Crayons, asbestos, and risk

Let's have a little chat about the topic of risk.

It's something that a lot of people don't understand, but in principle, it's a simple concept.  Actuaries, and other folks who get paid to think about such things, define risk as the product of two probabilities: the probability of exposure and the probability of harm.

The problem is that misassessment of one or both of these two probabilities leads people to (in some cases) wildly overestimate the risk of certain behaviors, and (in others) to wildly underestimate it.  Often, these misassessments have to do with the familiarity of something -- familiar, everyday things are usually considered safer than they really are, and unfamiliar ones more dangerous, regardless of whether those perceptions are at all rooted in reality.

Dan Gilbert, in his wonderful TED talk "Why We Make Bad Decisions," illustrated this perfectly with a photograph of a burning skyscraper, a plane crash, a terrorist bombing site, and a swimming pool.  He then asked the audience to play the Sesame Street game of "Which Of These Things Is Not Like The Other?"  "If you chose the swimming pool, you're correct," Gilbert said.  "Because of the four, it's the one that is by far the most likely to kill you."

This becomes even worse when we start looking at the risk of "chemicals."  I put the word "chemicals" in quotation marks, because of course, everything is made up of chemicals.  (I once saw a sign for "U-Pick Organic Chemical-Free Strawberries."  Ponder that one for a while.)  The problem is, lots of people don't understand chemistry, and so anything with a fancy-sounding name immediately gets put in the "unfamiliar/dangerous" column, even if it's a perfectly innocuous compound, or even one that is essential for life.

Even dangerous chemicals, of course, don't necessarily act straightforwardly.  It's not enough to say that a compound is toxic -- you also have to ask how likely it is to get inside you and cause trouble, and whether the dosage you're being exposed to is, in fact, dangerous.  It's why all of the panic earlier this year about "radioactive water from Fukushima" being detected on the shores of western Canada was unfounded -- the radioactive isotope detected, cesium 134, was only discovered because it's unlikely to get into seawater any other way.  Jay Cullen, oceanographer at the University of Victoria, said, "We're more than a thousand-fold below even the drinking water standard in the coastal waters being sampled at this point.  Those levels are much much much lower than what's allowable in our drinking water."

So the dosage was far smaller than our daily exposure to naturally-occurring sources of radiation, and would be entirely harmless even if we were drinking seawater, which most of us don't.  But it didn't stop people from freaking out completely about how we were being poisoned, irradiated, and (of course) all gonna die.

A more recent goofy claim that has the interwebz in a tizzy lately is the claim that asbestos has been discovered in crayons.  Asbestos, of course, is one of those words like "radioactivity" -- all you have to do is say it and people start thinking they're being killed.  In fact, the danger of asbestos for most people is minimal -- the majority of the asbestos that's still around is safely locked up in wall board and ceiling tiles.  It's only when asbestos-containing materials get broken up, and the dust produced that way is deeply inhaled, that it increases one's likelihood of getting certain lung cancers, such as mesothelioma.

So what about the asbestos in crayons?  First of all, there's the difficulty in telling apart asbestos fibers from talc.  Talc, a chemically related mineral, is used in all sorts of things, up to and including baby powder.  You also don't want to inhale talc -- but the same could be said for any finely-powdered mineral.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Second, even if there was asbestos in crayons, could it hurt you?  The answer is "almost certainly not."  All the way back in 2000, the Consumer Product Safety Commission was prompted to do an analysis of crayons, and found "a trace amount of asbestos in two Crayola crayons made by Binney and Smith and one Prang crayon made by Dixon Ticonderoga" but stated that "the amount of asbestos is so small it is scientifically insignificant."  Add that to the fact that this "scientifically insignificant" quantity of asbestos is bound up in the colored wax that makes up the rest of the crayon, so the likelihood of inhaling it is nil, and you have what is commonly called a "tempest in a teapot."

Snopes put it succinctly: "In other words, if trace amounts of asbestos were encased in a waxy substance such as crayons, those fibers would not be friable and would pose no risk of becoming airborne."

It'd be nice if more people would learn about risk and toxicity -- not only would it get them to calm down about the stuff they're exposed to on a daily basis, most of which their bodies handle just fine, it would also stop people from forwarding ridiculous claims on Facebook and Twitter, which is getting to be annoying.  In any case: don't worry about letting your kids use crayons.  Coloring in a coloring book is not going to give them lung cancer.  All you have to do is make sure that they aren't grinding up their crayons and snorting the powder.

But I'm hoping you'd do that in any case.

Crazy claim pop quiz

Here at Skeptophilia we've talked about "Poe's Law" -- the general rule that a sufficiently well-done satire is indistinguishable from the real thing.  Usually, this happens because of the cleverness with which the satire is written -- matching in tone, style, and verbiage the particular slice of crazy that the writer is satirizing.

There's another force at work here, too, however.  And that is that the range of nutty things that people actually believe is frightening.  Every time I run into something that seems too completely batshit insane for anyone to take seriously, it always turns out that there is a whole cadre of folks who believe it fervently.  Sometimes there are schools where it's taught as fact.  Sometimes it's been turned into a religion.

I'm not sure where such irrational credulity comes from -- yet another question I've asked here more than once.  But to illustrate this capacity for people to buy into ideas no matter how completely ridiculous they are, I decided to have a little fun today.

Below are ten claims I dug up this morning.  Five of them are from satirical websites, and five are serious -- i.e., there are actually people who think these views are true.  See if you can figure out which are which.

1. The movie Despicable Me is rife with satanic messages.  In particular, the "minions" were designed to trick children into accepting their role as the mindless slaves of Lucifer.
2. The Israeli town of Petah Tivka is a model made out of cardboard.  Baron Edmond de Rothschild conspired with the Israeli government to make a beautiful-appearing town at the site to intimidate the Palestinians.
3. There is an attempted coup going on, right now, amongst the Illuminati.  A cabal of radical atheists have infiltrated the Illuminati and are trying to overthrow the leaders, and institute laws forcing atheism to be mandatory worldwide, and religious belief (of any kind) punishable by death.
4. The US has declared war on a coalition comprised of China and Russia, because the Chinese and Russians were trying to block the dominance of the American corporate world, headed by David Rothschild and the Jews.  There have already been nuclear detonations, but the US media is covering it up.
5. Ellen Pao, chairperson of Reddit, is a puppet of the New World Order and rules the site with an iron fist.  Her employees seed the site with disinformation, deleting or downvoting posts that don't toe the party line (or that might threaten to reveal what's going on).  The site also has links to satanism.
6. The mayor of Vancouver, British Columbia is paying pilots to chemtrail the city with chemicals that will turn the citizens into mindless zombies.  One guy found out about the plan, so the mayor sent cyborg sea otters up the Powell River to attack the guy's house.  They broke through a wall, but the guy got away.
7. The German city of Bielefeld does not exist.  The town that existed at the site was damaged during World War I and razed completely during World War II, and never rebuilt.  The German government has kept up the façade of Bielefeld's existence to save face.
8. The Charleston church shooting was a hoax, masterminded by President Obama and overseen by Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.  Reverend Clementa Pinkney is still alive and is in hiding.  Dylan Roof isn't a real person, and film footage showing him is faked.
9. Vladimir Putin is in cahoots with some secessionists in Texas to get Texas to break away from the United States, in hopes of triggering a domino effect of secessions similar to the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and the resultant destruction of the United States as a world power.
10. The Tour de France is a hoax.  Every year it is filmed in the same studio, out at Area 51, where the Moon landing films and photographs were made.

Ready for some answers?

1. Real.  This site claims that the whole game is given away by Despicable Me's tag line which is "When the world needed a hero... they called a villain."
2. Satire.  Petah Tivka is real, and the idea that it's only a lot of false fronts has become something of a running joke in Israel.
3. Satire.  As much as I'd love to see this happen, because the whole idea of a "cabal of radical atheists" cracks me up.  The site where this article appears, HardDawn, has tricked thousands of people.  The fact that it's a satire site becomes clearer when you say the website name out loud.  (Get it? Hur hur hur.)
4. Real.  This one is from the notorious site Before It's News, which should be all you need to know.
5. Satire.  Although to hear some Redditors talk, you'd think it was true.  Note that the website name is NaturalNewd -- one letter off from another notorious site.  The article further claims that the site Digg went down the tubes after its owner sacrificed a baby to Baphomet to boost their hit rate, and Jesus objected.
6. Real.  This site, owned by one Callum Houston, has a whole series called "Things I've Seen in the Powell River," which you should definitely check out  But the cyborg sea otters by far are my favorite.
7. Satire.  The "Bielefeld Conspiracy" started as an online joke amongst some German college students, after they kept receiving three "no" answers in a row from everyone they asked the following questions: (1) Have you ever been to Bielefeld? (2) Do you know anyone from Bielefeld? (3) Do you know anyone who has ever been to Bielefeld?  Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel had a little fun with it after she mentioned a town meeting she'd attended in Bielefeld, ending with, "... if it exists at all."  She then looked puzzled and added, "I had the impression I was there."
8. Real.  The whole "crisis actor" thing just makes me nauseated, but seems to crop up every time there's a well-publicized shooting.  I'm only surprised it took them this long to jump on the Charleston massacre.
9. Real.  That Putin is a pretty tricky guy.  Although I must say that it doesn't take much to get the secessionist wackos in Texas yammering.
10. Satire.  The Danish satirical news program De Uaktuelle Nyheder did a story a few years ago that the Tour de France was a hoax, and in subsequent followups went on to say first that the French language was gibberish, and finally that France itself didn't exist.

How'd you do?

You know, there's a problem with this whole thing, which is that once something appears in print, there will be people who will believe it.  Look at the fact that HardDawn (the same site that claims that radical atheists are taking over the Illuminati, #3 above) had an article back in 2013 that chemtrails were killing the angels in heaven, and I am still seeing that one posted as real on conspiracy sites.

So the line between satire and belief just keeps getting blurrier and blurrier.  Which should not surprise regular readers of this blog, but is a conclusion that makes me want to take Ockham's Razor and slit my wrists with it.

Claims from outer space

A couple of days ago I finished Michael Ray Taylor's wonderful book Dark Life, about the search for microscopic life forms in unsuspected places -- in mile-deep cracks in the Earth's crust, in highly acidic or carbon monoxide-laden caves, and even in meteorites that originated on the surface of Mars.    Far from a dry, textbook-like read, this was a fascinating look at how science is actually done, putting a lens on the people, the conflicts, the biases, and the years of hard work that go into building a case for a claim.

It's worth it for non-scientists to read books like this.  Because by and large, popular media does a piss-poor job of portraying how science is done, and it leaves a lot of the public with the impression that scientists sit around in their offices making wild conjectures all day and pulling whatever scanty bits of evidence they have out of their nether orifices.  Science is seen as pot-shot guesswork, where any claim is as valid as any other, and "everything could be disproven tomorrow."

Sometimes, of course, the scientists themselves don't do the entire enterprise any favors.  Consider, for example, the current hype over Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which was the subject of a press release from astronomer Chandra Wickramasinghe.  Wickramasinghe and his colleague, Max Wallis of the University of Cardiff, are claiming that the Philae lander, currently sending information on the comet's surface and composition, has discovered evidence that the comet hosts microbial life:

The data from Philae supports the presence of micro-organisms being involved in the formation of the icy structures, the preponderance of aromatic hydrocarbons, and the very dark surface...  These are not easily explained in terms of prebiotic chemistry.  The dark material is being constantly replenished as it is boiled off by heat from the sun.  Something must be doing that at a fairly prolific rate.

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko [image courtesy of the European Space Agency]

The problem is, this isn't the first time Wickramasinghe has made such statements, and usually based on the flimsiest of evidence.  He claimed that the algal spores found in the "red rain" that occurred in Kerala, India were of extraterrestrial origin.  (They turned out to be the spores of a lichen, Trentepohlia, that is common in the area.)  He claimed that the virus responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was extraterrestrial in origin.  He claimed that the devastating flu epidemic of 1918-1919 (the "Spanish flu") was extraterrestrial in origin.  He claimed that mad cow disease, and other spongiform encephalopathies, are extraterrestrial in origin.

Noticing a pattern here?

Most telling of all, Wickramasinghe -- despite being an astronomer -- has thrown his support behind creationism.  He was the only scientist to testify for the defense in the 1981 creationism trial in Arkansas.  He has written:

Once again the Universe gives the appearance of being biologically constructed, and on this occasion on a truly vast scale. Once again those who consider such thoughts to be too outlandish to be taken seriously will continue to do so. While we ourselves shall continue to take the view that those who believe they can match the complexities of the Universe by simple experiments in their laboratories will continue to be disappointed.

So we're not talking about someone who has built himself much of a reputation for credibility.  But of course, the slow, difficult, slogging kind of scientific research described by Taylor in Dark Life -- the kind that makes up 99% of the actual science done by researchers -- isn't nearly as sexy as the wild claims thrown about by people like Wickramasinghe.  So given a chance to report either on actual science or on loopy, zero-evidence claims, the media is always going to go for the latter.

And consider how this sort of thing is depicted.  Wickramasinghe isn't called "a nut with an axe to grind," he's called a "maverick."  And you know how people love "mavericks."  Mavericks are tough, they're strong, they're willing to buck the system (despite the fact that here, the "system" -- the scientific method -- has an excellent track record of establishing the truth).  They make exciting, bold statements that fly in the face of conventional wisdom.  They talk about thrilling stuff like "having to rewrite all the textbooks."

The problem is, these claims have a history of vanishing without trace.  There always turn out to be other explanations -- as a case in point, take a look at physicist Chris Lee's explanation for the carbon on 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, wherein we find that surface carbon layers are perfectly capable of forming, abiotically, in conditions such as those the comet experiences.

So the comet's dark surface might be biological in origin, just as there might be life in any number of other places -- Jupiter's moon Europa and Saturn's moons Titan and Enceladus usually being considered the best bets.  But as of right now, we simply don't know, and those claims aren't even at the level of verifiable hypotheses until we send out probes with landers designed to detect life, something that probably won't be done any time soon.  (A flyby probe is being sent to Europa, which will certainly return some interesting data but is unlikely to settle the question definitively.)

So once again, we have the problem of the popular media misrepresenting science as a long, meandering series of untested and untestable conjectures, leading to a significant percentage of the public coming away with the impression that the whole endeavor is some kind of flighty game that consists largely of making shit up.

The whole thing is unfortunate, because given the global problems we're currently facing -- climate change, food shortages, overpopulation, pollution -- we not only need scientists, we need a citizenry (and the politicians they elect) who are conversant in the basic methods of science.  Most importantly, we need to reestablish science as credible, so that we don't have anti-science knuckle-draggers like Senator James "Snowball" Inhofe being appointed to the Committee on Environment and Public Works -- and having their moronic statements given more credence than the painstaking, peer-reviewed work of researchers who actually know what they're talking about.

The zero-calorie diet

Today's question is: Is there any claim that is so stupid, so obviously ridiculous, that woo-woos will immediately recognize it is as bullshit?  Or can anything get published on Spirit Science and Metaphysics?

The answer is, unfortunately, that there is apparently no lower threshold for plausibility.  Because this week an article appeared over at SSaM that claims that an Indian "holy man" has not eaten for 75 years, and the majority of the people commenting didn't say, "Nonsense," they said, "Wow!  That's cool!  I'd like to learn how to do that!"

The article tells of Prahlad Jani, who lives in a cave near Ambaji Temple in the Indian state of Gujarat, who says he doesn't eat or drink.  Anything.  Ever.  At the age of seven, Mr. Jani was approached by some Hindu goddesses, who said, basically, "Yo, kid!  Knock it off with the food already!":

Three goddesses appeared to me and bade me to follow. Ma Kali, Ma Lakshmi, and Ma Saraswati.  I consented, prepared myself, and asked: ‘What about my food?’  They each put a finger on my lip and said ‘You need not be concerned about food ever again’.  I was seven, and from that day I stopped eating and drinking. 

How does he manage this?  Because his head makes nectar, or something:

Ever since that blessing, Prahlad Jani claims that he has gained his sustenance from the nectar that filters down through a hole in his palate... 

His claims were scientifically studied by a team of 30 specialists during three weeks of a variety of tests at a hospital. 

They took him into then Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad, India.  They put him under 24 hour observation in front of cameras and found out that he did not take any kind of food or water in the 15 days that he was in hospital.  No food or water for half that time would be a sure death for anybody else.  And he did not pass urine or stool either. 

The doctors were completely surprised at this miracle.  “We believe that the sadhu Prahlad Jani’s body went through biological transformation as a result of meditation and powerful yoga in a completely natural environment that he stays,” said neurologist Dr. Sudhir Shah. 

The doctors in India are guessing that this phenomenon relates the Amrita Chakra (third eye chakra), as Hindu vedas speak of it being able to produce a divine nectar which sustains life.

Righty-o.  Let's let James Randi watch him for fifteen days, and I'm sure we'll find out that Mr. Jani is slipping out periodically for a cheeseburger and a large Coke.  And, I might add, making the normal number of trips to the bathroom.

And it wouldn't be a SSaM article if they didn't append to it a goofy quasi-scientific explanation for the whole thing:

This sounds crazy, but let’s think about it for a minute.  What do we need from food?  The minerals, which are made out of molecules, which are made out of atoms, which are made out of quarks, which are made out of superstrings, which is ultimately part of the Unified Field or Superstring Field. 

At a fundamental level of nature, nutrition is really just vibrating strings of non-local energy.  Could he somehow be receiving this information somehow without the need to physically ingest food?

Of course!  When I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, it's so I can get my recommended daily allowance of superstrings!

If that explanation is correct, you have to wonder why people can't survive eating other stuff.  Rocks, for instance.  Rocks are, last time I looked into the question, made of minerals, which are made of molecules, which are made of atoms, which are made of quarks, etc.  And yet you don't see people noshing on chunks of granite.

I wonder why that is?

So here we have a claim that is obviously absurd.  And not only does it get published in SSaM... people believe it.  Here's a sampler of comments that appeared on the article.  Spelling and grammar are as written, because I got tired of writing [sic] every other word.

anything is possible to an enlightened person who clears their whole system of toxins and repels all negativity from there mind!!  To the ones who say bollocks,get off yr arse and do sum hard research insted of living your closed minded life! 

it's definitely real life possible... just not entirely necessary... it's a free world afterall... own self-imagery... 

Look up Sun Gazing.  It is said that if you stare at the sunrise or sunset with your bare feet on the ground for a few minutes a day for a year then you won't have to eat again.  I would love to try that theory but we have busy lifestyles that have nothing to do with nature.  Also, look up earthing!  When your bare feet are touching the ground, electrons pass through your feet and help heal and give you energy.  Maybe that's why most "primitive" cultures were always barefoot or wore shoes that were conductive to the earth.  It's not far fetched even though it sounds completely off the charts but you have to have a completely different mindset similar to an employee mentality compared to a business owner mentality.  An employee mind will say how much does it cost, a business owner will say how much will it make me.  Same subject, different perspective.  Anything is possible with the power of the mind! 

Also, this is why animals dig a hole when they are sick.  They lay in the hole to feel better although sometimes its just their time. 

I have met sadhus who can stop their heart or at least limit their pulse to 1 or 2 per minute.  Yoga and meditation is beyond the scope of biology yet.  Its an ancient art that should not be just ridiculed.  Science is yet to discover it yet.  A human in 1800's would have called todays' technology bogus or we can say it must have been beyond his scope of imagination or understanding.  We must look at it with a broad mind, although it may seem fake now but we might discover the science behind it after 50 years or so.

 I have only one response to all of this, which is:

*headdesk headdesk headdesk*

I think if I never hear the whole "science didn't know about X a hundred years ago, therefore anything is possible" argument ever again, it'll still be too soon.  Can we all, just once, apply a little logic, a little critical thinking, maybe one single fucking demand for scientifically acceptable hard evidence here?

*pant pant gasp*

The answer, apparently, is "No."  That's being "closed minded."  That's "ridiculing an ancient art."  That's calling "electrons passing through your feet and giving you energy" what it actually is, which is "being electrocuted."

Okay, I know SSaM exists as clickbait, for the sole reason that it makes money for them and their sponsors and advertisers.  I get that.  What I don't get is that there are people who apparently swallow everything that sites like that publish.  This goes beyond being credulous; this is taking the entire canon of scientific rationalism and throwing it out of the window.

So that's our excursion into the ether for today.  I hope you derived lots of nourishing quarks from reading this.  Me, I'm off to fix myself some bacon and eggs.  Unless I get visited on the way by three Hindu goddesses.  Which, I have to admit, would save me a lot of money and trips to the grocery store.

Incubi, hoaxes, and limelight

A long-time reader of Skeptophilia sent me a link yesterday to a story from Wales, in which we find out about a family who is allegedly being terrorized by demons and poltergeists.

The bare bones of the story, which won't take long to tell because it pretty closely resembles most such claims, is that Keiron and Tracey Fry of New Tredegar, near Caerphilly, Wales, have been visited by spirits who are making their lives miserable.  Jon Dean, author of an article about the haunting that appeared in Wales Online last week, writes:

Keiron and Tracey Fry say they have been terrorised by the poltergeist every night for months, in scenes reminiscent of supernatural chiller Paranormal Activity. 

Mum Tracey, 46, even thinks she is beaten up in the night by the 'incubus demon' - leaving her covered with bruises in the morning. 

An incubus is a demon in male form who, according to mythological and legendary traditions, targets sleeping people, especially women...

The family got in a specialist to "cleanse" the house and brought a vicar in to bless their home. 

The phantom, which has also been menacing the couple's three children, was summoned by a using a Ouija board in the house, they say. 

Dad-of-three Keiron says he took a pic of the ghost in his sons' bedroom which he says shows a small child in a white gown with a blue face and a tail.

Without further ado, here is Fry's photograph of the alleged ghost:

 So the family decided to take action:

The family, who moved into their house in July 2013, called in an investigator to tackle the spook. 

Ghostbuster Robert Amour, 43, arrived at the house with a bible and crucifix. 

He banned the petrified family from going upstairs after he shouted to them that he could "feel the evilness in the room." 

After 20 minutes the psychic returned to the frightened family - claiming he had slain two small demons.

Which is pretty hardcore.  Of course, we have the usual problem; the whole story relies on anecdote and flimsy photographic evidence.  So I'm very much inclined to disbelieve it, even if (I will admit up front) I have no proof that they aren't being haunted by a violent ghost that looks suspiciously like a knotted-up bedsheet.

The incident got me to thinking about hoaxes in general, and what is so appealing about them. Because whatever the Frys' claim turns out to be, it is a sorry truth that hoaxes are extremely common in the woo-woo world.  It seems like every other day people get caught out faking bigfoot photographs and tracks, using Photoshop to create realistic-looking UFO photos, and employing stage magic to convince people that psychic phenomena are real.  The whole thing pisses me off, because the human propensity for fakery makes it even harder for we skeptics to discern whether there's anything to all of the paranormal claims out there.  To paraphrase Michio Kaku (who was speaking about UFOs) -- if even 1% of the claims of supernatural goings-on are legitimate, it's still worth investigating, and hoaxes do nothing but muddy the waters.

So the hoaxers certainly aren't even doing the true believers any favors.  But it did get me wondering why people create hoaxes in the first place, because it's something I honestly can't imagine doing.

I know that part of the motivation is money, especially for the mediums and faith healers and so on, who are charging big bucks for people to participate in their nonsense.  But there is a lot of fakery that doesn't explicitly involve the money motive -- think of all of the UFO and cryptid sightings and reports of ghosts that turn out to be completely made up, and just result in one or two newspaper articles or television interviews before they die out as quickly as they started.

What on earth can motivate people to do this?

I expect the answer lies in the "fifteen minutes of fame" phenomena -- the drive that some people experience to get their names in the newspapers somehow.  As a person who is at the "very introverted" end of the spectrum, this is hard for me to imagine.  It's difficult enough for me to be the center of attention for things I've actually accomplished; the idea of manufacturing a lie, knowing I could be found out and humiliated as a liar, for the sole reason of getting interviewed on television -- well, it just strikes me as bizarre.

But I honestly can't think of any other reason that someone would do such a thing.  It's unlikely that most of these incidents generate much in the way of income, so the only other possible motivator must be fame.

Which brings us back to the Frys.  Again, I can't prove their claim is a hoax, but even the fact that that they mentioned that their experiences were "reminiscent of supernatural thriller Paranormal Activity" -- and the article ended with the movie trailer -- makes my Suspicion Alarm start ringing.  And if their claim does turn out to be cut from whole cloth, can you imagine what the repercussions will be?  They've been in the newspapers and online, with photographs (including their children, for pete's sake).  They'd be laughingstocks.

If that were me, I'd want to crawl in a hole.  Permanently.

So that's today's contribution from the I Really Don't Understand Humanity department.  I'm far from perfect, but a long habit of honesty combined with a hatred of being embarrassed render this sort of thing a sin I'm hardly even capable of comprehending.  So I wish the Frys the best of luck dealing with their two-foot-tall abusive pillowcase incubus.  If they are telling the truth, that's gotta suck.

The demolition of Palmyra

Something that conquerors have understood throughout history is that if you want to destroy a culture, you don't have to kill all of its people; all you need to do is to destroy its languages and its artifacts.  Time and the limitations of human memory will do the rest.

When the Spanish conquered Peru in the 16th century, they did exactly that.  Kill the leaders; wipe out the traces of the existing culture; mandate the use of Spanish and the conversion of the natives to Christianity.  By the time the last Inca king, Túpac Amaru, was beheaded by Francisco de Toledo's men in Cuzco, the downfall of the culture was already a done deal.  There are still traces left -- the Spanish never were able to completely eradicate the Quechua language, for example, and there are still about nine million speakers today, mostly in Peru and Bolivia.  But their actions broke the back of the rich culture that had existed, and the destruction of priceless artifacts -- such as almost all of the quipus, or "talking knots," a computational or archival system that no one now can decipher -- was so thorough we really know relatively little about the day-to-day life of the people who lived there only five hundred years ago.

So it goes.  The suppression of the Bretons by the French, the Basques by the Spanish, the Irish, Welsh, and Scots by the English, and damn near all the minority groups in mainland eastern Asia by the Han Chinese, have all been followed by eradication of native languages and artifacts, and the subsequent cultural amnesia that follows.

I find the whole thing horribly tragic.  Our cultural history is what makes us who we are; language and symbol define us as a people.  And conquerors understand that.  To bring a people to its knees, you destroy those pieces of the culture that are most representative of the conquered group, then let time do away with the rest.

Which brings me to ISIS.

As the members of the "Islamic State" sweep across the Middle East, they are doing precisely what the Spanish conquistadores did; they are killing the leaders and destroying the culture.  And now, they have taken the Syrian city of Palmyra -- a treasure-house of ancient relics, some dating back to the second century B.C.E., declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1958 -- and are systematically destroying its artifacts.

The Roman-era Grand Colonnade of Palmyra [image courtesy of photographer Jerzy Strzelecki and the Wikimedia Commons]

They have already publicly demolished statues and temples, declaring such things "unholy." The razing of the land has not spared pieces just because they're unique, beautiful or irreplaceable.  In fact, they seem to be targeting these relics first.  For example, they announced this week that they have shattered the "Allat Statue," which was a huge and nearly intact statue of a Roman-era god, shown with a lion and a deer between his feet.

"ISIS terrorists have destroyed one of the most important unearthed statues in Syria in terms of quality and weight," Ma'moun Abdul-Karim, Syrian Director of Museums and Anquities, said.  "It was discovered in 1977 and dates back to the second century A.D."

While these acts have been characterized as the wanton acts of ignorant savages, Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, got it right.  "Violent extremists don't destroy heritage as a collateral damage," she said.  "They target systematically monuments and sites to strike societies at their core."

I know that the loss of things, however beautiful, cannot be compared to the loss of human life.  The depredations that the vicious evil of ISIS is visiting on the people they conquer -- the beheadings, rapes, beatings, and selling of women and children into slavery -- outweigh the destruction of stone and ceramic relics.  But still, just reading about the destruction of Palmyra, and before it the destruction of priceless artifacts in every city ISIS has sacked, makes my heart ache.

And the worst part is that it's not over.  ISIS is still pulling in new recruits, making headway, taking over village after village.  Here we sit, in the 21st century, watching a group of people who take their directives from a book written in the 7th century sweep across the Middle East, and we are largely powerless to stop it.  We are watching a huge geographical area that has, in less than a decade, been been plunged back into the Dark Ages by the adherents of a violent and disgusting interpretation of a medieval religious text.

I'm no expert in geopolitics.  I have no idea what, if anything, the West should do to intervene, to try to stem this tide of religious extremism.  All I can do is sit here, helpless, as irreplaceable archeological history that had survived for two thousand years is demolished.

And hope against hope that reason and sanity will eventually prevail against the horrible ideology of conquest and destruction that these people represent.

Shut up, Jim.

It would be really nice if we could stop giving credence to celebrities just because they're celebrities.

Just like any other slice of humanity, there are going to be some famous actors and singers and so on who are intelligent and sensible (Matt Damon seems to me to be one of those) and others who are either dumb as a bag of hammers, or else batshit insane (hello, Tom Cruise?).  Being in the limelight -- even being a brilliant actor or singer -- does not necessarily correlate with having brains.  So let's stop acting as if everything that comes out of a celebrity's mouth has to be divinely-inspired wisdom, okay?

The last in a long line of A-list stars to demonstrate a significantly low IQ is Jim Carrey, who recently went on a tirade in response to the passage of California Senate Bill 277, which outlawed personal and religious exemptions for parents trying to avoid having their children vaccinated before attending public school.  Carrey has long been anti-vaxx, and in fact was once in a romantic relationship with noted anti-vaxx wingnut Jenny McCarthy.  And now Carrey has launched into a diatribe on Twitter against the new law, saying that it legalizes "poisoning children."  Here are a few of his salvos:

California Gov says yes to poisoning more children with mercury and aluminum in manditory [sic] vaccines.  This corporate fascist must be stopped. 

They say mercury in fish is dangerous but forcing all of our children to be injected with mercury in thimerosol [sic] is no risk.  Make sense? 

I am not anti-vaccine. I am anti-thimerosal, anti-mercury.  They have taken some of the mercury laden thimerosal out of vaccines.  NOT ALL! 

The CDC can't solve a problem they helped start.  It's too risky to admit they have been wrong about mercury/thimerasol [sic].  They are corrupt.

First of all, if he doesn't like the stuff, learning how to spell it might be a good place to start for improving his credibility.  (It's "thimerosal," for the record.)  Second, although he's right that not all vaccines are thimerosal-free, all of the ones given as routine childhood vaccinations are (or are available in a thimerosal-free version).  (It's significant that the one the anti-vaxxers rail about the most often -- the MMR vaccine -- has never contained thimerosal.)

Third, of course, is that in any discussion of vaccines, we have to take a look at relative risk.  Have there been children who have had adverse reactions to routine vaccinations?  Sure.  No medical procedure, however innocuous, is completely risk-free.  There have been extensive studies of the relative risks of side effects, from mild to severe, for every vaccine that's commonly administered, and the vast majority of side effects from routine vaccinations are mild and temporary.  (Here's a summary of those studies -- oh, but wait.  It comes from the "corrupt CDC."  Never mind.)

What about the risk of childhood disease?  Again, the risk is known, and it's high.  Diseases like measles, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis A and B, and polio -- for all of which there are now safe and effective vaccines -- are killers.  It's significant that the boy that I wrote about a few weeks ago, the first person to contract diphtheria in Spain in 29 years, died last week, and that the parents are now blaming the anti-vaccination movement for their decision not to have him immunized.  "The family is devastated and admit that they feel tricked, because they were not properly informed," said Catalan public health chief Antoni Mateu.  "They have a deep sense of guilt, which we are trying to rid them of."

Interesting way of putting it.  Maybe they should be experiencing a deep sense of guilt, given that it was their decision that led to his death.  And it's hard to see how in this day and age, being anti-vaxx qualifies as not being "properly informed."  Falling for scare talk and pseudoscience isn't "not being properly informed," it's being anti-scientific and gullible, which isn't the same thing.  And there's a fundamental principle operating here, which is that you can't save people from themselves.  Humans are going to make dumb decisions and then cast around for someone to blame them on -- this is hardly a new problem.

It's just tragic when those decisions result in the death of an innocent child.

Which, by the way, is exactly why we should have mandatory vaccination laws.  Adults are going to make their own decisions, and some of them will be based in ignorance and fear, and some of them will result in people being injured or killed.  But society has a responsibility to step in and protect children when their parents won't do so voluntarily.

That's what Senate Bill 277 is about.

And as far as Jim Carrey: dude, go back to making movies.  You made some pretty good ones -- The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are two of my favorite movies.  (You also made some pretty stupid ones, but let's be as charitable as we can, here.)  You are not only not a scientist, you have shown that you can't even make an intelligent assessment of scientific research.  Hell, you don't seem to be able to spell.

So maybe it's time to retreat to Hollywood in disarray.  Or failing that, simply shut up.  That would work, too.