting freedom of speech was not "cultural supremacy."

And people who are outraged by the murders have responded the way outraged people do; by drawing Muhammad in all sorts of vile ways and posting them on the internet, by offering insult and ridicule to Muslims of all stripes, by escalating the situation in every way imaginable.

I'm a strong believer in freedom of speech.  Words are words, and no one deserves to die for them.  However, I'm also a strong believer in the cardinal rule for human behavior, which is, "don't be an asshole."  The cartoons at Charlie Hebdo were largely banal, broad-brush attempts to ridicule an entire people, not just to lampoon particular acts that deserved lampooning.  In other words, they weren't even good political satire, they were mostly just childish barbs on the level of "Muslims are poopyheads."

Add to that the fact that my general opinion is that Islam is a counterfactual set of beliefs whose precepts suggest -- no, demand -- doing all sorts of things like killing apostates, subjugating women, and forcibly converting non-believers.  This sort of thing rightly should be intolerable to free-thinking rationalists.

It's possible to detest Islam as a belief system, to decry the actions of its adherents, to mourn the deaths of the twelve staff members of Charlie Hebdo, to support fully the right of every human to speak freely, and at the same time to wish that all people would simply treat each other with more respect and less deliberate provocation.  The world is a complex place, and humans are usually less motivated by logic than they are by emotion; trying to come up with one blanket response to any incident is bound to miss the reality by a mile.

So continue speaking out.  Continue to criticize worldviews that incite their adherents to do evil.  But also continue to treat each other with compassion, to err on the side of thinking kindly of people, to work toward understanding.  To do otherwise would be to fall into the very errors we are trying to eradicate.

Pineal pseudoscience

I often wonder why humans, as a group, are so uncomfortable remaining in ignorance about something.

It's an inevitable condition if you study anything scientific.  Scientists are always pushing the edges of our knowledge, which means they have to be keenly aware of the fact that there are a lot of questions for which we simply don't have answers.  As astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "You can't be a scientist if you are uncomfortable with ignorance, because scientists live at the boundary between what is known and what is unknown in the universe. .. Scientists are always 'back at the drawing board.'  If you're not 'back at the drawing board,' you're not making discoveries.  You're not doing science.  You're doing something else."

The fact remains, however, that a lot of us don't like there to be gaps in our knowledge.  And this gives rise to the tendency to fill in those gaps with pseudoscience -- with nonsense "explanations" that give a mystical twist to the places science hasn't yet been able to elucidate.

As an example, consider the pineal gland.

I still recall finding out about the pineal gland when I was in high school biology class in the tenth grade.  We were going through the endocrine system, and our teacher, Ms. Miller, said, "There's this structure in the middle of your head called the pineal gland.  It's pretty peculiar -- everyone has one, but we have no idea what it does."  This, of course, piqued my curiosity.  How could there be a structure in our own bodies that no one could explain?

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

In the intervening thirty-odd years, we've progressed some, but there's still a lot we don't know about this little organ.  In the journal Neuroendocrinology, physiologists M. M. Macchi and J. N. Bruce are up front about this:

Descriptions of the pineal gland date back to antiquity, but its functions in humans are still poorly understood.  In both diurnal and nocturnal vertebrates, its main product, the hormone melatonin, is synthesized and released in rhythmic fashion, during the dark portion of the day-night cycle.  Melatonin production is controlled by an endogenous circadian timing system and is also suppressed by light.  In lower vertebrates, the pineal gland is photosensitive, and is the site of a self-sustaining circadian clock. In mammals, including humans, the gland has lost direct photosensitivity, but responds to light via a multi synaptic pathway...  Although humans are not considered photoperiodic, the occurrence of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and its successful treatment with light suggest that they have retained some photoperiodic responsiveness.  In humans, exogenous melatonin has a soporific effect, but only when administered during the day or early evening, when endogenous levels are low...  A role for the pineal in human reproduction was initially hypothesized on the basis of clinical observations on the effects of pineal tumors on sexual development...  A rapidly expanding literature attests to the involvement of melatonin in immune function, with high levels promoting and low levels suppressing a number of immune system parameters.

Put simply; the pineal gland has roles in the sleep cycle, reproduction, and the immune system, but it is far from clear how it all works.

But these gaps in our understanding just cry out for someone to come and fill them with nonsense.  Which, unfortunately, is what has happened.  If you do a Google search for "pineal gland mysticism," you'll get thousands of hits, and have access to more absurd pseudoscience than you could get through in a year.  To look at only a single example, "10 Questions About the Pineal Gland That Add to the Mystery of Spirituality," from the site Truth Theory, we have the following crazy meanderings:

The pine cone shaped, pea-sized pineal gland, located in the center of the human brain, is an organ of tremendous interest these days. To many spiritual seekers it is the ‘seat of the soul‘ and the ‘third eye,’ the anatomical part of the human body that acts as our spiritual antennae, connecting us to the non-physical, spiritual planes of existence.

Right.  Because those "non-physical, spiritual planes of existence" have themselves been shown to exist.

Then, we have a list of questions we're supposed to consider.  These are only "questions" by virtue of ending with a question mark; they're intended to lead us to belief in the woo-woo claptrap that these people are peddling, and simultaneously to ignore whatever the actual scientific research says.  To wit:

Is the pineal gland the evolutionary remnant of a literal third mammalian eye that moved into the center of the brain and changed functions from gathering light to entraining rhythms in accordance with information gathered by the retina?

No, sorry.  No vertebrate has three eyes.  Next question.

Is there a connection between the spiritual promise of the pineal gland, which is shaped like a pine cone, and the Pigna, the colossal bronze pine cone statue of ancient Rome which now sits in a courtyard in the Vatican?

Yes.  It is the same connection between kidneys and kidney beans, i.e., they are shaped kind of alike.  The fact that there's a statue of a pine cone at the Vatican is weird, but irrelevant.  Nota bene: The Pope and the Dalai Lama both have a pineal gland.  So, presumably, did Mother Teresa, Confucius, Lao Tse, Jesus, Mohammed, and L. Ron Hubbard.  But given that so does Kim Kardashian, I'm guessing that this doesn't mean much, enlightenment-wise.

Then there's this:

Why is the pineal gland the only organ in the human body that calcifies and solidifies with age?... Why is it that following the methods of pineal gland decalcification and cleansing often bring genuine results to people who are seeking heightened spiritual experience, and why do these practices often result in people being able to more easily remember dreams and lead them to feel more connected to ‘source?’

Well, first of all, your pineal gland is not the only structure in your bodies that calcifies with age.  Your cartilage does the same thing (well, some of it does); the process in the skeletal system is called "ossification," and is perfectly natural.  Woo-woos have long claimed that pineal gland calcification is caused by fluoride in tap water and toothpaste, because if you failed high school chemistry, you are apparently allowed to claim that calcium phosphate (the material that is deposited in organs that calcify) is the same thing as fluoride.

Oh, and we're not the only organisms that experience pineal gland calcification.  It's been observed in foxes, rats, and turkeys, and none of them as far as I know brush their teeth (or in the case of turkeys, their beaks).

On the other hand, maybe that's why you so seldom see enlightened turkeys.  I dunno.

And one more thing; pineal gland calcification is almost certainly irreversible, and harmless.  Don't waste your money on quack remedies that are supposed to scrub the crusty deposits from your pineal gland, because they are useless at best (like drinking vinegar) and toxic at worst (such as consuming neem oil, which is used as a pesticide and can cause nausea, vomiting, headaches, and seizures).

Of course, no article like this would be complete without a dig at the people who actually know what they're talking about:

However, to many scientists and rigid materialist thinkers, it is strictly an endocrine gland responsible for the secretion of the hormone melatonin, a substance which, among other things, aids in the regulation of our circadian rhythms.

Oh, those boring rigid materialists!  Always insisting that there be evidence for stuff!

The bottom line is: we still don't know a lot about the pineal gland, but that's no excuse to make shit up.  Let yourself not know something.  Better yet, read some actual scientific papers.  You'll learn stuff, which is cool.  In the long haul, it'll make you less likely to fall for absurd pseudoscientific nonsense of all sorts.  You might even turn into a "rigid materialist," which sounds way scarier than it actually is.