To further explore yesterday's topic of Reasons You May Be Mentally Ill, today's topic is: toxoplasmosis.
The subject came up in casual conversation with our dear friends Alex and Nancy a couple of days ago. Alex and Nancy are wonderful dinner guests, in that (1) they always bring amazing desserts, (2) Nancy brings along her guitar and after dinner we spend a couple of hours playing music, and (3) they are polymaths of the sort for whom "toxoplasmosis" could come up as a topic for casual conversation, and no one would raise an eyebrow. To say that conversations with Alex and Nancy are "wide-ranging" is an understatement that would be rivaled only by saying that Magellan "got around a bit."
You may know of the pathogen Toxoplama gondii in its connection to the recommendation by doctors that pregnant women not clean cat litter boxes. The pathogen, which is neither a bacteria nor a virus but a protist, is carried by cats and excreted with the urine; and a pregnant woman who contracts toxoplasmosis risks birth defects in her unborn child.
What you may not know, however, is that there is a significant likelihood that you have toxoplasmosis right now. In fact, if you have ever owned a cat, the probability probably stands close to 100%.
A recent study by Kevin Lafferty, of the University of California, suggests that as many as three billion people may have a dormant Toxoplasma infection. Yes, dear readers, you read that right; that's three billion, as in a little less than half of the human population. Turns out that Lafferty's research indicated that when you get toxoplasmosis, you get flu-like symptoms for a couple of days, and then the symptoms abate -- but for most of us, the protist goes dormant, and we carry around the parasite for life.
This is creepy enough, but wait'll you hear what it does to you.
Lafferty's research showed that the Toxoplasma organism invades, and becomes dormant in, your brain cells. It's been known for years that toxoplasmosis in rats makes them bolder and less cautious around predators, which aids in the passage of the germ between rats and cats. What wasn't known before Lafferty's study is that infection by the germ in humans also causes personality changes.
Now, it doesn't make us have a high affinity for cats, which would make sense, and would explain Crazy Cat Lady syndrome, in which some people think it's normal to own thirty cats, and somehow seem to become immune to the truly cataclysmic odor that their houses attain. No, what actually happens is more subtle. Apparently, if you have Toxoplasma, you're more likely to be neurotic. People who tested positive for antibodies for Toxoplasma scored far higher on personality assessments in the areas of guilt-proneness, anxiety, and risk of depression. These effects were so pronounced that Lafferty speculates that it could account for certain differences between cultures.
"In some cultures, infection is very rare," Lafferty said, "while in others, virtually everyone is infected. The distribution of Toxoplasma gondii could explain differences in cultural aspects that relate to ego, money, material possessions, work, and rules."
I find this speculation fascinating. The idea that my neuroses might not be due to my genes or upbringing, but because I'm carrying around a parasite in my brain, doesn't create the level of Icky-Poo Factor that you might expect. Of course, I'm a biologist, and so I'm at least on some level accustomed to thinking about creepy-crawlies. But the idea that some sort of a microorganism could affect my behavior strikes me as weirdly interesting, particularly since I've had at least one cat in my household for the past 25 years.
So, maybe our personalities aren't as static as we'd like to think -- they can be influenced by a great many circumstances outside of our control. Add parasite infestations to that list. And if that whole idea upsets you too much, take comfort in the fact that Lafferty's research has spurred medical researchers to try to find a drug that can destroy the germ. Nothing's been certified for human use so far, so don't cancel your appointment with your therapist just yet, but there are a couple that are looking promising.
Until then, you should probably shouldn't worry. What's a few brain parasites among friends, after all? In fact, just forget I brought it up. Relax, go and sit in your recliner, and pet your cat, Mr. Fluffkins, for a while.
You'll feel better. Trust me.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
A tincture of madness
There's long been a supposed connection between being highly creative and being mentally ill. The list of individuals who were both is a long one. Ernest Hemingway, Georgia O'Keeffe, Hermann Hesse, Maurice Ravel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edgar Allen Poe, Jackson Pollock, Cole Porter, Vincent van Gogh, and Robert Schumann all suffered from varying degrees of mental problems, most of them from clinical depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. More than one of these spent the last years of life in a mental institution, and more than one committed suicide.
"The only difference between myself and a madman," Salvador Dalí famously quipped, "is that I am not mad." Two thousand years earlier, the Roman writer Seneca said, "There is no genius without a tincture of madness."
Now a Swedish researcher has demonstrated for the first time that there is a fundamental connection between creativity and mental illness. Fredrik Ullén, of the Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm, has demonstrated a connection between creativity and the dopamine (pleasure/reward) system in the brain - the same system that is implicated in several forms of mental illness, including schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and tendency to addiction.
Ullén administered a test that was designed to measure a subject's capacity for creative thinking -- for developing more than one solution to the same problem, or using non-linear solution methods to arrive at an answer. He then analyzed the brain activity of the individuals who scored the highest, and found that across the board, they had lower amounts of dopamine receptors in a part of the brain called the thalamus -- one of the main "switchboards" in the higher brain, and responsible for sorting and processing sensory stimuli.
The implication is that creative people don't have as rigid a sorting mechanism as other, less creative people -- that having a built-in deficiency in your relay system may help you to arrive at solutions to problems that others might not have seen.
The connection between the thalamus, creativity, and sorting issues is supported by a different bit of brain research that found that a miswiring of the thalamus is implicated in another bizarre mental disorder, called synesthesia. In synesthesia, signals from the sensory organs are misrouted to the incorrect interpretive centers in the cerebrum, and an auditory signal (for example) might be received in the visual cortex. As a result, you would "see sounds." Other senses can be crosswired, however -- the seminal study of the disorder is described in Richard Cytowic's book, The Man Who Tasted Shapes.
Synesthsia is apparently also much more common among the creative. Alexander Scriabin, the early 20th century Russian composer, wrote his music as much from how it looked to him as how it sounded. He describes a sensation of color being overlaid on what he was actually seeing when he heard specific combinations of notes. The colors were consistent; C# minor, for example, was always green, Eb major always magenta. And although Alexander Scriabin's synesthesia was perhaps the most intense, he is not the only composer who was synesthetic; the evidence is strong that Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Olivier Messaien also had this same miswiring.
The recently published study by Ullén has now taken the first steps toward connecting these physiological manifestations with the phenomenon of creativity itself. "Thinking outside the box," Ullén said, "may be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box."
"The only difference between myself and a madman," Salvador Dalí famously quipped, "is that I am not mad." Two thousand years earlier, the Roman writer Seneca said, "There is no genius without a tincture of madness."
Now a Swedish researcher has demonstrated for the first time that there is a fundamental connection between creativity and mental illness. Fredrik Ullén, of the Karolinska Institutet of Stockholm, has demonstrated a connection between creativity and the dopamine (pleasure/reward) system in the brain - the same system that is implicated in several forms of mental illness, including schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and tendency to addiction.
Ullén administered a test that was designed to measure a subject's capacity for creative thinking -- for developing more than one solution to the same problem, or using non-linear solution methods to arrive at an answer. He then analyzed the brain activity of the individuals who scored the highest, and found that across the board, they had lower amounts of dopamine receptors in a part of the brain called the thalamus -- one of the main "switchboards" in the higher brain, and responsible for sorting and processing sensory stimuli.
The implication is that creative people don't have as rigid a sorting mechanism as other, less creative people -- that having a built-in deficiency in your relay system may help you to arrive at solutions to problems that others might not have seen.
The connection between the thalamus, creativity, and sorting issues is supported by a different bit of brain research that found that a miswiring of the thalamus is implicated in another bizarre mental disorder, called synesthesia. In synesthesia, signals from the sensory organs are misrouted to the incorrect interpretive centers in the cerebrum, and an auditory signal (for example) might be received in the visual cortex. As a result, you would "see sounds." Other senses can be crosswired, however -- the seminal study of the disorder is described in Richard Cytowic's book, The Man Who Tasted Shapes.
Synesthsia is apparently also much more common among the creative. Alexander Scriabin, the early 20th century Russian composer, wrote his music as much from how it looked to him as how it sounded. He describes a sensation of color being overlaid on what he was actually seeing when he heard specific combinations of notes. The colors were consistent; C# minor, for example, was always green, Eb major always magenta. And although Alexander Scriabin's synesthesia was perhaps the most intense, he is not the only composer who was synesthetic; the evidence is strong that Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Olivier Messaien also had this same miswiring.
The recently published study by Ullén has now taken the first steps toward connecting these physiological manifestations with the phenomenon of creativity itself. "Thinking outside the box," Ullén said, "may be facilitated by having a somewhat less intact box."
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Quantum leap
As another rather misguided example of targeted advertising, yesterday my Facebook page had an ad on it for something called Quantum Jumping. Amused and a little intrigued, I clicked the link. If you're curious enough to take a look for yourself, it brought me here.
I snooped about in the site for a while, and then, as with my post yesterday on James van Praagh, I did a little background research. First, here are the claims:
"Since the 1920s, quantum physicists have been trying to make sense of an uncomfortable and startling fact -- that an infinite number of alternate universes exist. Leading scientists like Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, and Neil Turok, all of whom are responsible for life-changing breakthroughs in the field of quantum physics, have all suggested the existence of multiple universes... This jaw-dropping discovery was first made when, trying to pinpoint the exact location of an atomic particle, physicists found it was virtually impossible. It had no single location. In other words, atomic particles have the ability to simultaneously exist in more than one place at a time. The only explanation for this is that particles don’t only exist in our universe -- They can spark into existence in an infinite number of parallel universes as well. And although these particles come to being and change in synchronicity, they are all slightly different... Drawing on the above-mentioned scientific theory and merging it with 59 years of study into mysticism and the human mind, Burt Goldman has come to one shocking conclusion: In these alternate universes, alternate versions of you are living out their lives."
To make a long, drawn-out explanation a little shorter, Goldman claims that through his training course (downloadable for $97, or DVDs starting at $197) you can mentally slide into these alternate universes, meet alternate versions of yourself, and learn from them. It is how, he explains, he learned how to paint, to write, and (presumably) to market a serious bill of goods to the gullible.
I spend enough time on this blog hacking at odd claims of the paranormal that I hesitate to hack very hard at this one. I'll only note some of the more obvious features: (1) While the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics is intriguing, and has been the subject of thousands of plot twists on Star Trek alone, it has never been demonstrated experimentally. Most physicists believe that even if this interpretation is correct, those theoretical alternate universes are "closed off" to us permanently after the event that caused the split, and therefore such experimental verification is impossible by definition. Thus, this model remains an interesting, but untestable, idea. (2) Namedropping, and using quotes from such luminaries as Hawking, Kaku, Max Planck, and Nikola Tesla, is both unfair to those quoted (who, I suspect, would laugh Goldman's ideas out of the room) and is also Appeal to Authority in its worst form. (3) I find it interesting that he claims that you can learn from your alternate selves, because in some universe you are a published author, a rock star, a Nobel-prize-winning scientist. Just given the law of averages, wouldn't you also expect that it's a 50-50 chance that in any given alternate universe, you'd be instead a bum, a felon, or dead? Although, to be fair, I'd guess that you'd learn something from meeting those alternate selves, too. It's like James Randi's criticism of mediums; that all of the dead relatives these people contact seem to have ended up in heaven. Never once does a medium say to the subject, "Um, bad news... Great-Uncle George ended up in hell. He's sort of, um, unavailable at the moment."
However, I'd like to look more closely at something I saw on another website, one critical of Goldman and his claims. The post by the critic launched something of a comment-war between people who agreed with the skeptic, and those who thought Goldman's ideas were reasonable. The most interesting comment, I think, was the following:
"Why are you bashing Quantum Jumping? Maybe he's wrong about how it works, but who cares, as long as it does work? If it can make someone's life better, then there's nothing wrong with what he's doing."
It probably goes without saying that I disagree with this (but I'm going to say it, anyhow). The main point is that Goldman's claim states that other selves in other universes actually, honestly, truly exist, and he is actually, honestly, truly going to put you into direct contact with them. Despite the testimonials, there is no evidence that this claim has any merit whatsoever. So if his technique is really a visualization/actualization method -- the same as many others available out there -- then he should market it as such, and drop all of the nonsense about quantum physics and alternate universes. Of course, he won't do that; mentioning Hawking and Kaku and the rest gives him credibility, and (most importantly) it sells DVDs.
Now, if you buy it, and it improves your life, allows you to accomplish things you otherwise would not have been able to do, then I'm glad for you. But the fact remains that Goldman is lying. And honestly, if you accomplished wonderful things using his program, I strongly suspect you would have been able to do them equally well without it.
What it boils down to, in my opinion, is that telling the truth matters. The world is what it is, and scientists and other skeptics are trying their best to elucidate how it works. When a huckster like Goldman comes along, and tries to convince you otherwise -- and makes lots of money at your expense in the process -- it is simple dishonesty, and is no more to be respected than were the peddlers of miraculous tonics in the 19th century. Like those tonics, Quantum Jumping is so much snake oil -- and as usual, caveat emptor.
I snooped about in the site for a while, and then, as with my post yesterday on James van Praagh, I did a little background research. First, here are the claims:
"Since the 1920s, quantum physicists have been trying to make sense of an uncomfortable and startling fact -- that an infinite number of alternate universes exist. Leading scientists like Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, and Neil Turok, all of whom are responsible for life-changing breakthroughs in the field of quantum physics, have all suggested the existence of multiple universes... This jaw-dropping discovery was first made when, trying to pinpoint the exact location of an atomic particle, physicists found it was virtually impossible. It had no single location. In other words, atomic particles have the ability to simultaneously exist in more than one place at a time. The only explanation for this is that particles don’t only exist in our universe -- They can spark into existence in an infinite number of parallel universes as well. And although these particles come to being and change in synchronicity, they are all slightly different... Drawing on the above-mentioned scientific theory and merging it with 59 years of study into mysticism and the human mind, Burt Goldman has come to one shocking conclusion: In these alternate universes, alternate versions of you are living out their lives."
To make a long, drawn-out explanation a little shorter, Goldman claims that through his training course (downloadable for $97, or DVDs starting at $197) you can mentally slide into these alternate universes, meet alternate versions of yourself, and learn from them. It is how, he explains, he learned how to paint, to write, and (presumably) to market a serious bill of goods to the gullible.
I spend enough time on this blog hacking at odd claims of the paranormal that I hesitate to hack very hard at this one. I'll only note some of the more obvious features: (1) While the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum physics is intriguing, and has been the subject of thousands of plot twists on Star Trek alone, it has never been demonstrated experimentally. Most physicists believe that even if this interpretation is correct, those theoretical alternate universes are "closed off" to us permanently after the event that caused the split, and therefore such experimental verification is impossible by definition. Thus, this model remains an interesting, but untestable, idea. (2) Namedropping, and using quotes from such luminaries as Hawking, Kaku, Max Planck, and Nikola Tesla, is both unfair to those quoted (who, I suspect, would laugh Goldman's ideas out of the room) and is also Appeal to Authority in its worst form. (3) I find it interesting that he claims that you can learn from your alternate selves, because in some universe you are a published author, a rock star, a Nobel-prize-winning scientist. Just given the law of averages, wouldn't you also expect that it's a 50-50 chance that in any given alternate universe, you'd be instead a bum, a felon, or dead? Although, to be fair, I'd guess that you'd learn something from meeting those alternate selves, too. It's like James Randi's criticism of mediums; that all of the dead relatives these people contact seem to have ended up in heaven. Never once does a medium say to the subject, "Um, bad news... Great-Uncle George ended up in hell. He's sort of, um, unavailable at the moment."
However, I'd like to look more closely at something I saw on another website, one critical of Goldman and his claims. The post by the critic launched something of a comment-war between people who agreed with the skeptic, and those who thought Goldman's ideas were reasonable. The most interesting comment, I think, was the following:
"Why are you bashing Quantum Jumping? Maybe he's wrong about how it works, but who cares, as long as it does work? If it can make someone's life better, then there's nothing wrong with what he's doing."
It probably goes without saying that I disagree with this (but I'm going to say it, anyhow). The main point is that Goldman's claim states that other selves in other universes actually, honestly, truly exist, and he is actually, honestly, truly going to put you into direct contact with them. Despite the testimonials, there is no evidence that this claim has any merit whatsoever. So if his technique is really a visualization/actualization method -- the same as many others available out there -- then he should market it as such, and drop all of the nonsense about quantum physics and alternate universes. Of course, he won't do that; mentioning Hawking and Kaku and the rest gives him credibility, and (most importantly) it sells DVDs.
Now, if you buy it, and it improves your life, allows you to accomplish things you otherwise would not have been able to do, then I'm glad for you. But the fact remains that Goldman is lying. And honestly, if you accomplished wonderful things using his program, I strongly suspect you would have been able to do them equally well without it.
What it boils down to, in my opinion, is that telling the truth matters. The world is what it is, and scientists and other skeptics are trying their best to elucidate how it works. When a huckster like Goldman comes along, and tries to convince you otherwise -- and makes lots of money at your expense in the process -- it is simple dishonesty, and is no more to be respected than were the peddlers of miraculous tonics in the 19th century. Like those tonics, Quantum Jumping is so much snake oil -- and as usual, caveat emptor.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Medium well-done
This morning I got an email from the Omega Institute, of Rhinebeck, New York, inviting me to a workshop in New York City with James van Praagh, a prominent spiritualist medium.
It is probably a coincidence that the workshop begins on April Fool's Day, but it still made me happy. The email states, "Do you want to understand more about spirit communication or better interpret messages from loved ones? In this experiential workshop guided by renowned spiritual medium James Van Praagh, you learn to blend your mind with the spirit world and read the signs from loved ones who are guiding your journey daily... Van Praagh, one of the world’s most respected spiritual mediums working today, offers extensive messages and readings throughout the workshop to help you unlock the greater depth of your spiritual self. Novice as well as experienced mediums are welcome."
My initial reaction upon receiving this email was, "Boy, are they barking up the wrong tree." But then I decided to make use of the opportunity, to look into van Praagh's claims a little, and find out who he is and what the workshop is actually claiming to accomplish.
The title of the workshop is, "What the Dead Can Teach Us About Life." So far, I have no problem; there are many things the dead can teach us about life. Among them are "Don't drink and drive," "Smoking is stupid," and "Exercise more and eat less." But I don't think that's really what van Praagh is saying. According to his website, he "is a survival evidence medium, meaning that he is able to bridge the gap between two planes of existence, that of the living and that of the dead, by providing evidential proof of life after death via detailed messages." He claims, basically, that he is able to get a hold of your dead relatives, and bring messages from them to you.
It's not as if this wouldn't be cool if it were true. I, for example, would love to ask my Aunt Florence for her chocolate-almond fudge recipe, which I have never been able to replicate. Unfortunately, however, van Praagh is clearly a fraud, and in fact got caught cheating in what was supposed to be a cold reading he did on Larry King Live. (He claimed to have clairvoyantly picked up on the fact a subject's grandmother had died -- and it turned out that he had talked to the subject earlier, and she had mentioned it to him, along with other information he was then able to use.)
This, of course, has not stopped him from writing a number of books, including Ghosts Among Us: Uncovering the Truth About the Other Side; Heaven and Earth: Making the Psychic Connection; and Talking to Heaven: A Medium's Message About Life After Death. Amazingly, they sell brilliantly well, and in fact, Ghosts Among Us made the New York Times' bestseller list.
And despite his public failure on Larry King, his success has not diminished. Millions are hoodwinked by his act every year. He has, apparently, a three-year waiting list for a twenty-minute reading via telephone, for which he charges $700.
Encouragingly, though, he has many critics. Marcello Truzzi, a sociologist at Eastern Michigan University, has studied van Praagh and others like him for many years, and has compared his hit rate when he is identifying generalities (e.g. someone in your family has died, it was an elderly woman, and so on) and when he is identifying specifics (Grandma Bertha died at age 93 of congestive heart failure). With generalities, he does okay; with specifics, his hit rate drops to zero. Of course, he almost always avoids specifics, and when he hits one it is usually because there has been an extensive leadup during which he fishes for clues, often very subtly, and uses feedback (including head gestures and body language) to guide him in the right direction. When he is deprived of feedback from the subject -- when they don't respond, or maintain a poker face -- his miss rate climbs to nearly 100%. Michael Shermer, a prominent skeptic, calls van Praagh "the master of cold reading in the psychic world."
Van Praagh, for his part, hates Shermer and his ilk. On Larry King Live in 2001, van Praagh said, "... we (psychics) are here to heal people and to help people grow... skeptics... they're just here to destroy people. They're not here to encourage people, to enlighten people. They're here to destroy people."
As you might expect, I take serious issue with that statement. Skeptics do encourage people; we encourage them to use their rational faculties to see frauds like van Praagh for what they are. Grief is a painful, and unavoidable, part of life; and lining van Praagh's pockets to the tune of $2,100 per hour to hear that Grandma Bertha is happily in heaven and wishes you well isn't healing you, it is taking advantage of your anguish to turn a profit.
So, sorry, James, but you won't see me at your mediumship workshop. I will work on unlocking the greater depth of my spiritual self right here at home. And for anyone planning on attending -- enjoy April Fool's Day.
It is probably a coincidence that the workshop begins on April Fool's Day, but it still made me happy. The email states, "Do you want to understand more about spirit communication or better interpret messages from loved ones? In this experiential workshop guided by renowned spiritual medium James Van Praagh, you learn to blend your mind with the spirit world and read the signs from loved ones who are guiding your journey daily... Van Praagh, one of the world’s most respected spiritual mediums working today, offers extensive messages and readings throughout the workshop to help you unlock the greater depth of your spiritual self. Novice as well as experienced mediums are welcome."
My initial reaction upon receiving this email was, "Boy, are they barking up the wrong tree." But then I decided to make use of the opportunity, to look into van Praagh's claims a little, and find out who he is and what the workshop is actually claiming to accomplish.
The title of the workshop is, "What the Dead Can Teach Us About Life." So far, I have no problem; there are many things the dead can teach us about life. Among them are "Don't drink and drive," "Smoking is stupid," and "Exercise more and eat less." But I don't think that's really what van Praagh is saying. According to his website, he "is a survival evidence medium, meaning that he is able to bridge the gap between two planes of existence, that of the living and that of the dead, by providing evidential proof of life after death via detailed messages." He claims, basically, that he is able to get a hold of your dead relatives, and bring messages from them to you.
It's not as if this wouldn't be cool if it were true. I, for example, would love to ask my Aunt Florence for her chocolate-almond fudge recipe, which I have never been able to replicate. Unfortunately, however, van Praagh is clearly a fraud, and in fact got caught cheating in what was supposed to be a cold reading he did on Larry King Live. (He claimed to have clairvoyantly picked up on the fact a subject's grandmother had died -- and it turned out that he had talked to the subject earlier, and she had mentioned it to him, along with other information he was then able to use.)
This, of course, has not stopped him from writing a number of books, including Ghosts Among Us: Uncovering the Truth About the Other Side; Heaven and Earth: Making the Psychic Connection; and Talking to Heaven: A Medium's Message About Life After Death. Amazingly, they sell brilliantly well, and in fact, Ghosts Among Us made the New York Times' bestseller list.
And despite his public failure on Larry King, his success has not diminished. Millions are hoodwinked by his act every year. He has, apparently, a three-year waiting list for a twenty-minute reading via telephone, for which he charges $700.
Encouragingly, though, he has many critics. Marcello Truzzi, a sociologist at Eastern Michigan University, has studied van Praagh and others like him for many years, and has compared his hit rate when he is identifying generalities (e.g. someone in your family has died, it was an elderly woman, and so on) and when he is identifying specifics (Grandma Bertha died at age 93 of congestive heart failure). With generalities, he does okay; with specifics, his hit rate drops to zero. Of course, he almost always avoids specifics, and when he hits one it is usually because there has been an extensive leadup during which he fishes for clues, often very subtly, and uses feedback (including head gestures and body language) to guide him in the right direction. When he is deprived of feedback from the subject -- when they don't respond, or maintain a poker face -- his miss rate climbs to nearly 100%. Michael Shermer, a prominent skeptic, calls van Praagh "the master of cold reading in the psychic world."
Van Praagh, for his part, hates Shermer and his ilk. On Larry King Live in 2001, van Praagh said, "... we (psychics) are here to heal people and to help people grow... skeptics... they're just here to destroy people. They're not here to encourage people, to enlighten people. They're here to destroy people."
As you might expect, I take serious issue with that statement. Skeptics do encourage people; we encourage them to use their rational faculties to see frauds like van Praagh for what they are. Grief is a painful, and unavoidable, part of life; and lining van Praagh's pockets to the tune of $2,100 per hour to hear that Grandma Bertha is happily in heaven and wishes you well isn't healing you, it is taking advantage of your anguish to turn a profit.
So, sorry, James, but you won't see me at your mediumship workshop. I will work on unlocking the greater depth of my spiritual self right here at home. And for anyone planning on attending -- enjoy April Fool's Day.
Friday, February 11, 2011
An education about education
Here in New York state, the news has been full of articles about the governor's proposed budget. Being a teacher (although not insensitive to the effects of cuts in other areas), I have been watching the funding of education pretty closely. And the budget, should it pass, will result in a $1.3 million dollar loss to our little school district alone.
At the same time, a hugely popular cap on property tax increases is likely to pass, meaning that schools' only other source of revenue will be closed off to them. The state has not proposed removing any of the many unfunded mandates schools now labor under. You don't have to be an economist to see the only possible result; cutting teachers, cutting programs, raising class sizes.
I understand the economic stresses of the times, and that something drastic has to be done. I certainly wouldn't want to be in Governor Cuomo's shoes. What has appalled me, however, is the deafening howl of anti-teacher rhetoric that is becoming commonplace wherever these issues arise.
To give just one example, here's a reader response to one of the recent articles about education cuts. It is largely representative of the responses I read, and by no means the most extreme. I have copied it, verbatim, from the source.
"High time teachers are forced to get up off their lazy asses and work for a living. Any time the teachers unions whine about anything, the libs cave in and raise taxes. From what my kids say all the teachers are these days is glorified babysitters. They do nothing but give out worksheets and show films. You can do that as easily with forty kids in a classroom as you can with twenty, so why not fire half of them? Pick out the best ones, and tell the unions to keep their damn noses out of who gets retained and who gets fired. After that, cut a third of the administrators, and for ALL of them get rid of the free-ride health insurance, paid three month vacations, and cushy, state-funded pensions that allow them to retire early. You could balance the budget tomorrow if you did that."
And my response to the response: how about I educate you a little about education?
Get up off my lazy ass and work for a living? This year I am teaching five different subjects -- Introductory and Advanced Biology; Advanced Environmental Science; Brain & Senses (an introductory neurology class); and Critical Thinking. In addition, I am doing after-school, voluntary (i.e. for no pay) independent study classes in Latin, linguistics, and human genetics. Just planning for all of my classes takes a minimum of three hours a day, grading student work another hour or two. Oh, yeah, and there's the teaching itself. If you think that all I do is show films and give out worksheets, come and spend a day in my classes. You will, every day, participate in class discussions of current issues. You will do lab experiments and be expected to use proper technique, and write up your results afterwards. You will be expected to master technical material, and demonstrate that you've understood it and can apply it. You will be expected to use correct spelling and grammar in all writing assignments, and no, "This is not English class!" will not be accepted as an excuse. You will be expected to treat me, and the other students, with respect.
Get rid of the unions? The unions are the only protection we have preventing capricious and arbitrary breaches of contract by administrators and school boards. Note that I am not implying that all administrators and school board members would do those things, but some would, and without unions we would have little legal recourse. I know that unions, too, sometimes fail in what should be the goal of all educators -- to provide the best possible quality of education to students. Rubber rooms, and protection of poor-quality teachers, do happen. But even there, the fault is not always with the unions. The single worst teacher I have ever worked with was retained not because of any kind of union pressure, but because administrators didn't do their job and document her many failings, pressure her to improve, and when that didn't work (which it probably would not have), show her the door.
And just to correct a few factual errors: we do not get free health insurance. I don't get a dime during the summer, and in fact when I was a single dad, I had to work two jobs just to save enough to make my June, July, and August mortgage payments. And no teacher I know of can retire "early" -- I will have to work until I'm 62 not to have major penalties assessed on my pension. And with the current pension formulas, and the fact that retirees have to pay a much greater share of their health insurance costs, many of us can't afford to retire. I know one teacher who has been teaching for 38 years, and if she retired she wouldn't make enough money even to cover her expenses.
If you gut education, cut teachers, break the backs of school districts caught between state mandates and shrinking revenue, you will see the quality of education diminish commensurately. Yes, educators will continue trying to do the best with what we have; that's what we do. But if you are worried about the up-and-coming economic threat from the tens of thousands of highly-educated young people from China and India, the last thing you should do is cut education. "Don't just throw money at the problem," is a nice aphorism, suitable for a bumper sticker, but there's another one that also applies; "You get what you pay for."
Oh, yeah, and "Build new schools, or build new jails: Your choice."
At the same time, a hugely popular cap on property tax increases is likely to pass, meaning that schools' only other source of revenue will be closed off to them. The state has not proposed removing any of the many unfunded mandates schools now labor under. You don't have to be an economist to see the only possible result; cutting teachers, cutting programs, raising class sizes.
I understand the economic stresses of the times, and that something drastic has to be done. I certainly wouldn't want to be in Governor Cuomo's shoes. What has appalled me, however, is the deafening howl of anti-teacher rhetoric that is becoming commonplace wherever these issues arise.
To give just one example, here's a reader response to one of the recent articles about education cuts. It is largely representative of the responses I read, and by no means the most extreme. I have copied it, verbatim, from the source.
"High time teachers are forced to get up off their lazy asses and work for a living. Any time the teachers unions whine about anything, the libs cave in and raise taxes. From what my kids say all the teachers are these days is glorified babysitters. They do nothing but give out worksheets and show films. You can do that as easily with forty kids in a classroom as you can with twenty, so why not fire half of them? Pick out the best ones, and tell the unions to keep their damn noses out of who gets retained and who gets fired. After that, cut a third of the administrators, and for ALL of them get rid of the free-ride health insurance, paid three month vacations, and cushy, state-funded pensions that allow them to retire early. You could balance the budget tomorrow if you did that."
And my response to the response: how about I educate you a little about education?
Get up off my lazy ass and work for a living? This year I am teaching five different subjects -- Introductory and Advanced Biology; Advanced Environmental Science; Brain & Senses (an introductory neurology class); and Critical Thinking. In addition, I am doing after-school, voluntary (i.e. for no pay) independent study classes in Latin, linguistics, and human genetics. Just planning for all of my classes takes a minimum of three hours a day, grading student work another hour or two. Oh, yeah, and there's the teaching itself. If you think that all I do is show films and give out worksheets, come and spend a day in my classes. You will, every day, participate in class discussions of current issues. You will do lab experiments and be expected to use proper technique, and write up your results afterwards. You will be expected to master technical material, and demonstrate that you've understood it and can apply it. You will be expected to use correct spelling and grammar in all writing assignments, and no, "This is not English class!" will not be accepted as an excuse. You will be expected to treat me, and the other students, with respect.
Get rid of the unions? The unions are the only protection we have preventing capricious and arbitrary breaches of contract by administrators and school boards. Note that I am not implying that all administrators and school board members would do those things, but some would, and without unions we would have little legal recourse. I know that unions, too, sometimes fail in what should be the goal of all educators -- to provide the best possible quality of education to students. Rubber rooms, and protection of poor-quality teachers, do happen. But even there, the fault is not always with the unions. The single worst teacher I have ever worked with was retained not because of any kind of union pressure, but because administrators didn't do their job and document her many failings, pressure her to improve, and when that didn't work (which it probably would not have), show her the door.
And just to correct a few factual errors: we do not get free health insurance. I don't get a dime during the summer, and in fact when I was a single dad, I had to work two jobs just to save enough to make my June, July, and August mortgage payments. And no teacher I know of can retire "early" -- I will have to work until I'm 62 not to have major penalties assessed on my pension. And with the current pension formulas, and the fact that retirees have to pay a much greater share of their health insurance costs, many of us can't afford to retire. I know one teacher who has been teaching for 38 years, and if she retired she wouldn't make enough money even to cover her expenses.
If you gut education, cut teachers, break the backs of school districts caught between state mandates and shrinking revenue, you will see the quality of education diminish commensurately. Yes, educators will continue trying to do the best with what we have; that's what we do. But if you are worried about the up-and-coming economic threat from the tens of thousands of highly-educated young people from China and India, the last thing you should do is cut education. "Don't just throw money at the problem," is a nice aphorism, suitable for a bumper sticker, but there's another one that also applies; "You get what you pay for."
Oh, yeah, and "Build new schools, or build new jails: Your choice."
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Apples of the knowledge of good and evil
The latest buzz in the electronic world is a new Apple iPad/iPhone app that allows Roman Catholics to confess their sins.
Called, appropriately enough, "Confession: A Roman Catholic App," it costs $1.99 and is available online. The app allows you to enter how long it's been since your last confession, then you pick a commandment and tick off the sins you've committed against it. The app then takes into account a variety of factors such as the person's age, the severity of the sin, and whether the person has committed the sin before, and suggests an appropriate penance.
Amazingly enough, the Vatican seems to be generally in favor of digital repentance. A Vatican spokesperson, however, was careful to note that the new app should "not be used in place of face-to-face confession," and that "true absolution can only be given by an ordained priest."
Still, you know it will. For your busy Catholic-on-the-go, it sure would be appealing to confess via iPad (two minutes) rather than taking the time to go to church, sit in the confessional, and tell an actual priest what you did wrong (thirty minutes minimum). And after all, is it really any sillier than things like Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheels -- where prayers are inscribed on a cylinder that spins on a shaft, and turning the wheel is considered as good as actually reciting the prayer?
So, I've got a few suggestions for new uses of technology in the realm of religion. I'm no software developer -- my technological expertise stalled out somewhere back in the Dark Ages -- so feel free to capitalize on any of these. Remember that I'd like a cut of the cash if they catch on.
For Pentecostals, how about a Speaking in Tongues Translator? I've heard a lot about the whole phenomenon of Speaking in Tongues, wherein a religious person is so filled with fervor that the Holy Spirit descends upon him or her, and the religious person begins to babble. I use that word deliberately, because the usual interpretation is that the speech thus produced is that which was used by all humans before the building of the Tower of Babel, that pivotal moment in the bible during which god taught mankind a lesson by inventing things like "i before e except after c," Greek asigmatic aorist past tense, and the Latin dative case, which causeth language students to toil by the sweat of their brows, lo even unto the present day. So how about some sort of language-analysis software that could allow all of the rest of the congregation to understand what the Holy Spirit is saying through the person? Instead of just frothing at the mouth and saying random syllables, the person could pick up his or her iPad and, well, Type in Tongues. The app would then translate the message for everyone.
For any sects that are biblical literalists, you could have an app that was a Scientific Statement Truth Evaluator. The way this would work is, your young religious person might be sitting in a science class, and hear his or her teacher make a scientific statement such as "the earth goes around the sun." The young person could then enter the statement into the iPad, and the app would analyze it for truth against the entire bible. The app would then respond, "UNTRUE! Joshua 10:12 - "The Lord said unto Joshua, 'Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon.'" It would then follow up with suggestions of what the young person could say to the teacher: "Hey, teacher! How could the Lord have made the sun stand still, if the sun isn't moving? Huh?" The only problem I can see is if the young person put in a statement like, "The father of Joseph, husband of Mary, was named Heli," because Luke 3:23 says that's true, but Matthew 1:16 says his name was Jacob. At that point, the app could cause the iPad to crash. So young people would have to be instructed to ignore any apparent self-contradictions in the bible, that those have no impact on its literal, word-for-word truth. But that's basically what they're being told anyway, so probably no harm done.
Lastly, how about a fundamentalist Muslim Infidel Detector? You can see how today's suicide bombers are kind of taking a broad-brush approach; wouldn't it be better to determine first if the people you're thinking of killing are actually Infidels Worthy of Death, instead of taking out the righteous and the unrighteous alike? With a few taps on the touch pad, you could enter some information about the people in question -- gender, clothing style, amount of skin showing, presence or absence of perfume or jewelry, whether or not the person was wearing a Star of David -- and the app would calculate the likelihood that the person is an infidel, and suggest a possible course of action, from "cry out unto Allah against them" or "beat them with a stick," to "slay them like the unclean dogs they are!" It would take the guesswork out of murderous religious mania.
So you can see that technology has a lot of applications to the religious world. There is a danger, however, as with all of these things; the interconnectedness that this technology is bringing will inevitably lead to exposure to other ideas (unless someone develops a "Diverse Philosophy Filter" app). And this could be dreadful. Wouldn't it be tragic if a 21st century technology took these poor folks and dragged them into, well, the 21st century?
Called, appropriately enough, "Confession: A Roman Catholic App," it costs $1.99 and is available online. The app allows you to enter how long it's been since your last confession, then you pick a commandment and tick off the sins you've committed against it. The app then takes into account a variety of factors such as the person's age, the severity of the sin, and whether the person has committed the sin before, and suggests an appropriate penance.
Amazingly enough, the Vatican seems to be generally in favor of digital repentance. A Vatican spokesperson, however, was careful to note that the new app should "not be used in place of face-to-face confession," and that "true absolution can only be given by an ordained priest."
Still, you know it will. For your busy Catholic-on-the-go, it sure would be appealing to confess via iPad (two minutes) rather than taking the time to go to church, sit in the confessional, and tell an actual priest what you did wrong (thirty minutes minimum). And after all, is it really any sillier than things like Tibetan Buddhist prayer wheels -- where prayers are inscribed on a cylinder that spins on a shaft, and turning the wheel is considered as good as actually reciting the prayer?
So, I've got a few suggestions for new uses of technology in the realm of religion. I'm no software developer -- my technological expertise stalled out somewhere back in the Dark Ages -- so feel free to capitalize on any of these. Remember that I'd like a cut of the cash if they catch on.
For Pentecostals, how about a Speaking in Tongues Translator? I've heard a lot about the whole phenomenon of Speaking in Tongues, wherein a religious person is so filled with fervor that the Holy Spirit descends upon him or her, and the religious person begins to babble. I use that word deliberately, because the usual interpretation is that the speech thus produced is that which was used by all humans before the building of the Tower of Babel, that pivotal moment in the bible during which god taught mankind a lesson by inventing things like "i before e except after c," Greek asigmatic aorist past tense, and the Latin dative case, which causeth language students to toil by the sweat of their brows, lo even unto the present day. So how about some sort of language-analysis software that could allow all of the rest of the congregation to understand what the Holy Spirit is saying through the person? Instead of just frothing at the mouth and saying random syllables, the person could pick up his or her iPad and, well, Type in Tongues. The app would then translate the message for everyone.
For any sects that are biblical literalists, you could have an app that was a Scientific Statement Truth Evaluator. The way this would work is, your young religious person might be sitting in a science class, and hear his or her teacher make a scientific statement such as "the earth goes around the sun." The young person could then enter the statement into the iPad, and the app would analyze it for truth against the entire bible. The app would then respond, "UNTRUE! Joshua 10:12 - "The Lord said unto Joshua, 'Sun, stand thou still over Gibeon.'" It would then follow up with suggestions of what the young person could say to the teacher: "Hey, teacher! How could the Lord have made the sun stand still, if the sun isn't moving? Huh?" The only problem I can see is if the young person put in a statement like, "The father of Joseph, husband of Mary, was named Heli," because Luke 3:23 says that's true, but Matthew 1:16 says his name was Jacob. At that point, the app could cause the iPad to crash. So young people would have to be instructed to ignore any apparent self-contradictions in the bible, that those have no impact on its literal, word-for-word truth. But that's basically what they're being told anyway, so probably no harm done.
Lastly, how about a fundamentalist Muslim Infidel Detector? You can see how today's suicide bombers are kind of taking a broad-brush approach; wouldn't it be better to determine first if the people you're thinking of killing are actually Infidels Worthy of Death, instead of taking out the righteous and the unrighteous alike? With a few taps on the touch pad, you could enter some information about the people in question -- gender, clothing style, amount of skin showing, presence or absence of perfume or jewelry, whether or not the person was wearing a Star of David -- and the app would calculate the likelihood that the person is an infidel, and suggest a possible course of action, from "cry out unto Allah against them" or "beat them with a stick," to "slay them like the unclean dogs they are!" It would take the guesswork out of murderous religious mania.
So you can see that technology has a lot of applications to the religious world. There is a danger, however, as with all of these things; the interconnectedness that this technology is bringing will inevitably lead to exposure to other ideas (unless someone develops a "Diverse Philosophy Filter" app). And this could be dreadful. Wouldn't it be tragic if a 21st century technology took these poor folks and dragged them into, well, the 21st century?
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The ghost in the machine
In the news today is a story about a theme park in Thorpe, Surrey County, England, which is being altered because the site is haunted.
The Storm Surge, a twenty-meter-tall water slide, was scheduled to be built at the site, until workers began reporting feelings of sudden chills, feelings of being watched, and glimpses of what appeared to be a headless monk.
A paranormal investigation company was called in, and they used the latest in scientific investigative equipment -- Ouija boards, crystals, and Polaroid cameras -- and they came to the conclusion, "Yup. It's haunted, all right." Furthermore, they found out that the site of the water slide was near a place called "The Monk's Walk" (*cue scary music*), which is a path that went from now-ruined Chertsey Abbey to Thorpe Church. Apparently the site was also a burial ground back in pre-Conquest times.
Well, with that kind of psychic convergence, what could the theme park owners do? At great expense, they relocated the ride.
Myself, I would have called in the kids from Scooby-Doo. They would have run around investigating in the Mystery Machine, gotten scared a bunch of times, said "Ruh roh" and "Yoinks" a lot, creating uproarious laughter in the laugh-track, and in the end the headless monk would have been the foreman of the work crew with a sheet over his head, who was using hidden wires and pulleys to float through the air. He would have had some lame reason for staging the whole thing, and would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those darned kids.
Or, maybe, just maybe, there's a rational explanation for the whole thing.
Vic Tandy, an engineer working at a medical manufacturing firm in the British Midlands, is not the sort of person you'd expect would believe in the paranormal. He is a rational, scientific type, educated at Coventry University, and no one was more shocked than he was when, while working late one night, he saw a ghost.
He'd been sitting at his desk that evening, feeling progressively more uneasy. He was certain he was being watched. He kept turning around, sure that someone would be there. And then... someone was. He turned around, and watched as a gray form materialized near the wall, floated across the room, and disappeared. "The hair was standing up on the back of my neck," Tandy reported. "I was terrified."
Some days later, he came to work during off hours because of one of his hobbies -- fencing. He wanted to use some of the equipment to make some adjustments to a fencing foil. He clamped the foil in a vise at his desk.
And that was when he noticed something weird -- the tip of the foil was vibrating. When he touched the foil, he could feel the vibrations pulsing through the metal. And he began to feel the sensation of chill, the feeling of being watched again.
But this time, he had a hypothesis. He had heard that subsonic vibrations can induce hallucinations in people -- in one famous case, there was an office building with a "haunted photocopier room" in which many people had reported paranormal goings-on. In that case, the culprit was vibrations from a furnace fan. So Tandy began to look around, and found a large, newly installed exhaust fan that was running. He switched the fan off.
Instantaneously, the foil stopped vibrating -- and the terrifying feelings vanished.
Why subsonic vibrations have the effects they do on the human brain is poorly understood, but it's been demonstrated over and over. You can take the most rationalistic, skeptical individual in the world, and place him or her in a room with a standing subsonic wave, and (s)he will see ghosts. Imagine the results if you did that to someone who already believed in ghosts!
So, before relocating the water slide, it might have benefited the owners of the theme park to hire someone who owned audio equipment capable of detecting subsonic frequencies. I'd bet cold cash that one of the other carnival rides had a motor that was emitting high-amplitude subsonic sound waves. Damp down those waves, and chances are, you could rename "The Monk's Walk" "Water Slide Way."
The Storm Surge, a twenty-meter-tall water slide, was scheduled to be built at the site, until workers began reporting feelings of sudden chills, feelings of being watched, and glimpses of what appeared to be a headless monk.
A paranormal investigation company was called in, and they used the latest in scientific investigative equipment -- Ouija boards, crystals, and Polaroid cameras -- and they came to the conclusion, "Yup. It's haunted, all right." Furthermore, they found out that the site of the water slide was near a place called "The Monk's Walk" (*cue scary music*), which is a path that went from now-ruined Chertsey Abbey to Thorpe Church. Apparently the site was also a burial ground back in pre-Conquest times.
Well, with that kind of psychic convergence, what could the theme park owners do? At great expense, they relocated the ride.
Myself, I would have called in the kids from Scooby-Doo. They would have run around investigating in the Mystery Machine, gotten scared a bunch of times, said "Ruh roh" and "Yoinks" a lot, creating uproarious laughter in the laugh-track, and in the end the headless monk would have been the foreman of the work crew with a sheet over his head, who was using hidden wires and pulleys to float through the air. He would have had some lame reason for staging the whole thing, and would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those darned kids.
Or, maybe, just maybe, there's a rational explanation for the whole thing.
Vic Tandy, an engineer working at a medical manufacturing firm in the British Midlands, is not the sort of person you'd expect would believe in the paranormal. He is a rational, scientific type, educated at Coventry University, and no one was more shocked than he was when, while working late one night, he saw a ghost.
He'd been sitting at his desk that evening, feeling progressively more uneasy. He was certain he was being watched. He kept turning around, sure that someone would be there. And then... someone was. He turned around, and watched as a gray form materialized near the wall, floated across the room, and disappeared. "The hair was standing up on the back of my neck," Tandy reported. "I was terrified."
Some days later, he came to work during off hours because of one of his hobbies -- fencing. He wanted to use some of the equipment to make some adjustments to a fencing foil. He clamped the foil in a vise at his desk.
And that was when he noticed something weird -- the tip of the foil was vibrating. When he touched the foil, he could feel the vibrations pulsing through the metal. And he began to feel the sensation of chill, the feeling of being watched again.
But this time, he had a hypothesis. He had heard that subsonic vibrations can induce hallucinations in people -- in one famous case, there was an office building with a "haunted photocopier room" in which many people had reported paranormal goings-on. In that case, the culprit was vibrations from a furnace fan. So Tandy began to look around, and found a large, newly installed exhaust fan that was running. He switched the fan off.
Instantaneously, the foil stopped vibrating -- and the terrifying feelings vanished.
Why subsonic vibrations have the effects they do on the human brain is poorly understood, but it's been demonstrated over and over. You can take the most rationalistic, skeptical individual in the world, and place him or her in a room with a standing subsonic wave, and (s)he will see ghosts. Imagine the results if you did that to someone who already believed in ghosts!
So, before relocating the water slide, it might have benefited the owners of the theme park to hire someone who owned audio equipment capable of detecting subsonic frequencies. I'd bet cold cash that one of the other carnival rides had a motor that was emitting high-amplitude subsonic sound waves. Damp down those waves, and chances are, you could rename "The Monk's Walk" "Water Slide Way."
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