Yesterday, a bunch of people in New York City took all their clothes off in front of the Stock Exchange Building as a protest/piece of performance art.
The naked protest was staged by artist Zefrey Throwell, who organized the event to make a point about "transparency in US financial dealings." He was, he said, inspired by the plight of his mom, who had lost most of her retirement savings in the financial crash three years ago, and was forced to return to work.
The whole thing recalls the antics of Dutch animal rights activist Peter Janssen ("The Vegan Streaker") who a while back ran onto the set of live TV personality Paul de Leeuw wearing only a thong, and the words "Stop Animal Suffering" painted on his bare chest. Under the fairly liberal laws for showing skin in the Netherlands, Janssen could not be charged with indecency, so he was charged (I couldn't possibly make anything this weird up) with carrying a concealed weapon, a thought that leaves me torn between guffawing and gagging.
It brings up the question, however, of what the point is to such theater. If I'd been in New York City yesterday and witnessed the naked people walking around in front of the Stock Exchange, it's not like I would have suddenly said, "Wow! This makes me realize that the US financial system seriously needs to be overhauled RIGHT NOW!" It's much more likely that I would have said, "Dear god, why are all of those people naked?" Or, given that it was New York City, maybe I would have just ignored it and continued to look around for the nearest Starbucks.
So, why? Why do people do such things? It may be a facile explanation that they are simply attention seekers. I know that must be part of it; heaven knows there can be little other explanation for someone stripping on the streets of New York City. I'm forced to the conclusion, though, that people who engage in such behavior really think that they're accomplishing something. They believe that their antics are somehow going to bring enlightenment to the masses, to bring their cause to the forefront, to create some sort of epiphany in the minds of the onlookers.
And it's not limited to the financial mess, nor to the animal-rights issue; the same arguments could be used for the pro-choice/pro-life debate, gay marriage, the anti-immigration controversy, the tax-reduction issue, and a variety of others. How many people have honestly had their minds changed by someone waving a placard that says, "Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve?" I suspect that the main effect of protests and controversial t-shirt slogans and bumper stickers (and naked people in public) is to make half of us go, "good job! I agree completely!" and the other half to go, "wow, what a bunch of idiots." In other words, all that it accomplishes is to crystallize the opinion we already had. Which, when you think about it, is not all that useful.
In my more optimistic moments, I'd like to believe that the only way to change people's minds is through well-reasoned argument, but I suspect that's not true, either. I think that large-scale, rapid changes -- those epiphany moments I mentioned earlier -- only come when something big happens. Our whole view of the Middle East changed on 9/11. Whatever our views of what came afterward, none of us wil ever look at that region in the same way. My Lai did the same a generation earlier, and Pearl Harbor a generation before that. Sea changes, for good or evil, don't come easily.
That's not to say that things can't change gradually. Our view of race equality, gender equality, and (probably to a lesser extent) our attitudes toward homosexuality, have been improving slowly but steadily for several decades. When I was in high school, it was unheard of for a mixed-race couple to date; now it's commonplace. I can't think of a single gay or lesbian teenager in my high school who was out until years after graduation; there are several in last year's graduating class at the high school where I teach. None of these changes came about with some kind of sudden shift, and none of them happened because of someone with a placard jumping about in front of the school screaming and shouting. They were incremental, ground-level changes, which actually may be the only way to have any sort of long-lasting effect.
The flashy antics of some protest-types may make the news, but chances are, they and their causes will be forgotten within a week or two. It might be entertaining to bare it all in public for the cause of your choice, but you should be aware of the fact that other than being brought up on public indecency charges (and hopefully not concealed-weapon charges, as well) you will probably have negligible effects on anything. Slow, dogged persistence by committed individuals, changing one mind at a time, is the only way to make any real headway in altering attitudes. It may not make headlines, but if you're looking for deep, substantive shifts, it's the only game in town.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Arguing over Archaeopteryx
I have written before (perhaps ranted would be a better word) about the fact that the anti-evolution crowd claims to "disbelieve" in evolution, when amazingly few of them actually seem to understand the what it is exactly that they're disbelieving in. This is why they are still launching the same pseudo-arguments that they were using fifty years ago, and generating the same weary responses on the part of the evolutionary biologists, leading me to speculate that whatever else you can say for the anti-evolutionists, they are not particularly good listeners:
"Famed Fossil Isn't a Bird After All, Analysis Says."
"Flap Flop: First Bird Isn't a Bird After All."
"Ancestor of All Birds Knocked From Its Perch."
It turns out that if you read the story, it has to do with the classification of Archaeopteryx, the famous proto-bird/feathered reptile whose fossil was discovered about 150 years ago. The gist is that a group of Chinese scientists have used an analysis of Archaeopteryx and a related, and recently discovered, species (Xiaotingia) to support a fairly minor shift of Archaeopteryx from one branch of the bird/reptile clade to another. Further along in the article, the writer quotes evolutionary biologist Julia Clarke (University of Texas - Austin), as saying, "moving it a couple of branches isn't a huge change, and whether it's considered a bird or not is mostly a semantic issue that doesn't greatly affect larger questions about the origin of flight." Lawrence Witmer (Ohio University) states, "The proposed reclassification of Archaeopteryx wouldn't change the idea that birds arose from this part of the tree, but it could make scientists reevaluate what they think about evolution within the bird lineage itself."
And finally, the writer of the article states, "The Chinese scientists acknowledge they have only weak evidence to support their proposal."
Note that I take no issue with any of what the scientists have said; such questioning, reevaluation, and tentative proposals of new ways of thinking are what science is about. Some of those weakly supported hypotheses have later gone on to win widespread support, and others have been disproven and shelved. That's how the scientific process works.
What bothers me here is that the headlines give people who are uninformed about how evolution works more fodder for claiming that "those idiot scientists in their labs have no idea what they're doing." If you only read the headlines (which, sadly, a lot of people do), what do you come away with? "They've been telling us for years that this thing is a bird, and now they say it isn't!"
Never mind that the reality is, early birds basically were feathered reptiles; any distinction you make between them is semantics. Many people never delve deeply enough, or think deeply enough, to realize this.
I know that it is not incumbent upon reporters to educate the ignorant, but I think they should at least take it as their responsibility not to deliberately mislead. And such headlines are, by their nature, misleading. I realize that a headline of "Archaeopteryx Classification Shifted Slightly" doesn't sound nearly as sexy as "The First Bird Wasn't Actually a Bird!" But it sure as hell gives people a better idea of what is really going on - and I thought that was what the purpose of media was?
- If humans came from apes, why are there still apes? (My ancestors came from France. Why are there still French people?)
- Why aren't there any transitional fossils? (There are. Thousands of them.)
- Organs like the eye are irreducibly complex; they won't work if all of the parts aren't created simultaneously. (Actually, the evolution of the eye is quite well understood, and even in today's animals you can see a progression from the flatworm [which has a light-sensing membrane] to the chambered nautilus [in which the membrane has curved into a sphere with a hole in the front, acting like a pinhole camera] to the vertebrate eye [in which the sphere has closed and various types of lenses have evolved].)
- Radiometric data, such as carbon-14 dating, is inaccurate. (Prove it.)
- Dinosaurs and humans coexisted. (Prove it.)
- And anyway, evolution is only a theory. (They call it "music theory," and that's not because they think that music may not exist.)
"Famed Fossil Isn't a Bird After All, Analysis Says."
"Flap Flop: First Bird Isn't a Bird After All."
"Ancestor of All Birds Knocked From Its Perch."
It turns out that if you read the story, it has to do with the classification of Archaeopteryx, the famous proto-bird/feathered reptile whose fossil was discovered about 150 years ago. The gist is that a group of Chinese scientists have used an analysis of Archaeopteryx and a related, and recently discovered, species (Xiaotingia) to support a fairly minor shift of Archaeopteryx from one branch of the bird/reptile clade to another. Further along in the article, the writer quotes evolutionary biologist Julia Clarke (University of Texas - Austin), as saying, "moving it a couple of branches isn't a huge change, and whether it's considered a bird or not is mostly a semantic issue that doesn't greatly affect larger questions about the origin of flight." Lawrence Witmer (Ohio University) states, "The proposed reclassification of Archaeopteryx wouldn't change the idea that birds arose from this part of the tree, but it could make scientists reevaluate what they think about evolution within the bird lineage itself."
And finally, the writer of the article states, "The Chinese scientists acknowledge they have only weak evidence to support their proposal."
Note that I take no issue with any of what the scientists have said; such questioning, reevaluation, and tentative proposals of new ways of thinking are what science is about. Some of those weakly supported hypotheses have later gone on to win widespread support, and others have been disproven and shelved. That's how the scientific process works.
What bothers me here is that the headlines give people who are uninformed about how evolution works more fodder for claiming that "those idiot scientists in their labs have no idea what they're doing." If you only read the headlines (which, sadly, a lot of people do), what do you come away with? "They've been telling us for years that this thing is a bird, and now they say it isn't!"
Never mind that the reality is, early birds basically were feathered reptiles; any distinction you make between them is semantics. Many people never delve deeply enough, or think deeply enough, to realize this.
I know that it is not incumbent upon reporters to educate the ignorant, but I think they should at least take it as their responsibility not to deliberately mislead. And such headlines are, by their nature, misleading. I realize that a headline of "Archaeopteryx Classification Shifted Slightly" doesn't sound nearly as sexy as "The First Bird Wasn't Actually a Bird!" But it sure as hell gives people a better idea of what is really going on - and I thought that was what the purpose of media was?
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Alien abductee counseling services
You've probably noticed the targeted ads that show up on blogs and social networking sites, that are selected by keyword-recognition software. In fact, a while back I posted on this phenomenon, particularly on the tendency of the software to pick up on words like "Astrology..." while conveniently missing critical words like "... is bullshit," and thereby plastering ads for horoscopes all over a blog that ridicules the practice as pseudoscientific nonsense.
This software is getting increasingly sophisticated, keeping track of the number of times that keywords are used, what the past history of the site was, and so on. Which is why the ad that showed up on Skeptophilia yesterday is so screamingly funny.
Recent posts have been about (1) alien abductions, (2) religious fanatics, (3) demonic possession, (4) psychotherapeutic techniques based in wishful thinking, and (5) sites that sound like they are serious but whose content makes you think they must be a prank. What would be the ideal ad to target for my blog, if you took keywords from not just one, but all five of those?
Yes, here we have it, folks: an ad for PAAPSI, which is an evangelical Christian ministry founded to counsel people who have been abducted by aliens or are being pursued by demons, and whose website made me keep looking in vain for a little message that said, "Site sponsored by The Onion."
PAAPSI stands for "Paranormal and Alien Problem Solvers International." They were originally called AACOA, "Alien Abduction Crisis Centers of America." Their mission statement says:
"That gives you an idea of the spirits that my dad unknowingly invited into our house," Ruffino says, in all apparent seriousness.
He then goes on to describe how he became involved with using drugs, and had visions of the evil aliens trying to steal his soul, but then found religion and gave up Star Trek and cocaine all in one fell swoop, and now wants to help other folks to do the same.
My general reaction is that he might have wanted to give up the drugs before crafting his worldview.
While all of this seems pretty far out there, the scary thing is, I know that there are a lot of people out there who think like this. I remember being cautioned by one of my high school teachers about reading horror fiction, because reading that stuff is a "stepping stone for powers that are trying to influence you." I was tempted to remind her what the definition of the word "fiction" was, but I thought that might be imprudent at best, so for once I held my tongue.
Now, I know that there are cases where obsession with violent books and movies has been correlated with a person becoming violent in real life; but that's a far cry from claiming that watching Star Trek will open your soul to demonic possession. (I have to admit, however, that some of the scenes where Captain Kirk gets his shirt ripped off have resulted in my having persistent nightmares, so maybe there's something to this after all.)
I think what bothers me most about all of this is how convinced people like this are that their worldview is unequivocally correct. Those of us who disbelieve in Satan and demons and the whole shebang are ourselves being deluded by Satan -- that's why we disbelieve. If we demand proof -- what, besides your own anecdotal reports of demonic and angelic visions, do you have as evidence that all this is true? -- we're quoted passages from the bible, and told that we only doubt because mankind's nature is inherently sinful. With that kind of evidence-free circular reasoning, there's no possibility of arguing. Their criteria for what constitutes a reasonable proposition is so drastically different than mine that there doesn't even seem to be any point in discussion.
So, anyhow, there you have it; the result of targeted-ad software taking my last months' posts, and putting them in a blender. Perusing the PAAPSI website in preparation for writing this post left me feeling more than a little dazed, probably because of the repeated facepalms I kept doing while reading it. But that's okay; what are a few thousand valuable brain cells as compared to the importance of bringing this kind of thing to the attention of my readers? If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be aware that watching Star Trek is providing a gateway for Satan into your soul, and I just couldn't have forgiven myself if I'd chosen not to post this, and then you'd become possessed after watching "The Trouble with Tribbles."
This software is getting increasingly sophisticated, keeping track of the number of times that keywords are used, what the past history of the site was, and so on. Which is why the ad that showed up on Skeptophilia yesterday is so screamingly funny.
Recent posts have been about (1) alien abductions, (2) religious fanatics, (3) demonic possession, (4) psychotherapeutic techniques based in wishful thinking, and (5) sites that sound like they are serious but whose content makes you think they must be a prank. What would be the ideal ad to target for my blog, if you took keywords from not just one, but all five of those?
Yes, here we have it, folks: an ad for PAAPSI, which is an evangelical Christian ministry founded to counsel people who have been abducted by aliens or are being pursued by demons, and whose website made me keep looking in vain for a little message that said, "Site sponsored by The Onion."
PAAPSI stands for "Paranormal and Alien Problem Solvers International." They were originally called AACOA, "Alien Abduction Crisis Centers of America." Their mission statement says:
We recognize that alien abduction is real, and while some question whether it is the action of actual physical manifestations of demonic or angelic beings, or some sort of mind manipulation by demonic forces the equation in this matter is that it is evil and Satanic. We recognize that in these Last Days there is a great battle for the souls and spirits of all of mankind... Even while the enemy is inundating our minds with images of aliens, flying saucers and a host of other paranormal things, the Holy Spirit is telling people that their abductions have been the workings of not supposed space brothers, but of insidious beings that are really the fallen angels and demons known of by so many past generations... We have freely been given the gift of deliverance from aliens and demons and paranormal bondage, and now we offer that gift to you.PAAPSI was founded by three evangelical Christians, Joe Jordan, Dave Ruffino, and Jim Wilhelmsen, after they met at the Ancient of Days Conference in Roswell, New Mexico. They offer their counseling services to anyone who has been abducted by aliens, hoping to gain them "freedom from oppression" by the evil aliens. Ruffino seems to believe that even fiction about aliens is evil; he relates growing up with a father who was a devotee of science fiction, and how the kids in the family were forbidden to speak when Star Trek was on.
"That gives you an idea of the spirits that my dad unknowingly invited into our house," Ruffino says, in all apparent seriousness.
He then goes on to describe how he became involved with using drugs, and had visions of the evil aliens trying to steal his soul, but then found religion and gave up Star Trek and cocaine all in one fell swoop, and now wants to help other folks to do the same.
My general reaction is that he might have wanted to give up the drugs before crafting his worldview.
While all of this seems pretty far out there, the scary thing is, I know that there are a lot of people out there who think like this. I remember being cautioned by one of my high school teachers about reading horror fiction, because reading that stuff is a "stepping stone for powers that are trying to influence you." I was tempted to remind her what the definition of the word "fiction" was, but I thought that might be imprudent at best, so for once I held my tongue.
Now, I know that there are cases where obsession with violent books and movies has been correlated with a person becoming violent in real life; but that's a far cry from claiming that watching Star Trek will open your soul to demonic possession. (I have to admit, however, that some of the scenes where Captain Kirk gets his shirt ripped off have resulted in my having persistent nightmares, so maybe there's something to this after all.)
I think what bothers me most about all of this is how convinced people like this are that their worldview is unequivocally correct. Those of us who disbelieve in Satan and demons and the whole shebang are ourselves being deluded by Satan -- that's why we disbelieve. If we demand proof -- what, besides your own anecdotal reports of demonic and angelic visions, do you have as evidence that all this is true? -- we're quoted passages from the bible, and told that we only doubt because mankind's nature is inherently sinful. With that kind of evidence-free circular reasoning, there's no possibility of arguing. Their criteria for what constitutes a reasonable proposition is so drastically different than mine that there doesn't even seem to be any point in discussion.
So, anyhow, there you have it; the result of targeted-ad software taking my last months' posts, and putting them in a blender. Perusing the PAAPSI website in preparation for writing this post left me feeling more than a little dazed, probably because of the repeated facepalms I kept doing while reading it. But that's okay; what are a few thousand valuable brain cells as compared to the importance of bringing this kind of thing to the attention of my readers? If it weren't for me, you wouldn't be aware that watching Star Trek is providing a gateway for Satan into your soul, and I just couldn't have forgiven myself if I'd chosen not to post this, and then you'd become possessed after watching "The Trouble with Tribbles."
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Monster round-up
It's been a busy few days for those of us who like to keep track of the activities of monsters that probably don't exist.
First, we have a report from Auckland, New Zealand, where a swamp monster is threatening a multi-million dollar railway tunnel project.
Apparently, the site of the tunnel was the home of the Horotiu, a dreadful monster that could cause the trains to crash if the tunnel project is completed. Glenn Wilcox, a member of the Maori Statutory Board, objected to the fact that the siting of the tunnel was done without consideration of the feelings of the Horotiu. "After all," Wilcox said, "the Horotiu was here first."
So Wilcox and others have proposed to the City Planning Board that they have ceremonies to placate the Taniwha, which are local deities who (if they are happy) might intercede with the Horotiu and prevent him from wrecking the trains.
So, what we have here is that city administrators are being asked to placate invisible, mythical entities, so that they will intercede for them with another invisible, mythical entity. I'd go further into this, but I'm sensing some thin ice here, given that my grandmother used to pray all the time to St. Jude, asking him to pass along her messages to Jesus. So I'll just move along to...
... El Chupacabra taking a vacation in Siberia.
Evidently deciding that the summer heat in Texas and New Mexico was just too much, our friend EC has decided to pack his bags and head to cooler climes. And true to his name ("Chupacabra" means "goat sucker") he has begun to exsanguinate Siberian goats, which are three words I bet you've never seen used in the same sentence.
The English language version of Moscow News reports that livestock owners near Novosibirsk have found numerous goats dead, and drained of blood through puncture marks in the neck. No one has seen the wily creature, but of course parallels to alleged attacks in the United States were immediately drawn.
“If this creature is not stopped it could make its way to Novosibirsk! Only our police force are doing jack-diddly about it,” complaining locals told reporters for Komsomolskaya Pravda. “They say that there is no Chupacabra. Come if you will journalists, have a look at what is happening to us.”
The most remarkable thing about this, in my opinion, is the use of the word "jack-diddly" in a Russian news report. I wonder what the Russian word for "jack-diddly" is?
The people of the village of Tolmochevskoye, where the attacks took place, decided that an appropriate course of action was to ring all the church bells, and organize night patrols. So far, the approach seems to have worked, and there have been no more reports of dead goats. The Moscow News concludes by saying that at least "the beast has turned out to be a boon to troubled parents, presenting a very useful threat for naughty children."
So, there you have it. New Russian parenting strategy: "Eat your borscht, or I'll throw you outside and El Chupacabra will get you."
From the chilly tundra of Siberia, we move along to the even chillier oceans surrounding Antarctica, where we have reports of an aquatic humanoid called a "Ningen." Supposedly, the Ningen is all white, with huge eyes and a torso that ends in a mermaid-like tail. Below we have what is alleged to be a photograph of a Ningen:
Interestingly, the whole Ningen thing apparently started much the way that Slender Man did, with some posts on an internet forum. People read them and reposted them and elaborated on them (and did some fancy Photoshop work on their own accord), and now we have Ningen reports coming in from as far away as coastal Namibia. (These being undoubtedly sightings of the rare African Crested Ningen.)
A YouTube video (here) goes into the photos and video clips that are alleged to be Ningens. What strikes me as curious is how bored the narrator sounds, which is kind of weird given that he evidently believes they exist. Myself, if I discovered evidence of scary mermaid-things in the ocean, I'd actually be excited enough to have at least some minor vocal inflections.
In any case, I have to admit, real or not, they're kind of creepy-looking, with the giant eyes, and pasty white skin. I think they'd make excellent minions for Cthulhu, don't you?
And that's the Monster Round-Up for today: albino mermaids, swamp monsters, and El Chupacabra visits Siberia. As always, we'll be waiting for hard evidence confirming these reports to turn up.
Unfortunately, thus far there's been "jack-diddly."
First, we have a report from Auckland, New Zealand, where a swamp monster is threatening a multi-million dollar railway tunnel project.
Apparently, the site of the tunnel was the home of the Horotiu, a dreadful monster that could cause the trains to crash if the tunnel project is completed. Glenn Wilcox, a member of the Maori Statutory Board, objected to the fact that the siting of the tunnel was done without consideration of the feelings of the Horotiu. "After all," Wilcox said, "the Horotiu was here first."
So Wilcox and others have proposed to the City Planning Board that they have ceremonies to placate the Taniwha, which are local deities who (if they are happy) might intercede with the Horotiu and prevent him from wrecking the trains.
So, what we have here is that city administrators are being asked to placate invisible, mythical entities, so that they will intercede for them with another invisible, mythical entity. I'd go further into this, but I'm sensing some thin ice here, given that my grandmother used to pray all the time to St. Jude, asking him to pass along her messages to Jesus. So I'll just move along to...
... El Chupacabra taking a vacation in Siberia.
Evidently deciding that the summer heat in Texas and New Mexico was just too much, our friend EC has decided to pack his bags and head to cooler climes. And true to his name ("Chupacabra" means "goat sucker") he has begun to exsanguinate Siberian goats, which are three words I bet you've never seen used in the same sentence.
The English language version of Moscow News reports that livestock owners near Novosibirsk have found numerous goats dead, and drained of blood through puncture marks in the neck. No one has seen the wily creature, but of course parallels to alleged attacks in the United States were immediately drawn.
“If this creature is not stopped it could make its way to Novosibirsk! Only our police force are doing jack-diddly about it,” complaining locals told reporters for Komsomolskaya Pravda. “They say that there is no Chupacabra. Come if you will journalists, have a look at what is happening to us.”
The most remarkable thing about this, in my opinion, is the use of the word "jack-diddly" in a Russian news report. I wonder what the Russian word for "jack-diddly" is?
The people of the village of Tolmochevskoye, where the attacks took place, decided that an appropriate course of action was to ring all the church bells, and organize night patrols. So far, the approach seems to have worked, and there have been no more reports of dead goats. The Moscow News concludes by saying that at least "the beast has turned out to be a boon to troubled parents, presenting a very useful threat for naughty children."
So, there you have it. New Russian parenting strategy: "Eat your borscht, or I'll throw you outside and El Chupacabra will get you."
From the chilly tundra of Siberia, we move along to the even chillier oceans surrounding Antarctica, where we have reports of an aquatic humanoid called a "Ningen." Supposedly, the Ningen is all white, with huge eyes and a torso that ends in a mermaid-like tail. Below we have what is alleged to be a photograph of a Ningen:
Interestingly, the whole Ningen thing apparently started much the way that Slender Man did, with some posts on an internet forum. People read them and reposted them and elaborated on them (and did some fancy Photoshop work on their own accord), and now we have Ningen reports coming in from as far away as coastal Namibia. (These being undoubtedly sightings of the rare African Crested Ningen.)
A YouTube video (here) goes into the photos and video clips that are alleged to be Ningens. What strikes me as curious is how bored the narrator sounds, which is kind of weird given that he evidently believes they exist. Myself, if I discovered evidence of scary mermaid-things in the ocean, I'd actually be excited enough to have at least some minor vocal inflections.
In any case, I have to admit, real or not, they're kind of creepy-looking, with the giant eyes, and pasty white skin. I think they'd make excellent minions for Cthulhu, don't you?
And that's the Monster Round-Up for today: albino mermaids, swamp monsters, and El Chupacabra visits Siberia. As always, we'll be waiting for hard evidence confirming these reports to turn up.
Unfortunately, thus far there's been "jack-diddly."
Friday, July 29, 2011
Cryptonetworking
First we had Friendster. Then we had MySpace. Then we had Facebook. Then we had Twitter. Recently, we have added Google+.
And now, we have... CryptoZoocial.
In a move certain to shake up the world of social networking, the founders of Cryptomundo (motto: "It's a Cryptid World") have put together their own social networking site. (You can check it out, or even sign up, here.) Its stated goal is to allow the cryptozoological community to "have a way to interact with each other on a personal level." Features include an interactive map where you can post your sightings, a companion iPhone app, a place to post events (the most recently posted was the 2011 Pennsylvania UFO and Bigfoot Conference), a "Groups" function that allows you to start special-interest groups (catering to cryptozoological specialists), and a competition for Top User (you get points for posting photos, signing in daily, making comments, and inviting friends).
For a few moments, I actually considered signing up. Besides the fact that it could well be fertile ground for material for this blog, it could also just be fun. A good many people interested in cryptozoology don't take themselves especially seriously, and have much the same attitude that I do -- skeptical but intrigued. As I've commented before, I'd be beyond delighted if Bigfoot (or a variety of other cryptids) actually existed. Being a biologist, I'm deeply curious about nature, and am quite convinced that there is plenty out there that we haven't discovered yet. Bigfoot may well be one of those things. And I have no issue with anyone who wants to hunt around in the woods for evidence, as long as they follow some reasonable code of scientific ethics and are honest about what they do, or do not, find.
My hesitation, of course, is that these sorts of things often attract wingnuts, and they're often far more vocal than the aforementioned cheerful skeptics. Wingnuts have a zeal about them that can surpass the intensity of many of the religious. They believe in their Big Idea with a wild, clinging desperation, and will let no challenge pass unmet. A criticism of their dogma elicits a furious, stinging attack. How dare you question me? What are your sources? What are your facts? How can you justify your criticisms? And every answer you give prompts a further rebuttal, because the truth is, they are holding their critics to a far higher standard of evidence than they hold themselves.
If you've never met people like this, it may sound like an extreme characterization, but I can say with some authority that they exist because I've encountered them on more than one occasion. As a writer on the topic of skepticism and critical thinking, I have often been in the position of criticizing views of the world that are considered specious by most of the scientific community, but are espoused vehemently by a few True Believers. And when I add my voice to the chorus of critics, I open myself up to attack. Note that I don't especially mind defending myself (nor apologizing when I find that I have been unwarrantedly harsh in my criticisms), but I have found that arguing with zealots is (1) unpleasant and (2) generally pointless, because they almost always believe in their dogma because of some reason other than logic and factual evidence.
So I'm probably not going to sign up for CryptoZoocial. Honestly, I'm not eager to seek out more venues to rub shoulders with people who are High Priests of the Church of Wingnuttery. I've no doubt that most of the members of CryptoZoocial are probably very nice, sane people, but it's that 1% who are attracted to it for other reasons who worry me. So I think I'll stick to the more prosaic awkwardness of running into old high school classmates on Facebook. At least there, the worst I have to worry about is that they'll remember that back then I wore really thick glasses and had a dorky bowl haircut.
And now, we have... CryptoZoocial.
In a move certain to shake up the world of social networking, the founders of Cryptomundo (motto: "It's a Cryptid World") have put together their own social networking site. (You can check it out, or even sign up, here.) Its stated goal is to allow the cryptozoological community to "have a way to interact with each other on a personal level." Features include an interactive map where you can post your sightings, a companion iPhone app, a place to post events (the most recently posted was the 2011 Pennsylvania UFO and Bigfoot Conference), a "Groups" function that allows you to start special-interest groups (catering to cryptozoological specialists), and a competition for Top User (you get points for posting photos, signing in daily, making comments, and inviting friends).
For a few moments, I actually considered signing up. Besides the fact that it could well be fertile ground for material for this blog, it could also just be fun. A good many people interested in cryptozoology don't take themselves especially seriously, and have much the same attitude that I do -- skeptical but intrigued. As I've commented before, I'd be beyond delighted if Bigfoot (or a variety of other cryptids) actually existed. Being a biologist, I'm deeply curious about nature, and am quite convinced that there is plenty out there that we haven't discovered yet. Bigfoot may well be one of those things. And I have no issue with anyone who wants to hunt around in the woods for evidence, as long as they follow some reasonable code of scientific ethics and are honest about what they do, or do not, find.
My hesitation, of course, is that these sorts of things often attract wingnuts, and they're often far more vocal than the aforementioned cheerful skeptics. Wingnuts have a zeal about them that can surpass the intensity of many of the religious. They believe in their Big Idea with a wild, clinging desperation, and will let no challenge pass unmet. A criticism of their dogma elicits a furious, stinging attack. How dare you question me? What are your sources? What are your facts? How can you justify your criticisms? And every answer you give prompts a further rebuttal, because the truth is, they are holding their critics to a far higher standard of evidence than they hold themselves.
If you've never met people like this, it may sound like an extreme characterization, but I can say with some authority that they exist because I've encountered them on more than one occasion. As a writer on the topic of skepticism and critical thinking, I have often been in the position of criticizing views of the world that are considered specious by most of the scientific community, but are espoused vehemently by a few True Believers. And when I add my voice to the chorus of critics, I open myself up to attack. Note that I don't especially mind defending myself (nor apologizing when I find that I have been unwarrantedly harsh in my criticisms), but I have found that arguing with zealots is (1) unpleasant and (2) generally pointless, because they almost always believe in their dogma because of some reason other than logic and factual evidence.
So I'm probably not going to sign up for CryptoZoocial. Honestly, I'm not eager to seek out more venues to rub shoulders with people who are High Priests of the Church of Wingnuttery. I've no doubt that most of the members of CryptoZoocial are probably very nice, sane people, but it's that 1% who are attracted to it for other reasons who worry me. So I think I'll stick to the more prosaic awkwardness of running into old high school classmates on Facebook. At least there, the worst I have to worry about is that they'll remember that back then I wore really thick glasses and had a dorky bowl haircut.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Werewolf Cathedral
It is probably an occupational hazard of blogging on the topic of skepticism and gullibility that I occasionally have a hard time deciding if something is a prank.
The site Werewolf Cathedral is an excellent case in point. Here we have the following points arguing that no, these people are completely serious:
1) They claim to be a religion. People who use the r-word usually don't joke about it, with the exception of the dude in Austria who fought for three years for the right to wear a spaghetti-strainer on his head in his driver's license photo, because he was a Pastafarian.
2) They begin with a very grim sounding manifesto talking about how the Werewolf represents the merging of a person's base, animalistic nature with his/her human intelligence, using impressive words like "exemplar," "ideology," and "archetype."
3) They admit, up front, that the idea of transforming into a fanged, hairy, Lon Chaney-style werewolf is ridiculous.
4) They don't mention Twilight, or, god forbid, Team Jacob.
Arguing against their being serious is:
1) A Werewolf? Really?
2) They imply that since barbarians back in the Dark Ages didn't blow people up with nuclear weapons, they were actually way better than modern humans, conveniently ignoring such charming features as human sacrifice and the lack of general anesthesia and indoor plumbing.
3) Despite at first ridiculing the whole turning-into-a-wolf thing, they don't actually state that this doesn't happen, they just say that people who do this are "Pseudo-werewolves." Whatever that means.
4) Their leader, High Priest Christopher Belmont Johnson, appears in a YouTube video clip in which he looks more like a geeky computer programmer than he does like a werewolf.
Other interesting features, which could fall into either column, depending on how you see it, include:
1) To be a werewolf, you're supposed to hide it if you're smart. A direct quote from their doctrine: "The Werewolf knows that intelligence is not an asset but a liability in our modern society. The Werewolf learns to play dumb so he fits in with the common folk. Utter stupidity being the most common trait among all peoples of modern society. If the Werewolf possesses a truly superior intellect he will already know the dangers of allowing his brilliance to be seen by the stupids." So there you are, then. Some people around you who appear to be catastrophically dumb may actually be brilliant, but are hiding their brains from the rest of us because they're actually werewolves.
2) Science is wrong. Again, to quote their doctrine: "Science is merely a sub religion of the Stupidians. It tells everyone that unless they claim it is real then it isn't. The Ministers of this sub religion then go forth and speak of theories, aka fantasies with no proof, as if they are real." So, this means, um, that as a scientist, I'm telling people what is real, and then... no, wait. It means that you have to claim something is real before... no, that's not it, either. Okay, I honestly have no clue what the hell that means. Maybe he thinks that if we nosy-parker scientists would stop going around demanding that gravity be real, we'd all be able to levitate. I dunno.
3) They call themselves a "secret society" despite the fact that they have a website with photographs and contact information. Of course, the same is true of the Rosicrucians, Masons, and a variety of other groups. I guess if you're a secret society, you can't be so secret that no one can find you, or your secret society ends up only having one member. Plus, then no one can be suitably impressed at how amazingly scary and secret your society is, because no one knows about it.
Anyhow, I'm inclined to think that the Werewolf Cathedral is serious. But I'm not really sure. As I was reading through this stuff, I kept expecting the site to say, "Ha-ha! We're just joking. We're actually a bunch of bored software engineers in Oakland who were messing around on our coffee breaks and decided to pretend we were werewolves." But they didn't. These people seem pretty determined to express their animalistic nature, and to show no pity for those whom they Seduce With Their Magick. (That was clause #13 of the Werewolf Oath.)
I found myself wondering, as I read, how many werewolf wannabees they've inducted (or whatever it's called when you officially join the Pack). However, I couldn't find out how many members there are, because that was on the Members-Only page of the site, and I'm damned if I'm gonna join just to find out. (For one thing, I'd have a hard time reciting the Werewolf Oath without guffawing, and I have a feeling that would disqualify me. Plus, if I laughed at their oath, they'd probably be honor-bound to disembowel me, or something, which would be unpleasant.) So I don't know if there are branch offices and local sub-packs all over the world, or if maybe it really is just the four people who were listed as officers (High Priest Johnson, High Priestess AngelWolf, Reverend Yusuf Eisner, and a guy who calls himself Reverend Vargulf whose bio states that he is a retired army guy who is a "wolf of ancient lineage").
My suspicion, however, is that there are lots of members. This sort of thing appeals to a certain type of person ("delusional"). And there are lots of folks like that out there. So, anyway, I'll leave you to decide whether you think it's serious or not. If you decide that it is, and you end up joining the Pack, please don't tell me, I don't want to know. I would, however, prefer it if you didn't try to Seduce Me With Your Magick. My wife would object.
The site Werewolf Cathedral is an excellent case in point. Here we have the following points arguing that no, these people are completely serious:
1) They claim to be a religion. People who use the r-word usually don't joke about it, with the exception of the dude in Austria who fought for three years for the right to wear a spaghetti-strainer on his head in his driver's license photo, because he was a Pastafarian.
2) They begin with a very grim sounding manifesto talking about how the Werewolf represents the merging of a person's base, animalistic nature with his/her human intelligence, using impressive words like "exemplar," "ideology," and "archetype."
3) They admit, up front, that the idea of transforming into a fanged, hairy, Lon Chaney-style werewolf is ridiculous.
4) They don't mention Twilight, or, god forbid, Team Jacob.
Arguing against their being serious is:
1) A Werewolf? Really?
2) They imply that since barbarians back in the Dark Ages didn't blow people up with nuclear weapons, they were actually way better than modern humans, conveniently ignoring such charming features as human sacrifice and the lack of general anesthesia and indoor plumbing.
3) Despite at first ridiculing the whole turning-into-a-wolf thing, they don't actually state that this doesn't happen, they just say that people who do this are "Pseudo-werewolves." Whatever that means.
4) Their leader, High Priest Christopher Belmont Johnson, appears in a YouTube video clip in which he looks more like a geeky computer programmer than he does like a werewolf.
Other interesting features, which could fall into either column, depending on how you see it, include:
1) To be a werewolf, you're supposed to hide it if you're smart. A direct quote from their doctrine: "The Werewolf knows that intelligence is not an asset but a liability in our modern society. The Werewolf learns to play dumb so he fits in with the common folk. Utter stupidity being the most common trait among all peoples of modern society. If the Werewolf possesses a truly superior intellect he will already know the dangers of allowing his brilliance to be seen by the stupids." So there you are, then. Some people around you who appear to be catastrophically dumb may actually be brilliant, but are hiding their brains from the rest of us because they're actually werewolves.
2) Science is wrong. Again, to quote their doctrine: "Science is merely a sub religion of the Stupidians. It tells everyone that unless they claim it is real then it isn't. The Ministers of this sub religion then go forth and speak of theories, aka fantasies with no proof, as if they are real." So, this means, um, that as a scientist, I'm telling people what is real, and then... no, wait. It means that you have to claim something is real before... no, that's not it, either. Okay, I honestly have no clue what the hell that means. Maybe he thinks that if we nosy-parker scientists would stop going around demanding that gravity be real, we'd all be able to levitate. I dunno.
3) They call themselves a "secret society" despite the fact that they have a website with photographs and contact information. Of course, the same is true of the Rosicrucians, Masons, and a variety of other groups. I guess if you're a secret society, you can't be so secret that no one can find you, or your secret society ends up only having one member. Plus, then no one can be suitably impressed at how amazingly scary and secret your society is, because no one knows about it.
Anyhow, I'm inclined to think that the Werewolf Cathedral is serious. But I'm not really sure. As I was reading through this stuff, I kept expecting the site to say, "Ha-ha! We're just joking. We're actually a bunch of bored software engineers in Oakland who were messing around on our coffee breaks and decided to pretend we were werewolves." But they didn't. These people seem pretty determined to express their animalistic nature, and to show no pity for those whom they Seduce With Their Magick. (That was clause #13 of the Werewolf Oath.)
I found myself wondering, as I read, how many werewolf wannabees they've inducted (or whatever it's called when you officially join the Pack). However, I couldn't find out how many members there are, because that was on the Members-Only page of the site, and I'm damned if I'm gonna join just to find out. (For one thing, I'd have a hard time reciting the Werewolf Oath without guffawing, and I have a feeling that would disqualify me. Plus, if I laughed at their oath, they'd probably be honor-bound to disembowel me, or something, which would be unpleasant.) So I don't know if there are branch offices and local sub-packs all over the world, or if maybe it really is just the four people who were listed as officers (High Priest Johnson, High Priestess AngelWolf, Reverend Yusuf Eisner, and a guy who calls himself Reverend Vargulf whose bio states that he is a retired army guy who is a "wolf of ancient lineage").
My suspicion, however, is that there are lots of members. This sort of thing appeals to a certain type of person ("delusional"). And there are lots of folks like that out there. So, anyway, I'll leave you to decide whether you think it's serious or not. If you decide that it is, and you end up joining the Pack, please don't tell me, I don't want to know. I would, however, prefer it if you didn't try to Seduce Me With Your Magick. My wife would object.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Dowsing and statistical significance
My wife and I and two friends were in a gift shop yesterday, and on a rack of books for sale I saw one called Dowsing for Beginners by Richard Craxe. I picked it up, and flipped through a bit of it. I was a bit surprised -- I never thought of dowsing as something anyone would write a how-to manual about.
Dowsing, for those of you (probably few) who don't know about this practice, is the use of a forked stick (or in some cases) a pair of bent wires to locate everything from sources of water to lost objects. The claim is that the dowsing rod exerts a pull on the dowser's hands, or actually turns and points toward the desired goal. As strange as this idea is, I find that of all the odd practices I hear about from students of mine, this one is the one that they will argue the most vociferously for. This, surprisingly, includes students whom I would normally think of as rationalistic skeptics -- students who scoff at other forms of woo-wooism.
You might wonder how this practice is supposed to work. Explanations, of course, vary. The use of willow branches for dowsing for underground water is sometimes explained, in all seriousness, as working because willow trees like growing near water, so the wood is magically attracted to sources of it. Other people believe that dowsers themselves are "sensitive," so that the dowsing rod itself is only acting as a tool to focus their mysterious ability. Dowsing for Beginners goes through some nonsense about there being a "universal mind" that everyone has access to, and it knows everything, and therefore when you practice dowsing, you're tapping into a source of knowledge that can provide you with information about where to drill for water or where you accidentally dropped your car keys.
The next question is, does it work? The simple answer, of course, is no. Controlled studies have shown no results whatsoever, an outcome discussed at length in James Randi's wonderful book Flim-Flam! The fact is, my students who know "an uncle of a friend" who successfully dowsed for water are being suckered in by the fact that there's hardly anywhere in eastern North America that you won't hit water if you dig deeply enough.
A subtler problem with practices like dowsing is that a lot of people don't understand the concept of statistical significance. A pro-dowsing site I looked at referenced a study done in 1988 by Hans-Dieter Betz, in which six dowsers were said to "[show] an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance." However, the Betz experimental protocol was highly suspect from the beginning -- Betz and his group evaluated 500 dowsers in a preliminary test, eliminated all but the most successful fifty, and then found that of those, six of them scored much better than you would expect from chance alone.
The flaw is not that Betz hand-picked the subjects -- if dowsing works, presumably some individuals would be better at it than others, being more in touch with the "universal mind," or whatever. The problem is that even if success at dowsing is pure probability -- i.e., it doesn't work at all except by chance -- some people will do astonishingly well, and that fact means exactly nothing at all. To explain this a little more simply, let's suppose that we had a thousand people take a random, hundred-question test consisting of four-choice multiple-choice items. There is no skill involved; you just fill in a paper with a hundred random A's, B's, C's, and D's, and it's graded against an equally random key. What's your likely score?
Well, 25%, of course, would be the likeliest outcome. You have a 1/4 chance of getting each question "right," so you would be expected to score somewhere around a 25%. The problem is, that's just the most likely score; that's not necessarily your score. In fact, you might score far better than that, or far worse; 25% is just the average score. In a large enough sample of test-takers, some people would seem to score amazingly well, and it's not that they're psychic, or brought their dowsing rods along to point at the correct answers, or anything; it's just a probabilistic effect.
Same with the dowsers. Jim Enright, a prominent skeptic, criticized the Betz study, and showed statistically that in a group of 500 dowsers, you'd expect that six or so of them would be high scorers, just by random chance. Enright described the Betz study not as proving that dowsing is a real phenomenon, but as "the most convincing disproof imaginable that dowsers can do what they claim." Six above-average scorers out of a sample of 500 is simply not a statistically significant finding.
So, what we have here is a phenomenon that has (1) no empirical evidence in its favor, (2) no scientifically reasonable explanation about how it could work, and (3) a cogent argument that explains away cases where it has seemed to be successful. However, as usual, people are more convinced by a flashy practitioner of mystical arts than they are by talk of probability and scientifically controlled studies, so I've no real hope that dowsing will become any less popular. And I suppose if it resulted in your finding a good site for your well, or locating your car keys, then who am I to argue? As Alexandre Dumas famously quipped, "Nothing succeeds like success."
Dowsing, for those of you (probably few) who don't know about this practice, is the use of a forked stick (or in some cases) a pair of bent wires to locate everything from sources of water to lost objects. The claim is that the dowsing rod exerts a pull on the dowser's hands, or actually turns and points toward the desired goal. As strange as this idea is, I find that of all the odd practices I hear about from students of mine, this one is the one that they will argue the most vociferously for. This, surprisingly, includes students whom I would normally think of as rationalistic skeptics -- students who scoff at other forms of woo-wooism.
You might wonder how this practice is supposed to work. Explanations, of course, vary. The use of willow branches for dowsing for underground water is sometimes explained, in all seriousness, as working because willow trees like growing near water, so the wood is magically attracted to sources of it. Other people believe that dowsers themselves are "sensitive," so that the dowsing rod itself is only acting as a tool to focus their mysterious ability. Dowsing for Beginners goes through some nonsense about there being a "universal mind" that everyone has access to, and it knows everything, and therefore when you practice dowsing, you're tapping into a source of knowledge that can provide you with information about where to drill for water or where you accidentally dropped your car keys.
The next question is, does it work? The simple answer, of course, is no. Controlled studies have shown no results whatsoever, an outcome discussed at length in James Randi's wonderful book Flim-Flam! The fact is, my students who know "an uncle of a friend" who successfully dowsed for water are being suckered in by the fact that there's hardly anywhere in eastern North America that you won't hit water if you dig deeply enough.
A subtler problem with practices like dowsing is that a lot of people don't understand the concept of statistical significance. A pro-dowsing site I looked at referenced a study done in 1988 by Hans-Dieter Betz, in which six dowsers were said to "[show] an extraordinarily high rate of success, which can scarcely if at all be explained as due to chance." However, the Betz experimental protocol was highly suspect from the beginning -- Betz and his group evaluated 500 dowsers in a preliminary test, eliminated all but the most successful fifty, and then found that of those, six of them scored much better than you would expect from chance alone.
The flaw is not that Betz hand-picked the subjects -- if dowsing works, presumably some individuals would be better at it than others, being more in touch with the "universal mind," or whatever. The problem is that even if success at dowsing is pure probability -- i.e., it doesn't work at all except by chance -- some people will do astonishingly well, and that fact means exactly nothing at all. To explain this a little more simply, let's suppose that we had a thousand people take a random, hundred-question test consisting of four-choice multiple-choice items. There is no skill involved; you just fill in a paper with a hundred random A's, B's, C's, and D's, and it's graded against an equally random key. What's your likely score?
Well, 25%, of course, would be the likeliest outcome. You have a 1/4 chance of getting each question "right," so you would be expected to score somewhere around a 25%. The problem is, that's just the most likely score; that's not necessarily your score. In fact, you might score far better than that, or far worse; 25% is just the average score. In a large enough sample of test-takers, some people would seem to score amazingly well, and it's not that they're psychic, or brought their dowsing rods along to point at the correct answers, or anything; it's just a probabilistic effect.
Same with the dowsers. Jim Enright, a prominent skeptic, criticized the Betz study, and showed statistically that in a group of 500 dowsers, you'd expect that six or so of them would be high scorers, just by random chance. Enright described the Betz study not as proving that dowsing is a real phenomenon, but as "the most convincing disproof imaginable that dowsers can do what they claim." Six above-average scorers out of a sample of 500 is simply not a statistically significant finding.
So, what we have here is a phenomenon that has (1) no empirical evidence in its favor, (2) no scientifically reasonable explanation about how it could work, and (3) a cogent argument that explains away cases where it has seemed to be successful. However, as usual, people are more convinced by a flashy practitioner of mystical arts than they are by talk of probability and scientifically controlled studies, so I've no real hope that dowsing will become any less popular. And I suppose if it resulted in your finding a good site for your well, or locating your car keys, then who am I to argue? As Alexandre Dumas famously quipped, "Nothing succeeds like success."
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)